There are lots of idioms we use without thinking. We learn them in our youth, don\u2019t question them all our lives, and rely on them for something to say in our dotage. Most of the time, we know when to use a phrase, and maybe have some clue about how it may have come about, but once in a while, a phrase comes up that we use\u2026 just because.<\/p>\n
Here are two examples.<\/p>\n
Some idioms contain unfamiliar words, and we assume that their strangeness derives from their antiquity, but most of us can\u2019t be bothered to reach for a dictionary and learn about the unfamiliar word.<\/p>\n
Other idioms are just\u2026 well\u2026 weird.<\/p>\n
Take \u201cgetting out of the wrong side of the bed\u201d for example. Which is the \u201cwrong side\u201d? The left (sinister) side\u2014and viewed from which direction or position? The side where the chamber pot was located? An attempt to get out of bed that resulted in hitting the wall?<\/p>\n
Another one is \u201cby the skin of my teeth\u201d. Teeth don\u2019t have skin, unless you count the gums that conceal their root ends. So where did this come from? (Yes, there are theories out there, some more credible than others.)<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce upon a time\u201d is a third example. It\u2019s possibly the first idiomatic phrase we learn. It contains words we\u2019re very familiar with\u2014every one of them is still in everyday use\u2014yet the phrase itself doesn\u2019t bear much thinking about in terms of making sense.<\/p>\n
According to my \u201colder-than-Kelvin\u201d Oxford Dictionary, the phrase goes back to late Middle English. Michael Quinion over at World Wide Words is more precise; he informs us that it goes back as far as Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales<\/em> in 1385. A quick dip into The Knight\u2019s Tale<\/em> in Middle and Modern English reveals the word to be \u201cwhilom\u201d, which is interpreted in Chaucer-focused glossaries as \u201csometimes\u201d, \u201cat times\u201d, \u201conce\u201d or \u201cformerly\u201d. Surprisingly, the word appears in all the dictionaries I checked (old and new, online and hardcopy). My older-than-Kelvin dictionary defines it as \u201cat times\u201d, \u201cat some past time\u201d, and \u201conce upon a time\u201d. \u201cWhilom\u201d is pronounced along the same lines as \u201cwhile\u201d.<\/p>\n In one online translation of The Knight\u2019s Tale<\/em>, the word is translated as \u201cOnce on a time\u201d and \u201cwas of old time\u201d. In a much freer translation on my bookshelf (translated by Prof. Neville Coghill), the word is represented by \u201cof old\u201d and \u201conce\u201d.<\/p>\n None of which yet explains to me how<\/em> we got to \u201conce upon a time\u201d. So another item gets added to my bucket list; to learn enough about Old English and Middle English to be able to understand how scholars can state things like \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d goes back to The Canterbury Tales<\/em>.<\/p>\n So\u2026 how to make sense of \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d? Why has the idiom stuck around for so long?<\/p>\n In my opening paragraph, I used the phrase \u201conce in a while\u201d. We all understand that phrase\u2014something occurs one time only within a period of indefinite length. It\u2019s imprecise, and intentionally so. \u201cKelvin buys beer for his friends once in a while\u201d\u2014the period between beverage purchases for my buddies is indefinite\u2014elastic\u2014it could be weeks or it could be years. (It\u2019s actually decades.)<\/p>\n What if we applied that same analysis to \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d? \u201cSomething happened one time only, upon a time\u201d. Hmmm\u2014questions remain: what time or kind of time? Noon? Opening time? Prehistoric time? Clearly we have to make a decision about which meaning of \u201ctime\u201d to use.<\/p>\n It seems likely that \u201cera\u201d or \u201cpoint in history\u201d is the best fit. \u201cOnce upon a time, Kelvin bought his buddies a beer.\u201d Obviously a fairy tale, but although we all understand the statement (and my friends understand its implications), the idiom is still being used blindly. With that \u201cupon\u201d there, it still doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n Back to my older-than-Kelvin dictionary. It states that the choice of \u201con\u201d or \u201cupon\u201d can be made on the basis of rhythm or emphasis; I infer from this that there was no formality\/informality associated with the choice of word in 1944.<\/p>\n Michael Quinion quotes from Westward Ho! by way of explanation for \u201cupon\u201d (or \u201con\u201d) being used: \u201cAnd it befell upon a day, that we came into a great wood of ferns.\u201d He also quotes from a 1535 translation of the Old Testament: \u201cNow upon a time\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n These days (aka in modern times), when talking about a time gone by, we usually use \u201cin\u201d rather than \u201con\u201d; for example, \u201cin Biblical times\u201d. However, there is no two-syllable equivalent of \u201cupon\u201d for \u201cin\u201d.<\/p>\n Which brings me back to my dictionary\u2019s assertion that the choice of \u201con\u201d and \u201cupon\u201d can be made on the basis of rhythm. \u201cOnce in a time\u201d just doesn\u2019t have a decent rhythmic flow; it doesn\u2019t have enough momentum to get a story going.<\/p>\n Or does it?<\/p>\n (Actually, statistics can prove anything in the right hands, or so I\u2019m led to believe.)<\/p>\n Sparing no effort for my readers, I sat and recorded the opening words of each of the 210 stories and legends in a nineteenth-century translation of the Brothers Grimm\u2019s Kinder-und Hausm\u00e4rchen<\/em>. Here are the top story beginnings.<\/p>\n There was once \/ There were once\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a054<\/p>\n Once on a time \/ There was once on a time\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a032<\/p>\n Once upon a time \/ There was once upon a time \/ There were once upon a time\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a021<\/p>\n Only eight stories actually started with the exact words \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d.<\/p>\n Curiously, the original German versions start with \u201cEs war einmal\u201d, whether the English translation is \u201cOnce there was\u201d, \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d or \u201cThere was once on a time\u201d.<\/p>\n These statistics prove beyond all reasonable doubt absolutely nothing, but here are some sketchy inferences that I\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n That last inference notwithstanding, I still believe that rhythm is what has raised the idiom to pre-eminence. Perhaps the translator whose work I analyzed wasn\u2019t interested in rhythm.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s Ngram Viewer shows that \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d started surging in popularity in the early 1800s, with \u201cOnce on a time\u201d trying unsuccessfully to play catch-up in the second half of that century. By 1900 \u201cOnce on a time\u201d was in decline, while \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d continued to climb until the 1930s at which time it started a steep decline as a percentage of Google\u2019s English corpus. However, it still remained many times more popular than \u201cOnce on a time\u201d, and in 2008 was still more than ten times as common in the English corpus.<\/p>\n Both phrases have increased their percentage of the English corpus since 2000, perhaps reflecting political commentary about the credibility of GWB\u2019s speeches.<\/p>\n Nobody seems to have come up with an alternative yet that\u2019s caught on in a big way. The nearest I can think of is the Star Wars<\/em> opening text: \u201cA long time ago in a galaxy far, far away\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Could Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm learn from Star Wars? Probably not, for a few reasons. First and foremost, they\u2019re long gone. (Insert excerpt from Dead Parrot sketch here). Secondly, their tales weren\u2019t written in English; Andersen was a Dane, and the Grimms German. Thirdly, contrary to popular belief, many of their tales start with other than \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d. Lastly, and most importantly, starting Little Red Riding Hood<\/em> or The Little Mermaid<\/em> with \u201cA long time ago in a galaxy far, far away\u2026\u201d really doesn\u2019t set the scene very well.<\/p>\n Idioms are meant to be weird; they really don\u2019t bear much thinking about. But they do inject a further layer of challenge into learning English as a foreign language\u2014without them, learning English would be a breeze\u2014a piece of cake\u2014a walk in the park, wouldn\u2019t it!<\/p>\n We\u2019re so used to \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d that there\u2019s no need to update it. We haven\u2019t updated \u201cwhole kit and caboodle\u201d (what would we update it to) so let\u2019s leave \u201cOnce upon a time\u201d alone and trust that it will live happily ever after.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your favourite idiom? Do you have any stories about idioms causing mirth through being used inappropriately? Leave a comment to share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are lots of idioms we use without thinking. We learn them in our youth, don\u2019t question them all our lives, and rely on them for something to say in our dotage. Most of the time, we know when to use a phrase, and maybe have some clue about how it may have come about, but once in a while,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[490],"tags":[64,65,63],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-commentaries","tag-fairytales","tag-idioms","tag-once-upon-a-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}It Doesn’t Make Sense<\/h1>\n
Statistics Prove Otherwise<\/h1>\n
\n
Speaking of Statistics<\/h1>\n
Taking a Leaf Out of George Lucas’s Book<\/h1>\n
Conclusion<\/h1>\n
Your Turn<\/h1>\n