LET'S SPEAK ENGLISH:
Broadcast: Monday, July 3, 1939 at 9:00 PM

Fifth Talk of New Series - Idioms

a) The naked truth
b)To take off your hat to
c)To talk through your hat
d) A bee in your bonnet
e) A turncoat
f) Wear and tear
g) The seamy side of life
h) Out at elbows
i) To laugh up your sleeve
j) To button-hole
k) To hit below the belt
l) Too big for your boots
m) That's where the shoe pinches
n) On the spur of the moment
o) Dressed to kill.

TRANSCRIPT: FIFTH TALK - IDIOMS

I'm sure you spend lots of money on clothes; yet you never have anything fit to wear. If you haven't any clothes, you must go round naked. So our first idiom is THE NAKED TRUTH.

That means the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The phrase comes from the story about Truth and Falsehood going bathing. Falsehood came out of the water first and put on the clothes of Truth. When Truth came out of the water, she found only Falsehood's clothes. But Truth refused to wear them and has been going round naked ever since - the naked truth. Rather chilly and unpleasant, don't you think ? But then the whole truth is usually unpleasant, especially when your so-called friends tell it to you.

So instead of being naked, like Truth, let's begin to dress ourselves. We'll begin at the top and work downwards. What about a hat ? Now don't get excitedI I'm talking about men's hats and not women's hats.

Englishmen are very polite and always take off their hats when they meet a friend. But in idiomatic English, if you TAKE OFF YOUR HAT TO SOMEONE, it's more than politeness, it's admiration. I take off my hat to all those who write petitions in Palestine. I admire them for their persistence and for their imagination. A man wants to open a shop in a street where no shops are allowed. He's told he can't, so he immediately writes a petition to the High Commissioner. He doesn't send it by ordinary mail because, of course, ordinary letters are never delivered. He sends it by registered mail, to the great benefit of the post office. The High Commissioner, who has to attend to other matters, some of them quite as important, sends the petition to the department concerned and in due course the petitioner gets the usual reply that there's "nothing to add to my letter of the 24th March".

But is the writer daunted? Not he! He won't take no for an answer and immediately writes another petition to the High Commissioner. But, alas, after a week or two the same reply comes again from the department that there's still "nothing to add to my letter of the 24th March". So all you can do is to take off your hat to the gallant and undefeated petition writer.

Very often, however, the writer of petitions TALKS THROUGH HIS HAT. That means he talks nonsense. To talk through your hat comes from the habit of removing your hat before you enter a church. A man going into a church holds his hat in front of his face as he kneels at the door and whispers his first prayer. So to talk through your hat originally meant to say something unintelligible to those around you. Gradually it came to mean talking nonsense. What a lot of hats are used for this purpose in Palestine! There's so much nonsense talked through them that the hats get worn out very quickly. That's why most hats you see in Palestine look so shabby; they've been talked through and through.

Now, if you're always talking about one particular thing, people will say you've got A BEE IN YOUR BONNET. A bonnet is a woman's head-dress, and to have a bee in your bonnet means that you've got some fantastic idea buzzing around in your head like a bee. Lots of inventors have bees in their bonnets. A man came to me the other day with a new invention for protecting Palestine against air-raids by enemy aeroplanes. His plan was to freeze the clouds solid and mount guns on them. He certainly had a bee in his bonnet.

Politicians sometimes have bees in their bonnets. But then politicians are very queer people. They're not the most sincere of men and the worst are those who change their politics when it suits their ambitions. Such men are called TURNCOATS. One day they wear a coat of one colour: the next day they turn their coat inside out and appear in a coat of a different colour. These men always try to vote with the majority and so gain popularity as leaders. But I don't call them leaders. A leader must have principles and stick to them, even if sometimes he loses his popularity with the mob. A turncoat has no principles and can never be a leader for long.

If you turn your coat inside out, everyone will see the seams, where the coat has been stitched together and the rough edges left. That's the wrong side, and, when you turn it inside out, you show a lot of things that ought to remain hidden. So, in English idiom, the SEAMY SIDE OF LIFE is the sad, unpleasant side of life, where people are poor and ill.

An executioner is a person who cuts off your head and to have your head cut off is certainly the seamy side of life. So don't call a man who executes a contract an executioner. In the same way an undertaker in England is a man who arranges funerals. So don't call a man who undertakes a job an undertaker. There's a notice outside a contractor's office in Rehovot which in English reads 'Executioners and Undertakers'. I wonder why the contractor is so interested in the seamy side of life. Now, people who see the seamy side of life are often OUT AT ELBOWS. That means that their elbows are sticking out through the holes in their sleeves. They're shabby and poor. That, I'm afraid, is the position of many people in Palestine today: their situation is deplorable. But you can't say in English that they are deplorable. That means that they're evil and depraved; That wasn't at all what the man meant when he wrote to me and asked me to help his deplorable family.

It's very difficult for foreigners not to make mistakes in English. And it's also difficult for English people not to make mistakes when they try to speak a foreign language. I once heard an army officer say that he didn't see why he should stand up when the band played Petah Tikvah.

If you make mistakes when trying to speak a foreign language, the foreigner may LAUGH UP HIS SLEEVE. To laugh up your sleeve means to laugh at a person secretly, without letting him see it. It comes from the old days when people wore clothes with very wide sleeves. If they wanted to laugh at someone they used their sleeves to hide their faces.

The people who laugh at you are usually very pleased with themselves and far too proud of their own intelligence. They should remember that charming little Chinese poem of the eleventh century which has been translated as follows: -

Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister."

Not bad for a poem of the eleventh century, is it ? The poet had a great sense of humour.

Some people, however, have too little humour and bore you. As people always try to run away from bores, the first thing a bore does is to catch hold of his victim by the button-hole. So to BUTTON-HOLE a person means to stop him and talk to him against his will.

There were once two brothers who were members of Parliament in England. A visitor button-holed one of them in the House of Commons and began to tell him a long story. The member said, "I think you're mistaking me for my brother". So the visitor apologized and went away. Five minutes later he came back and button-holed the same man again and said; "You know, it's funny. I just met your brother and mistook him for you: you're not a bit alike". "Unfortunately we are", said the member of Parliament. .

Now we come to HITTING BELOW THE BELT. This idiom is borrowed from the boxing, ring and means to take an unfair advantage. For a boxer is forbidden to hit his opponent below the belt, because blows in the belly are very dangerous. So any man delivering an unfair blow is said to be hitting below the belt.

'Belly' perhaps is not a very polite word. If you have a pain in the belly you say you've got a stomachache; that is, if you have to mention it at all. If you want to be very refined and technical, you can call your belly your abdomen. But there's a social difference between the belly and the abdomen. This was pointed out by an Army sergeant to a recruit who claimed he had a pain in the abdomen. "You ain't got no pain in yer abdomen, me lad: only orficers 'ave abdomens: sargints have stummicks and men just 'ave bellies"!

The sergeant was only trying to teach the recruit not to be conceited. In other words, he was telling him not TO BE TOO BIG FOR HIS BOOTS. Many young men are too big for their boots. But when they get married, their wives make them less conceited all right. Instead of being proud of themselves, they become proud of their wives. I heard of a charming instance of that the other day when someone wrote and asked for a passport for his wife. He said, "My wife is a Palestinian: I enclose her photograph: isn't she lovely?"

A lovely woman usually looks very pleased with life: but not when her shoes are too tight. Then she suffers agonies. No-one else knows what she suffers, because only she can feel WHERE THE SHOE PINCHES. That means, in English idiom that only she knows where the real difficulty lies. The best judge of any trouble is the person who has to put up with it.

Many newspapers are in financial trouble in Palestine today, but only the editor knows WHERE THE SHOE PINCHES. Some daily papers now only appear twice a week. I saw one of these recently which translated "twice weekly" in Hebrew into. "twice newspaper" in English.

Some newspapers appear even less frequently. There's an obscure little missionary newspaper in Jerusalem that has so little money that it bears the following notice : - "Published when the Lord permits".

Editors of newspapers have to be very wide awake. They have to be able to write an article on any subject ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT. That phrase comes from the time when men rode on horseback and wore spurs. They dug their spurs info the horse's side to make it go quicker. On the spur of the moment means without preparation. Sometimes people have to make speeches without any time for preparation. So they start with "All I can say on the spur of the moment is that this subject is of great interest to all those who are interested in it".

Some people are quite good at speaking on the spur of the moment. They're bright and quick. But others are dull and sleepy, like the peer who said that he once dreamt he was making a speech in the House of Lords and woke up and found he was.

But, although peers are sometimes sleepy, they're usually well dressed. If a man, or even a woman, is especially well dressed, you say in English idiom that he's DRESSED TO KILL. It's easy to see if a man is dressed to kill. But few men can tell if a woman's dressed to kill: that can only be detected by another woman. If you ask your wife if she noticed a woman who's just passed her in the street, your wife'll say, "That woman with the false teeth, the dyed hair and the ready-made dress ? No, I didn't notice her particularly."

What powers of perception women do have! It leaves me quite speechless. Good night.