There is no dispute that this expression is used to describe a cheap or misery person. However, we have choices for the origin. World Wide Words says the word “skate” was used to express contempt, and it evolved into “cheapskate” in the late nineteenth century. The term was originally used to describe a worn-out horse, a mean or contemptible person, or a second-rate sportsman. Wiki answers has two other possible explanations for the origin, and both are more colorful. One is that skates that strapped onto your shoes were so cheap that they often fell off, and were literally cheap skates. The other is that in the early 1900’s there was a panhandler named Kate Robinson who inherited a fortune, but continued to beg. Thrifty people were told “you are as cheap as Kate,” which when said quickly becomes “cheapskate.” My vote is that the last explanation is the most interesting.
Author Archives: Advocate
Energy Victory, Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, Part I
This book by Robert Zubrin details our current dependence on foreign oil, the consequences of that dependence, and what we could do about it. There is too much information to cover in a single review, so this part will be about the current situation and the consequences. The first sentence of the Preface warns, “America is losing the war on terror.” The author lays much of the blame for that on the wealth being looted to buy oil from the Mideast as a result of our failure to have a competent energy policy, and that money is financing the war against us. Petro dollars have been and are funding Islamic schools that graduate the fanatics who will plan and execute future terrorist acts. Iran is developing nuclear weapons with the proceeds from oil.
The author is no fan of Saudi Arabia, and he provides a history of that country to back up his position. Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammed ibn Abd al Whahhab formed a partnership in the mid-eighteenth century to foster their belief that the Islamic world had a duty to wage jihad. Their religion deemed that humanity was divided into Muslims, infidels, and polytheists. Once the Muslims conquered an area, the infidels (including Christians and Jews) would be allowed to live as inferiors. The polytheists (Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and “insufficiently orthodox Muslims”) were to be killed without delay. Saud married Wahhab’s daughter, and the Saudi royal family was formed. They began their jihads, and inhabitants of Shiite areas were massacred. In 1932 Ibn Saud proclaimed the conquered areas to be Saudi Arabia and all inhabitants to be personal property of the royal family. He formed alliances with American businessmen to avoid the imperialistic British. Roosevelt signed a treaty with him in World War II to ensure America’s fuel supplies. Continue reading
Talk Through Your Hat
The Phrase Finder says that the expression means someone is talking nonsense, and that they are pretending to have knowledge on a subject on which they are ignorant. Reference is given to Farmer and Henley Slang and Its Analogues, 1888: “Dis is only a bluff dey’re makin’ – see! Dey’re talkin’ tru dere hats.” The possibility is raised that the expression originated from the practice in the UK parliament where you had to be seated and wearing a top hat to raise a point of order. This is followed by “topping,” or “talking out a bill,” which means filibustering with rambling nonsense. However, it is pointed out that stories about top-hatted members of the UK parliament becoming a dominantly U.S. expression doesn’t seem to be likely. There is speculation the idiom originated from men holding their hats over their faces while pretending to pray. I think it is more likely that it is a variation of “talking off the top of your head,” where an empty hat would set, which means you are speaking speculatively without much knowledge.
The Apple of My Eye
World Wide Words says this phrase was used in several Bible passages and by Shakespeare, but that it has been around “as long as the language.” The first recorded example was in the words of King Alfred at the end of the ninth century. Sight is considered to be precious, the pupil of the eye was called the apple, and to be called “the apple of my eye” was considered the highest form of endearment. The Latin original for pupil was pupilla, or “little doll.” “It was applied to the dark central portion of the eye within the iris because of the tiny image of oneself…that one can see when looking into another person’s eye.”
Tickled Pink
The Phase Finder describes this idiom to mean you have had a happy experience that has caused you to flush with pleasure. The expression apparently originated from observation that emtional pleasure causes the same kind of flushing of the face created by physical tickling. I recall reading that tickling can become tortorous if carried too far. The companion expression “tickled to death” is used to descibe someone who could not be happier, but the literal meaning is that someone has been tickled to the point breathing becomes difficult. The term “tickled to death” appeared in the St. Nicholas childrens magazine in 1907, and the term “tickled pink” was used by an Illinois newspaper The Daily Review in 1910. For those who want a scientific explanation, the flush (or a blush) is caused by an emotional response that tells the brain the tiny vessels in the face need more blood.
Tickle Your Fancy
The community.livejournal says this idiomatic expression is used to describe something that pleases you or strongly engages your interest. As I expected, it is also a euphemism for sexual interest. “Tickle” means a spontaneous excitement such as when someone is physically tickled. “Fancy” can be a notion or whim. The expression was used in Abraham Tucker’s 1774 In the Light of Nature Pursued, with a passage about animals “…whose play had a quality of striking the joyous perception, or, as we vulgarly say, tickling the fancy.” The expression went even further to the vulgar side after World War II, when the slang for a male homosexual “Nancy” was noted to rhyme with “Fancy.” An alternate is “strike your fancy.”