WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!

Descriptive idioms are food for thought

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Cookie Illustration
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Cookie Illustration

Finally, I have found a use for the phrase "food for thought."

With all the descriptive terms in the English language, I wonder how food names evolved. At times, the choices are hard to understand.

• Smart cookie.

A smart cookie is someone who can't be fooled. But why a cookie? For me, a smart cookie would have to be one with a minimum of 20 chocolate chips or a little cream cheese filling. I couldn't find a believable origin of the word, though "cookie" just means a person. One can also be a "tough cookie." But that's different from a stale cookie. It's just a strong person.

• Lemon.

Why is a crummy car called a lemon? Lemons are tangy citrus fruits that mean well. They don't break down. They aren't faulty. They don't sputter. Associating a clunker with a lemon doesn't make sense.

• Cheese.

You may hear a boss called a "big cheese." This one makes a little more sense in context, but it is still a little strange. Originally the term was just "cheese," meaning something of high quality. The root of the word was from the Persian language. "Chiz" meant "thing." In 1920s America, "big cheese" came to mean an important person.

My question is, what makes cheese supervisory material?

And it's beyond me why the cheese stands alone in the children's rhyme "The Farmer in the Dell."

• Easy as pie. A piece of cake.

A pie requires quite a few steps. The crust alone can be hard work. Then you have to do the peeling, the chopping, the mixing. A cake must be baked, cooled, stacked and frosted. Yet some efforts are tagged as "easy as pie," or "a piece of cake," meaning they are easy. I think any novice baker would disagree.

• Mustard.

Apparently, one should be able to cut the mustard. It means you're up to the task. Nobody seems to know how a condiment became an innate ability.

Writer O. Henry used it in a 1907 story, "The Heart of the West": "I looked around and found a proposition that exactly cut the mustard."

These days, you're more likely to hear the negative state:

"That outfielder didn't last in the bigs; he just couldn't cut the mustard."

Meat words seem to be tainted with negativity.

• Hot dog.

This is someone who's good at something, such as sports. Apparently he can cut the mustard. When that person shows off his skills a little too proudly, he is considered a "hot dog."

• Ham.

An actor who is a ham emotes to dramatic excess. Can anyone help me come up with the name of a ham actor?

A few theories exist on where "ham actor" came from. One is that, a couple of centuries back, actors used ham fat to remove their stage makeup. So they were called ham-fatters, and the word was shortened to "ham."

To me, ham, in its saltiness alone, is a good thing. How did it get tied up with bad acting?

• Chopped liver.

I can't stand any form of liver, chopped, diced or whole. But I know quite a few people like it.

In the '40s or so, "chopped liver" came to mean something not so great.

Girlfriend: That Humphrey Bogart is the bee's knees.

Boyfriend: What am I, chopped liver?

• Bacon.

Well, this meat word doesn't have a bad connotation. It means money in the phrase "bring home the bacon." I can't recall "bacon" on its own being used to mean money.

Other food words used for money are bread, dough (is yeast a factor?), cabbage.

• Peanut.

The dictionary use for this, other than the legume, is a tiny or insignificant person. I disagree with the insignificant part. I have only heard this used as a sweet term of endearment, maybe used by a parent for a child.

Peanuts aren't even the smallest legumes. Soybeans and peas are smaller.

• Shrimp.

This is another term for a tiny person, and it has a meaner tone to it. Yes, shrimp are small, but of all the small edible items out there, why was shrimp chosen? We even have jumbo shrimp.

• Pickle.

The phrase that goes with this is usually "in a pickle," meaning in a dire or difficult situation. In the movie It's a Wonderful Life, when townspeople are storming the Bailey Bros. Building & Loan Association, Uncle Billy says, "This is a pickle, George. This is a pickle."

• Cream puff.

The name of this confection has at least two uses. First, it's a term for a used car that's in good shape. Second, it's a person whose work is ineffective.

Any cream puff I have ever encountered has been effective, inside and out.

Sources: Merriam-Webster

Reach Bernadette at

bkwordmonger@gmail.com

ActiveStyle on 02/13/2017

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