(In)Famous Lines

by Christine Wells

I'm a writer of historical romance who not only loves history, but also the history and origin of words and phrases, a study known as etymology. I often have cause to look up a word to see if it was in use at the time I'm writing about and I find it endlessly fascinating to discover how everyday expressions found their way into our language.

Before mass media, expressions were often derived from famous figures of the time, from cartoons, plays or current events, and of course words were drawn into the English lexicon from other languages as a consequence of migration.

Nowadays, our expressions are more likely to be influenced by the media--advertisements, television, movies, and even books.

How many of our every day quips come from the media? In our family, we say 'Don't mention the war' when there's a touchy subject no one is allowed to bring up (Fawlty Towers) or 'I have a cunning plan' (Blackadder). An entire generation in Australia said 'Not happy, Jan' after a very successful Yellow Pages advertisement. And who didn't know the phrase 'wrapped in plastic' when Twin Peaks was on television?

I thought it would be fun to post a quiz about expressions that have leaped from media into our every day speech. See if you can guess where these are from and feel free to add some of your own.

1. Not that there's anything wrong with that

2. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

3. Glittery Hoo-ha

4. Do you feel lucky?

5. Jump the shark

6. Just do it

7. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

8. To boldly go...

9. Voted off the island

10. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn