Wordorigins.org

A gargoyle is a stone figure that forms part of the gutter system of medieval cathedrals. It is a spout, in the shape of some grotesque creature, that carries rainwater away from the walls of the building. The word is from the Old French gargouille, or throat, and is a reference to the water passing through the throat of the stone figure. The same root gives us the modern noun and verb gargle.

From the c.1386 century poem, Saint Erkenwald (the extant manuscript, BL Harley 2250, dates to sometime before 1500):

Hit was a throghe of thykke stone...With gargeles garnysht aboute, all of gray marbre.
(it was a tomb of thick stone…with gargoyles garnished about, all of gray marble.)

According to myth, in the 7th century a dragon, named Gargouille rose from the waters of the Seine River in France. Unlike the typical dragons of mythology, this one did not breathe fire, but rather was a water dragon. The monster proceeded to lay waste to the countryside around Paris by drowning it. St. Romain, the Archbishop of Rouen, accompanied only by a condemned prisoner, set out to stop the beast. Upon confronting the monster, the saint formed a cross with his two index fingers, taming Gargouille. The dragon was led back to Paris, where it was slain and burned. The head, however, was saved and mounted on a building. This legend supposedly gave rise to the architectural practice of designing waterspouts to look like monsters.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition; Middle English Dictionary)

This British phrase, meaning the whole thing, dates to the mid-1980s. It is of unknown origin. From K. Howarth’s 1985 Sounds Gradely:

Full-monty, everything included...a thorough display—no messing about.

The sense meaning total nudity stems from the 1997 film of that title. Prior to this, the full monty did not especially connote nudity. From Simon Beaufoy’s script:

Horse: No one said owt about going the full monty to me...
Gaz: We’ve got to give ‘em something your average ten-bob stripper don’t.

While we have no idea where the phrase actually comes from, that hasn’t stopped people from proffering explanations. Here are a few. None of these have any reliable evidence to support them:

• It refers to Field Marshal Montgomery’s habit of meticulously planning his assaults, including intensive and detailed artillery preparations;
• It refers to Montgomery in full-dress uniform with all his medals;
• It refers to Montgomery’s habit of eating a large breakfast each morning;
• Breakfast, but not Montgomery’s, instead it’s the one served by Mrs. Montague at the Lennox Cafe in Bognor Regis, West Sussex;
• It refers to expensive formal clothing purchased at the tailor shop of Montague Burton;
• It is gambler’s slang derived from the game of three-card Monte;
• It is a corruption of the full amount;
• It derives from a television commercial for fruit juice in which an actor asks for the full Del Monte;
• Finally, it could come from Australian and New Zealand slang, a monty being a bet (especially on a horse) that is a sure thing.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, New Edition)

Tracing the origin of this word has been a difficult one for etymologists and lexicographers. Because it has been a taboo word for many centuries, there is little record to go on. But modern etymologists have pieced together the history, albeit with some gaps still existing here and there.

We know that fuck is of Germanic origin. Note that is Germanic and not German—an important distinction. It does not come from the modern German verb ficken. Instead, these two words probably share a common root. Fuck also has cognates in other Northern European languages: the Middle Dutch fokken meaning to thrust, to copulate; the dialectical Norwegian fukka meaning to copulate; and the dialectical Swedish focka meaning to strike, push, copulate, and fock meaning penis. And both French and Italian have similar words, foutre and fottere respectively. These derive from the Latin futuere. The relation between this Latin root and the Germanic ones, if any, is uncertain.

Nowadays, to frog march someone is to pin their arms behind their back and hustle them along with a person at either side. The term is usually used in reference to prisoners in police custody. From J. Ferguson’s 1931 Death Comes To Perigord:

Cæsar slewed him round, and forcing both arms behind his back, got ready to frog-march him to the door.

But why frogs? The answer is that the modern concept of frog-marching is not the original. Originally, frog-marching was carrying a person face downwards, with a man holding each limb. The metaphor comes from the idea that a frog crawls on its belly. From the Evening Standard, 18 April 1871:

They did not give the defendant the "Frog’s March".

This citation from the Birmingham Weekly Post of 15 November 1884 makes the concept clearer:

Deceased was ‘frog’s-marched’–that is, with face downwards–from Deal to Walmer.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

A French kiss is an open-mouthed kiss with tongue and the term dates to the beginning of the 20th century. From a 1918 letter appearing in Private Lindner’s Letters: Censored and Uncensored:

So I have decided to become a linguist. Being able to read French fluently and speak it wretchedly, and to speak German connectively but not to read it at all, I am taking up Luxembourg, which is a wonderful blend of the two, a sort of laison [sic] between tongues. (Not to be confused with French kissing.)¹

But why French? The French have been associated with sexual practices dating back to the 18th century. From Henry Fielding’s 1749 Tom Jones:

But I am so far from desiring to exhibit such Pictures to the Public, that I would wish to draw a Curtain over those that have lately been set forth in certain French novels.²

In this case, Fielding was writing about risqué novels that were literally French. By the mid-19th century, the figurative sense was well established. From Robert Browning’s 1842 Bells and Pomegranates:

Or, my scrofulous French novel,
On grey paper with blunt type!³

¹Clarence R. Lindner, Private Lindner’s Letters, edited by Gladys Dudley Lindner (San Francisco, 1939), 119.

²Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, In Four Volumes, vol. 3 (Basil: J.L. Legrand, 1791), 306.

³Robert Browning, Bells and Pomegranates, edited by Thomas J. Wise (London: Ward, Lock & Company, 1896), 144.

Freelancing is a form of self-employment, where one hires out one’s services instead of being employed on a permanent basis. Many believe this term dates to the Middle Ages, referring to a knight who served as a mercenary, as opposed to pledging fealty to a single lord. While this is indeed the metaphor underlying the term, freelance only dates to the early 19th century and is applied anachronistically to medieval times. From Sir Walter Scott’s 1820 Ivanhoe:

I offered Richard the service of my Free Lances.

Figurative use, referring to something other than knights, dates to 1864. From The Standard of 16 April of that year:

They may be Free Lances in Parliament so long as the guerilla career suits them.

The verb and gerund are from the early 20th century. From Enoch Arnold Bennett’s 1903 The Truth About The Author:

What in Fleet Street is called “free-lancing.”

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

The modern phenomenon of UFO sightings dates to 1947. While occasional reportings of unusual objects in the sky date to the early 20th century, both the modern UFO craze and the term flying saucer date to this year.

On 24 June 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing several high-speed, unidentified flying objects near Mount Rainier in Washington state. This produced a spate of such “sightings” in the following days. Initial reports described these objects as “shaped like a pie plate” and within a few days this description morphed into flying saucer. From the Los Angeles Times, 28 June 1947:

The area over which the “flying saucers” were reported seen widened to Southwestern New Mexico today.

To come off with flying colors is to achieve great success. It is a military metaphor for leaving the battlefield still in possession of one’s flag. The phrase dates to the 17th century. From John Locke’s 1692 A Letter Concerning Toleration:

It may...bring a Man off with flying Colours.

And from George Farquhar’s 1706-07 A Beaux Stratagem:

We came off with flying colours.

Some claim a nautical origin for this phrase, but it appears to have got its start among armies, not navies.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

Often in old war movies you’ll hear a radio operator say, “I read you five-by-five.” What does this mean?

The operator in question is ranking the voice transmission on a scale of one to five in two categories, strength and clarity. So, five-by-five is loud and clear and one-by-one would be weak and unintelligible. From Evan Hunter’s 1954 Blackboard Jungle:

“All right, testing, one-two-three-four."..."Five by five, Mr. Halloran!”

By the 1980s, it had acquired a general slang sense of okay, fine. From Rick Eilert’s 1983 For Self and Country:

“I hope everything’s all right.”
“Yeah, everything is five by five.”¹

¹Historical Dictionary of American Slang, v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994), 757.

To fire is an American slang verb meaning to dismiss someone from employment, to sack someone. The underlying metaphor is not quite certain, but it is most likely that of a bullet being fired from a gun.

The word first appears in the early 1870s in a general sense meaning to dismiss, to get rid of someone. From the March 1871 issue of Overland Monthly:

The thought that I was fired by some stranger, who wasn’t a-takin’ no hand...is not a good thought to die on.

The dismissal from employment sense appears a decade or so later. From Sweet and Knox’s Texas Siftings of 1882:

If Gould fires you out, the only railroad in Texas that will employ you will be some street railroad.¹

There are various claims floating about that the slang term comes from literal acts of arson. An employer would burn the desk or home of someone he wished to dismiss. This is utter nonsense. The slang term is metaphorical and was never meant to be taken literally.

¹Historical Dictionary of American Slang, v. 1, A-G, edited by Jonathan Lighter (New York: Random House, 1994), 749.