When a character of mine managed to escape detection by the skin of her teeth, I stopped and thought about that a bit. Since when do teeth have skin? Maybe if they haven't been brushed in a long time? (eeeuw!) And where did that little phrase come from anyway?
Sooooo many distractions from focusing on plowing through Book #8!
But I don't want to use an anachronistic phrase if I can avoid it, so time to sink my teeth into by the skin of one's teeth.
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To my vast relief, this appears to be a very old phrase. In fact, thousands of years old, according to The Grammarist:
By the skin of one’s teeth means just barely, by a narrow margin, just in time. The phrase by the skin of one’s teeth is found in the book of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible. Job is a character in the Bible who undergoes an abundance of suffering due to a challenge that Satan has made to God. Satan tries to break Job’s righteousness by bringing suffering upon him. Job laments his status through much of the book, including the phrase, “My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” What exactly the phrase “escaped with the skin of my teeth” meant in Ancient Hebrew is unknown. It is assumed that the skin referred to in the term skin of my teeth is the enamel, though this is only a guess.World Wide Words notes the idiom appeared first in the Geneva Bible of 1560 and is a direct translation of the original Hebrew:
Since teeth don’t have skin, the phrase is hard to make sense of; Bible translators and commentators have struggled with it down the centuries. The Douay-Rheims Bible has instead “My bone hath cleaved to my skin, and nothing but lips are left about my teeth.” Other writers have suggested that the reference is to the gums....
One modern writer has concluded: "The explanations for the last metaphor are multiple and unconvincing. Its meaning eludes us."I guess all we can conclude is: 'tis a mystery!
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| Meeting deadlines by the skin of my teeth (i.e., barely) Image by Dmitry Abramov from Pixabay |
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3 comments:
Sorry if this is a duplicate but my post seems to have wandered off in the ether.
Reminded of turtle in Song of Solomon, now taken as a turtle dove. Agatha Christie mentions that in one of her Miss Marple books--The Pointing Finger, I think.
Too late for your time period, but I can't help mentioning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19389193-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=vveUciR2UL&rank=3, by Colin Downes. I've not read the book yet but am sure the title is apt.
Hi Liz!
I didn't realize there was a turtle/turtle dove reference in Song of Solomon. I found quite the lively discussion about it on Stack Exchange here: https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/1504/why-does-the-king-james-have-turtle-in-song-of-solomon-212
And thanks for that GoodReads link. Wow, by the skin of his teeth indeed. I imagine the author, an RAF pilot, has a lot of stories to tell... :-)
Got name of Christie book wrong. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16341.The_Moving_Finger
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