“AS THE SAYING IS.”

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 184, 2 May 1931, Page 21

“AS THE SAYING IS.”

■■■ t , The rather inelegant phrase, A bone to pick,” is said to have its origin in Sicily. 'There, it is, or was, the custom of the father of a bride to hand the bridegroom a bone,’ saying “Pick this bone; you have undertaken a more > difficult task.” This seems a rather unkind thing to say, but such was the way.

From Lund's End to John o’ Groats House is, as we know, a picturesque way of saying “from one end of Great Britain to the other.” But John o’ Groats’ House, although no longer in existence, was once a real bouse belonging to a real John, a Dutchman who came from Groot in Holland. John (or Jan) built his house about 1490 upon Duncan’s Bay Head, the most northerly point of Great Britain, and he probably erected it for the accommodation of travellers crossing to the Orkneys. The name “Groot” or “Groat” is for ever cropping up in deeds dated from 1488 to 1741 (when a certain Malcolm Groat sold his “lands in Dugansby, w s ith the ferry house” to William Sinclair, of Freswick), and there are still “Groots” and "Groats” in the neighbourhood.