The explanation of this expression is a bit embarrassing, because I completely misunderstood it as a youngster. I thought it was “baited breath,” and that it must have something to with the rank bait my Dad used for catfish. Of course, it turns out that the word is “bated,” and according to Dictionary.com, it means, “…with bated breath, with breath drawn in or held because of anticipation or suspense.” The example given is, “We watched with bated breath as the runners approached the finish.” For people who have seen the movie, Secretariat, you can imagine the people at the track collectively holding their breath until they saw which horse won a close race. From Straighdope.com, bated breath has been around since Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, “With bated breath, and whispring humblenesse.”
Author Archives: Advocate
No Place to Hide
No Place to Hide , David Bradley, 1948
The book is based on the daily log of the author, who was a “radiological monitor” who conducted surveys after two atomic bomb blasts near Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. The front flap of the book says the author was, “Convinced that published reports available to the average man have given him an incomplete and therefore distorted view…(and) lulled him into a false sense of security. Dr. Bradley has interpreted the real truth…The truth constitutes a warning that no man can afford to ignore. It demonstrates that nuclear war has no remedy, and that our only hope is to control the power, that once loosed, will destroy us all.” Several used copies of the book are available on Abebooks.com.
The book has elegant descriptions of the atolls, the ocean, and the array of ships aligned to test the effects of an air burst of an atomic bomb and a subsurface explosion. Able was dropped from the B-29 Dave’s Dream July 1, 1946. The author was in one of the many planes assigned to take radiological readings, but he did not see the initial blast through his tinted goggles. He soon saw the cloud rapidly expanding past 30,000 and then 40,000 feet. His instruments found no radioactivity until the plane came close to the target area. The effects of the blast were less devastating to the armada of ships than had been expected. However, the ships were significantly contaminated, and would remain so despite repeated efforts to decontaminate them absent removal of their surfaces by sand blasting. Continue reading
Dressed Fit to Kill/to the Nines
Answers.com says the first half of this expression originated from a literal description of a Lord being fitted into a suit of armor before a battle and being told he is “dressed fit to kill.” The expression evolved into meaning the same as “dressed to the nines,” which means someone dressed in the highest possible style. That expression is believed to have come from the fact that the number nine is the highest possible single digit.
Fits and Starts
The Phrase Finder was once again where I located a definition. Several sources described the expression to mean behaving in an impulsive or irregular manner or in irregular bursts. The word “fit” can be used to describe a medical condition called a paroxymal attack. There are sudden spasms or convulsions caused by multiple sclerosis, head trauma, epilepsey, malaria, and several other conditions. Fit can also be used to describe an emotional reaction. William Warner wrote in Albion’s England in 1581, “His seruants fear his solemn fittes.” Fits and starts both can mean sporadic activity and the expression was first recorded by Robert Sanderson in Sermons in 1681, “if thou hast these things only by fits and starts.”
Wild Hair
I was asked about the origin of the expression, which usually contains more words to describe a hair that has found its way into a position to make a person behave in an uncomfortable, strange, or unexplainable manner. Blogdom.org believes the saying evolved from the skittishness of hares during the breeding season. It gives the example of Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter’s tea party.
Wild hare was used to describe the erratic behavior of rabbits in rut, which then created the expression used to describe behavior that defies explanation.
Beyond the Pale
I heard a commentator describe the amount of United States governmental debt to be “beyond the pale.” Charles Funk’s book about expressions explains that pale was used in the early days of English history to describe an area under governmental control defined by paling, which is a fence made with wooden stakes called pales. The expression originally defined areas outside of control, which made the areas attractive to rogues. The worldwideword web site explains that the expression evolved to mean actions that are outside the limits of acceptable behavior. The Pickwick Papers written by Charles Dickens in 1837 has one of his characters saying to another, “I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct.”