The sixth and final phrase involving the number six has many variations, including “ watch your six,” “check your six,” and “get your six.” You might say something like, “My partner has got my six.” As you might have guessed, this is police or military slang. Coincidentally, six feet is also the approximate length of a coffin. In reaction to a breakout of plague at that time, the mayor of London tried to limit the spread of the disease by “ requiring graves to be at least six feet deep in an attempt to limit the spread of disease.” This practice was not very effective. Burying bodies six feet underground seems to have been a burial practice that originated in England in 1665.
The other burial-related phrase is “ six feet under,” which means, simply, “dead.” You might hear someone say, “You’ll see what’s in my will when I’m six feet under.” Like “deep-six,” the phrase “six feet under” originated in the middle of the 20th century. states that the phrase first appeared in the 1940s or ’50s and that it comes from the traditional depth of graves: six feet. “To deep-six” is another way to say “to discard,” “to throw overboard,” or “to get rid of.” You can eighty-six old potato salad, or you can deep-six it. First up is “ deep-six,” which like “eighty-six” has a hyphen in the middle. Now it’s time to discuss death as we explore two phrases that have their origins in burials. Things are now going from bad to worse: first, gambling and then alcohol.
These days, the phrase is commonly used as a verb, as in “I had to eighty-six the leftover potato salad because it sat out too long at the picnic.” If you write this phrase, don’t forget to include the hyphen between “eighty” and “six.” Deep-six and six feet under Lexicographers believe it probably originated as rhyming slang for the word “nix,” which means “to refuse to agree to something” or “to prohibit.” To eighty-six something means to discard or reject it, and bartenders in the 1930s would call a person they wouldn’t serve more liquor to an “eighty-six.” At lunch counters at the time, an “eighty-six” was also a menu item that wasn’t available.
The third phrase that uses the word “six” also has its origins with vice, this time alcohol. The phrase described someone who was confused enough to make a risky bet, and then it came to mean in disagreement or in disorder. Over the centuries, the meaning of the phrase “at sixes and sevens” has changed. In Middle English, spoken at this time, the French names for these numbers, “cinque” and “sice,” were often used, and it’s possible the phrase is a corruption of “on cinque and sice,” from people who didn’t know French thinking “cinque and sice” sounded like “six and seven.” The phrase originally meant “ to risk your entire fortune” because gamblers would risk a lot of money hoping to roll these numbers.
According to, back then, those who gambled with dice tried to roll the highest numbers possible: five and six. It appears that Chaucer first used the original version of the phrase (“ set on six and seven”) in “The Canterbury Tales” around 1374. The second phrase that uses the number six is “ at sixes and sevens,” which means “in confusion,” “in disagreement,” or “in disorder.” A parent of a messy child will probably at some point say something like, “Sam’s bedroom is at sixes and sevens,” especially if that parent speaks British English, in which the phrase is more common.
0 kommentar(er)
