Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Pull out all the stops (and, yes, music)

We are now in the thick of the winter celebratory season. Do you like to curl up and quietly meditate and hibernate at this time, or are you someone who pulls out all the stops and parties nonstop?

Speaking of pulling out the stops...

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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer has this to say about the phrase:

pull out all the stops: Use all the resources or force at one's disposal... This term comes from organ-playing, where it means "bring into play every rank of pipes," thereby creating the fullest possible sound. It has been used figuratively since about 1860.

But why use it figuratively, when we can go with a literal musical compilation of Christmas-themed organ music? So, here you go, courtesy of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford (England): 45 minutes of Christmas Organ Music from December 16, 2020.

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Warm the cockles of my heart

My first question about this phrase is: what the heck are cockles? My second: how did this reference to high-temperature heart cockles come about anyway?

Let's find out....

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A quick hop over to the Grammarist yields the following:

To warm the cockles of one’s heart means to bestow a feeling of contentment, to kindle warm feelings in a person, especially of happiness and felicity. The term warm the cockles of one’s heart dates back to the mid-1600s, a time when scientific texts were often written in Latin. The Latin term cochleae cordis means ventricles of the heart, and most probably, the word cochleae was corrupted as cockles. This may have been a mistake made by the less learned, or a deliberate joke. Add in the fact that the bivalve mollusk known as a cockle is shaped somewhat like a heart, and the idea of the phrase cockles of one’s heart being more or less a joke gains credence.

My copy of The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer agrees with the Latin origin for cockles and when the phrase first came into use. World Wide Words has its own approach, starting its entry with:

Something that warms the cockles of one’s heart induces a glow of pleasure, sympathy, affection, or some such similar emotion. What gets warmed is the innermost part of one’s being. It’s not that surprising that it should be associated with the heart, that being the presumed seat of the emotions for most people. 

Awww. I like that! A very heart-warming observation. WWW then adds, "But what are the cockles? We’re not sure."

Uh-oh. "Not sure" is not what I wanted to read.

WWW offers the same possible explanations as Grammarist, with some additional fillips, including the fact that the earliest form of the saying was rejoice the cockles of one’s heart. The WWW exploration of the idiom concludes by noting that cochlea in Latin is the word for a snail and suggesting that perhaps we should really be speaking of warming the snails of one’s heart.

Snails?? Uh, no. Just... no.

A case of overheated cockles?
Image by 0fjd125gk87 from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: (All) at sea

 

If you're feeling a little at sea in these uncertain times, I assure you, you are not alone. But before we get a little green around the gills with all the swaying and lurching about in the greater world "outside," let's take a look at the idiom all at sea (because this is, after all, a blog about language and only in the most devious/clandestine way about anything else)...

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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer defines the idiomatic all at sea or at sea to mean "perplexed, bewildered," which is as good a definition as any. The dictionary continues, "This idiom transfers the condition of a vessel that has lost its bearings to the human mind," and dates it to the later 1700s. The Phrase Finder tackles the phrase as well, defining it to mean "in a state of confusion and disorder," and provides an early example from Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the laws of England, 1768: "If a court of equity were still at sea, and floated upon the occasional opinion which the judge who happened to preside might entertain of conscience in every particular case." .... Ooookay. I'm no lawyer, and even after slogging through the Wikipedia explanation of "court of equity," I'm still not sure what these courts are. I guess you could say I'm at sea (which reflects my state of being after certain present-day high court decisions, which have me feeling a little sick to my stomach, so there you go).

Batten the hatches, rough seas ahead...
Ocean by Ivan Aivazovsky, 1896, WikiArt