Wordorigins.org

See trespass.

See trespass.

Many people wonder about the word choice in different versions of the Lord’s Prayer. One version, favored by Roman Catholics and Anglicans, uses the phrase forgive us our trespasses. To the modern ear, trespass seems an odd word to use. Another version, favored by Protestants of the Reformed tradition, says forgive us our debts, another odd choice to the modern ear. Many modern translations simply use the word sin instead. Why the difference? It has to do with translation.

Why are coming attractions of movies called trailers, especially when they come at the beginning of the film? They’re called that because they used to to be spliced on the end of the feature film.

To understand this, you have to hearken back to the days when movies were shown in a continuous loop and audiences were allowed to sit through multiple showings of the same movie—the start times were published and if you came in late you simply sat through the next showing until you came to the point “where you came in.” This is not that long ago—I remember when this used to be the practice.

The coming attractions reel would be spliced onto the end of the last reel of the movie, hence trailer. From the perspective of the audience member who arrived on time or a little early, the coming attractions would appear before the feature, even though technically it was at the end.

The term dates to the 1920s. From the New York Times of 11 March 1928:

A trailer, a few hundred feet of film announcing a forthcoming picture.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

These terms for immersion foot and necrotizing ulcerative gingivitus, respectively, both date to World War I. Conditions in the trenches of the Western Front led to cold injuries, like Trench Foot and bacterial infections, like Trench Mouth. Both conditions were well known prior to 1914-18, but it was the war that gave them these appellations.

Trench foot appears in the 17 April 1915 issue of The Lancet:

The term trench-foot appears to us to be the most suitable for a condition which has practically only been met with in those who have had to remain for long periods in the trenches.

Trench mouth appears in print a few years later. From the Evening Mail of 1 May 1918:

We have trench mouth, just as we have trench feet. Otherwise known as ulcero-membranous stomatitis, or Vincent’s disease.

(Vincent’s disease is after J.H. Vincent (1862-1950), a French researcher who characterized the ailment.)

Once again, the piece of internet lore titled Life in the 1500s gets this one wrong. It claims that trench mouth originated in the 1600s from the practice
of eating from unclean trenchers. It also ascribes the cause to worms, which is medically incorrect.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

Someone who is tow-headed has light-colored or tousled hair. Whence comes the word tow?

Tow is another name for flax, a light-colored, fibrous plant once commonly used to make thread. Tow is of uncertain origin. It may be connected to the Old Norse tó, meaning fiber that has yet to be spun into thread, and there is the Middle Dutch touwen, meaning to weave. But the connection between these words is not known. The English word dates to the late 14th century when in appears in William Langland’s 1377 Piers Plowman (B text):

Ac hew fyre at a flynte fowre hundreth wyntre But þow haue towe to take it with tondre or broches Al þi laboure is loste.
(But you can make a spark with a flint for four hundred winters but you must have tow to use as tinder or brush or all the labor is lost.)

The expression tow-headed dates to the mid-19th century. From Sylvester Judd’s 1850 novel Richard Edney and the Governor’s Family:

Bronze-faced and tow-headed Wild Olive boys.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

Not worth a tinker’s damn is a phrase that is often uttered, although most people who say it nowadays have no idea what a tinker is. There is also considerable confusion over the word damn in this phrase, which is often misspelled dam.

A tinker was an itinerant tradesman who mended pots and pans. The variant tinkler, common in Scotland, the north of England, and Ireland, appears as an English word in a Latin manuscript, Carta Willelmi Regis, from c.1175.

Que iacet inter terram serlon incisoris et terram Jacobi tinkler.
(Which lies between the land of Serlo the engraver and the land of James the tinkler.)

It was once the practice to signal contempt for someone or something by making a bulge in your cheek with your tongue. From Tobias Smollett’s 1748 The Adventures of Roderick Random:

I signified my contempt of him, by thrusting my tongue in my cheek.

By the first half of the 19th century, the idea of speaking with one’s tongue in one’s cheek had come to mean to speak insincerely. From Walter Scott’s 1828 The Fair Maid of Perth:

The fellow who gave this all-hail thrust his tongue in his cheek to some scapegraces like himself.

And from Richard Barham’s 1842 The Ingoldsby Legends:

He...Cried “Superbe!—Magnifique!” (With his tongue in his cheek).

The adjectival form tongue-in-cheek appears in the early 20th century. From the Times Literary Supplement of 30 March 1933:

Shooting the Bull...is a tongue-in-the-cheek march through newspaperdom.

It is commonly held that this phrase comes from the acting practice of thrusting one’s tongue into your cheek to keep from laughing at an inappropriate moment while on stage. There is no evidence to support this story or the idea that the phrase originates in the theater.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

Yes, it’s toe, not tow, a common mistake. Toe the line or mark is a metaphorical reference to either the start of a race, the runners conforming to the starter’s orders, or to soldiers and sailors standing in formation, often literally with their toes touching a line drawn on the ground to ensure the formation conforms to the proper standard. Many of the early citations are from the Royal Navy and this may be the source of the phrase, although this is not certain. From Hector Bull-Us’s (James Kirke Paulding’s) 1813 The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan:

He began to think it was high time to toe the mark.

And we have this from William Glascock’s 1826 The Naval Sketchbook:

The brigades of seamen embodied to act with our troops in America, as well as in the north coast of Spain, contrived to ”ship a bagnet” on a pinch, and to ”toe” (for that was the phrase) “a tolerable line.”

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

How did a gratuity given to a serving person come to be called a tip?

Tip is underworld cant meaning to pass on, to hand to, especially to pass on a small sum of money. The ultimate origin of the word is not known. It may come from the sense of tip meaning to lightly touch someone, but this is by no means certain. From Samuel Rowland’s 1610 Martin Mark-All:

Tip me that Cheate, Giue me that thing.

and

Tip a make ben Roome Coue, Giue a halfepeny good Gentlemen.

The sense meaning to give a small sum of money, appears at the beginning of the 18th century. From George Farquhar’s 1706-07 The Beaux Stratagem:

Then I, Sir, tips me the Verger with half a Crown.

The noun appears about a half-century later. From J. Barebones in The Connoisseur No. 70. of 1755:

I assure you I have laid out every farthing...in tips to his servants.

The idea that it comes from an acronym for to insure promptness is just plain wrong.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)