According to my extensive research long exhausted in and across the Los Angeles and Riverside Public Libraries, I discovered that the word picnic can solely be traced to its French origin within the 17 century, which don’t have anything to do with the lynching of Negroes. In America for the reason that 1800s the word only referred to outside cooking, which often consists of barbeque and household fun.
English is an attention-grabbing and evolving language. The research of idioms and their origin is a examine of our historical past. Even in the present day, new idioms are being created. They will virtually definitely be studied by the historians of the longer term as they examine our lives. It’s an interesting thought. picnic (orig.) social leisure by which every person contributed a share of the meals; (now) outside pleasure social gathering with a repast. XVIII. — F. piquenique, app. f. piquer PICK2 + nique (cf. faire la nique à mock, present scorn of). Lord save me! I get indignant each time somebody tells me I’m utilizing a logical fallacy. Instead, I should just study logical fallacies. I’m tempted to write something clever, to add to this, but I obtained nothing. Thanks for clearing the air on Red Herring!!!
Very interesting. I actually have at all times heard these idioms however never knew what they meant, much less their origin. Wonderful article. A long salting and smoking interval is required to turn a herring purple. One company states that the method requires two to three weeks of soaking in brine adopted by two to three weeks of smoking. In order to shorten this lengthy procedure, commercially produced kippers usually contain artificial color. Thank you very a lot for the remark and for sharing an idiom that I’ve by no means heard of before, Faith. Thank you for all of the votes and shares, too. I all the time admire your kindness! Blessings to you. I never had any idea what a positive kettle of fish was, regardless that I heard it previously. Thanks for getting it cleared up for me. Hi Linda. How fascinating. I certainly discovered one thing new immediately. I had no concept as to the origin of these idioms. Great job.
Alicia, what a superb and attention-grabbing hub. I’m sorry this one slipped by me one way or the other. So glad I popped over right here to your facet of HP Town. Looks like another HOTD you’ve here! I love idioms and cherished studying concerning the historical past of them. I do keep in mind Laurel and Hardy using the one a lot concerning the Fine Kettle of Fish LOL. I bear in mind commenting one time on a hub about my cat, George, being a pistol, and Annart wished to know what I meant by that, and so I informed her it meant that he’s a bit mischievous however not seriously troublesome. At least that has all the time been my understanding of that idiom and I don’t even know from the place I came up with that one, probably simply growing up through the years listening to others say it. Now that I give it some thought, I can see how one would wish to query the pistol part because it is not sensible in case you’ve by no means heard the idiom earlier than in the context it’s meant.
To be abundantly clear, it’s fairly possible for a word with harmless origins to be associated etymologically with racism. We can look at the time period niggardly, for instance. The origins have nothing to do with race, and yet the time period can’t escapte it is racist connotations of at present. This does not appear to be true of picnic. After the French Revolution in 1789, royal parks grew to become open to the public for the primary time. Picnicking within the parks grew to become a popular activity amongst the newly enfranchised citizens. Hi, Lisa. I agree – idioms have to imply one thing to us earlier than they really feel natural! Thanks for the attention-grabbing comment.