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At the drop of whose hat? The sporty origins of 10 popular expressions

Image: Ben Hershey

Popular idioms appear in conversation all over the English-speaking world every minute of the day and we hardly ever stop to think about where they come from. Have you ever heard someone say "I'll have to start from scratch"? Have you wondered what "in the nick of time" means? What all these expressions have in common is that they originated in the world of sports. Want to know more? Get the upper hand and discover all those phrases you often say but didn’t know are related to games and sports!

Image: The Royal Danish Library

Down to the wire is an idiom used to describe a situation, sporting or otherwise, whose outcome is not decided until the very last minute. This expression comes from horse racing and experts suggest it originated in America in the late 19th century.

Before the days of televised sports, racetracks would string a wire across the finishing line above the riders’ heads. A steward would then be placed at a vantage point, looking down the line so that a winner could be more easily established during neck-and-neck finishes. The first written record of the phrase can be found in an 1889 article from Scribers Magazine and since then it has been widely used, even today.

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You’ve probably used this expression many times, but did you know it has a sport-related origin? The phrase can be easily traced back to the 19th century when sporting referees, who usually wore hats, would raise one into the air, alerting competitors to be ready. Then, they would drop it to signal the start of the event. The method was commonly used in boxing and horseracing, where the races or matches were considered started "at the drop of a hat".

Nowadays, the phrase is used to imply something would be carried out immediately, without delay. It is sometimes thought to be of American origin but the practice has long been used by English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic.

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To have the upper hand implies that a person has the advantage or control over someone or something in a particular situation. In sports, when a team goes first in a game we say they have the upper hand. But where exactly did this expression originate? Well, there are many theories and none are definitive.

Some suggest that this phrase dates back to the 15th century and is related to an obsolete pastime. In this game, the first player grips a shaft at the bottom end while the next places their hand just above it until the upper end of the shaft is reached. Finally, when the last person takes the last grip, it means they have the "upper hand".

Later, in the 20th century, this method of finding a random winner was often used in baseball and cricket when hands would be placed on a bat and the last to take a grip got to play the game first.

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Have you ever embarked on a foolish and hopeless search for something unattainable? Then probably, even figuratively, you were involved in a wild goose chase. A wild goose chase is a fruitless pursuit with no hope of a successful outcome and was coined in England in the late 16th century.

Back in the 1500s, it was an expression used in relation to a kind of equestrian sport in which all the competitors had to follow accurately the course of the leader at definite intervals, like a flight of wild geese. The term was regularly applied to the sport but it appears to have been Shakespeare who altered the meaning to one of hopeless pursuit.

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Nowadays, to start from scratch is a saying we use to illustrate starting again from the beginning, regardless of how much we have already achieved of a task. However, in medieval times it had a more literal meaning.

Back then, in certain sports like cricket, horse racing, or boxing, a line or mark was "scratched" into the ground by either a sword or a javelin to indicate the point from which competitors had to start. If they cut corners, they would have to start again from this scratch.

Over the years this idiom has been shortened to from scratch and is also used to indicate that we are going to start something with no assistance, for example, a recipe that we make using every ingredient raw instead of processed foods.

Image: Jason Weingardt

When something gets done in the nick of time it has been done at the very last possible minute, before it was too late. Achieving things just at the critical moment can make us nervous, but when it comes to sports, scoring just before the clock determines the end of the game can change the mood of more than one fan.

In this case, nick is used in the sense of "the precise moment of an occurrence or an event." However, the literal form of the phrase dates from the late 16th century when a tallyman would keep the scores for team games. This person would carve a nick or dent in a piece of wood each time a team scored and if the winning nick was added during the last minute it was known as the "nick in time."

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When someone has lost their bottle they have lost their nerve and their bravery. Contrary to what you may think, this expression has nothing to do with liquor courage. In fact, this phrase originates from the world of bare-knuckle prizefighting during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In a fighter’s corner, one of his seconds was known as "the bottle man" and his job was to supply water to a fighter between rounds. Without water, a fighter was unable to continue and sometimes it was known for cornermen to be asked to walk away and leave when a fighter was taking a beating, to provide an excuse for him to drop out. The phrase "lost his bottleman" was later shortened and popularly used to describe cowardly behavior.

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This is a widely used expression in the world of sport but it has extended to all aspects of life. To win hands down suggests a very comfortable, easy victory. Its roots can be found not in poker but in horse racing. In the 19th century, winning hands down meant that a jockey was so certain of his victory in the closing stages of a race that he could lower his hands and relax his grip on the reins.

Even today, when a jockey is winning comfortably he can gallop down the finishing straight without using his whip to encourage the nag along. The shortened version hands down is a metaphor of ease extended beyond the domain of horse racing and is used today to convey "without a doubt, no question."

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If someone's name, an idea, or a story are bandied about it means they are being discussed frequently by many people in a casual or informal way. What you probably didn't know is that this phrase originated in France and is related to the world of sports.

The game of Bander was an early form of tennis and involved hitting a ball to and fro. Later, in the 1600s, the Irish invented a team game, a hockey predecessor, that required a group of people bandying a ball between them. They called the sport Bande after the French game because of the similarities between the two ideas. Also, they used a crooked stick that later led to the term bandy-legged to refer to those with bow legs.

Image: Iván Hernández-Cuevas

Simply put, across the board means all-encompassing, wide-ranging, and applying to all. Like many of the idioms included in this article, this one also has roots in horse racing. In the U.S., this expression referred to a bet in which equal amounts were staked on the same horse to win, place, or show in a race.

In the 19th century, large boards would be used to display the odds on a horse to come first, second, or third in a given race. A popular bet was to place an even amount of money on just one horse for every possible outcome. This was known as an "across-the-board bet".

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Fancy names for fancy drinks

Who was Bloody Mary? Join us in exploring 10 drinks’ names

Image: Timothé Durand

Nobody thinks twice about the contents of a drink if the name is Gin & Tonic. But what if you never had a Bloody Mary before, and are offered one? According to history, many popular cocktails were created during the Prohibition era when illegal alcohol was not the most palatable drink, and masking its flavor with other ingredients became a necessity. And, since these concoctions needed an appealing name, creative barmen and barwomen came up with many of the denominations we know today. Featured here are 10 of the most popular ones. Have you tried any of these?

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While the real origin of this cocktail consisting of rye, sweet vermouth, and bitters is probably lost to time, the most popular legend is that the Manhattan was specially invented for a banquet hosted by Lady Randolf (mother of Winston) Churchill at the famous Manhattan Club in New York in the late 1800s.

But, when this supposed party took place, Lady Randolph was pregnant with Winston and living in England. So, even if it is a cool story, it is probably not true.

Image: Alex Block

These days, it refers almost exclusively to a cocktail of bourbon whiskey flavored with sugar and mint but, the word julep was originally borrowed from French to refer to a sweet-tasting or sweetened drink. Before then, it had Persian roots, and its original pronunciation, "gulab" essentially means sweetened rosewater.

The term was translated to "julab" in classical Arabic and then into Latin as "julapium." Eventually, the word would morph into "julep."

Image: Gabriel Gurrola

To explain the origin of the Tom Collins cocktail, we must first introduce his brother, John: A John Collins is a mixture of London dry gin, lemon, sugar, and soda. If you replace the London gin with Old Tom gin, you have prepared a Tom Collins.

The Collins surname of this drink is said to come from a 19th-century headwaiter known as John Collins, who worked at Limmer's Hotel and Coffee House and is thought to be the inventor of the drink. As for the Tom part, its origin is lost to the ages.

Image: Mauro Lima

There are two leading theories as to where the name of the Mojito comes from. The first one holds that the name relates to mojo, a Cuban seasoning made from lime and used to flavor dishes.

Another theory is that the name Mojito is simply a derivative of mojadito, which is a Spanish word for "lightly wet", which would be the diminutive of "mojado" (wet).

Image: Allan Francis

As the legend goes, a certain Count Negroni of Florence, Italy, once requested a drink that would stand apart from all the Americanos ordered at his usual neighborhood cafe.

The bartender answered his request with a cocktail composed of equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, and he garnished the result with a telltale orange slice. Unfortunately for the count, the drink became as popular as the Americano, losing the desired exclusivity.

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This classic cocktail is named after the Cuban village of Daiquirí and, as the story goes, it was invented by local American mining engineers around the time of the Spanish-American War when they ran out of gin and had to use the local rum instead. The cocktail usually consists of sugar, rum, lime juice, and simple syrup.

The daiquiri is identified with revered author Ernest Hemingway, who drank this beverage during his stay in Cuba.

Image: Thomas Hetzler

James Bond's drink of choice is typically made with gin or vodka and vermouth. There are many stories about the origin of the cocktail and its name. The bartender professor Jerry Thomas of San Francisco, has claimed that it was invented by a stranger on his way to Martinez, California. Another story says it's named after Martini & Rossi Vermouth, because that brand was first used in the drink Gin and It, with one half gin and one half Martini & Rossi Vermouth.

Another story claims that it was named after a British army rifle, the Martini and Henry, which is known for its kick, like the drink. And the last one, says that it was created at the Knickerbocker Hotel in the early 1900s, by a bartender named Martini di Arma Tiggia that mixed a martini using only a dry gin and dry vermouth.

Image: Luke Bender

The most widely accepted theory about the origin of the Margarita name says that bartender Carlos "Danny" Herrera supposedly thought up this drink around 1938 in Tijuana, Mexico. He created it for Marjorie King, an aspiring actress who he said was allergic to "everything except tequila."

After crafting something for King to drink, Herrera reportedly dubbed the drink margarita, which is a Spanish twist on Marjorie's name.

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Apparently, in the late 1800s, it became popular to introduce liqueurs into cocktail recipes. And the older, more basic recipes that omitted them, and in particular this classic mix of whiskey and bitters, became known as "old fashioned" cocktails.

People ordering drinks in this fashion wanted to stick to the basics and eventually the modifier "old-fashioned" became the name for this classic cocktail with a lot of variations. The classic version uses a bit of sugar or simple syrup, a splash or two of aromatic bitters, perhaps an ice cube, and rye whiskey.

Image: SuckerPunch Gourmet

The most popular tale about this drink’s name links it to the English monarch Mary Tudor, whose nickname was, wait for it, "Bloody Mary", because of how many Protestant heretics she condemned to death.

Another theory suggests that the drink was concocted by a bartender at a Paris bar, where a patron who drank it dubbed it the Bucket of Blood, after a Chicago nightclub, with the name later developing into Bloody Mary.