Shaggy Dogs & Black Sheep by Albert Jack

October 16th 2005

Introduction

The expressions that litter the English language have long fascinated me. And I'm not alone in this. While researching my last book, Red Herrings and White Elephants, I began to think it might well prove popular, judging by the conversations I was having at the time. These conversations not only focused on idioms but, like most, were peppered with the strange expressions we all use every day without thinking. Now I had tuned in to them, they stuck out like a series of sore thumbs. I soon became notorious for my constant interruptions, wondering where a particular expression comes from and why we use it. This had the unfortunate side-effect of my not being invited to many dinner parties any more because if I was there the conversation tended to veer, often for hours, between why there should be 'more than one way to skin a cat' to discussing who was 'dressed up to the nines' or, if I was feeling brave enough, 'looking like a dog's dinner'. One of the first questions people always ask me is: 'How do you go about researching the origins of all of those expressions?' I am often tempted to reply that it takes months of painstaking cutting and pasting from the internet to produce a book like this. The research took a fair bit of time, it's true, but it turned out to be the most rewarding part of the process. The hardest part was to think of a phrase in the first place. There are probably over two thousand idioms we all use on a regular basis and yet when you sit down and try to think up a few dozen, it is almost impossible.

I have discovered that the best way is to consciously listen out for them. However, don't try this at home. I haven't had a conversation, read a book, or watched TV without a notebook to hand for over two years now.

Researching this book, I have waded through thousands of bizarre treatises, reference books and English histories in many libraries. Most notably I have been lucky enough to have access to the libraries of the Houses of Commons and of Lords, which have provided many answers. And the material has come from many other unexpected places such as, for example, George Orwell's social commentary Down and Out in Paris and London, which has inadvertently provided illuminating examples of some popular idioms in action (see, for instance, Sleep on a Clothes Line and Toe-rag).

This time round I decided to research single words as well as phrases. And I was soon Mesmerized by the hashish-smoking Assassins, the activities of the Lynch Mob, what the Cakewalk was all about and what a Toady got up to. Along the way I discovered fascinating stories behind some good old expressions such as to Bell the Cat and Apply Morton's Fork, which hopefully might now make a comeback. (See what you think.)

As with Red Herrings the idea was not to provide a definitive English-language guide but to choose the words and phrases with the most interesting origins. That is why you won't find expressions like 'as tough as old boots' or 'as alike as two peas in a pod' in here because the origins of these are obvious. But if you are hoping to Butter Someone Up after you have found yourself Drinking at the Last Chance Saloon, then try giving them a gift of Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep. A Little Bird Tells Me that Before You Can Say Jack Robinson, you might just become the Bee's Knees once more.

Albert Jack
Cape Town
July 2005