To coin a phrase

Most of us have used phrases that although they seem quite normal to us, are actually quite weird when you stop and think about them for a moment. Gathered outside a newsagents this morning for example was a collection of pimply and acne ridden youths starting out on their paper round. Many of them were wearing the uniform of todays youth, the hoodie, cap (why they wear both is beyond me) and white jogging bottoms. Naturally, feeling slightly superior I looked down on them a little whilst thinking to myself, “More chavs than you could shake a stick at.” But was there?

I’m pretty confident that had I had a stick to hand I could have pulled over and shaked it at most - if not all - of them. But why would I do this and to what end? At what point would I stand there with my stick and think, “Oh, there’s just too many of them, I can shake no longer”? What would I gain from shaking my stick?

Most phrases have a history, a relevance, even if the root cause is now lost in the mists of time. I know what it means to “let the cat of the bag”, I’m aware of why something is said to be “ship shape and Bristol Fashion” but what the hell did we do in the past that involved shaking a stick at something until there were just too many and you could shake no longer?

One suggestion is that dates back to farmers counting their animals by pointing a stick at each one, but this makes no reference to the shaking of the stick. Other suggestions are that it comes from battle, where one would shake your stick at an enemy. Now, call me picky but if I was going into battle, 1) I’d arm myslef with more than a bloody stick, and 2) Once armed I’d put it to better use than merely shaking it at someone as they would probably just cut me down with a sword whilst thinking, “what the hell was he doing with that stick?”

This has left me feeling all at sea, so I shall cut and run and give the subject a wide berth from now on.

This entry was posted on 22/06/2007 at 08:21 am and is filed under Random stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.