COMMON EXPRESSIONS.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1279, 10 August 1922, Page 2

COMMON EXPRESSIONS.

HOW THEY ORIGINATED

Wh'at are the origins of the expressions “ bunkum,” cockney,” diddler,” and “.to give a person beans ?” Many such words and phrases are explained an “A Dictionary of English Phrases,” ’by A. M. Hyamson (Routledge . “ Bunkum” is derived from Buncombe County, in North Carolinia, United States, one of whose represenatives in Congress was addicted to speech-making intended merely *■ deceive. “ DiiddTer” is : derived from Jeremy iDiddler, one of the characters in “ Raising the Wind,” a farce by James Kenney, produced in 1803. To “ give a person beans” domes from an old French proverb. “ If he give me peas I will'give Mm beans.” How obscure are the origins of some expressions is shown in the case of “To warm the cockles of the heart” and “ cockney.” In the first case' the word cockle is said 'to have been derived in several w>ays ; from the resemblance , .in shape between a cockle-shell and a heart; from the resemlance between the Greek word for heart, karkia, and the Latin word far cockle, eardrum; and from the Latin word cochlea, meaning body. “ Cockney” is explained as having been an old term for a small, badly-shaped egg. The name was given to a town dandy by a countryman.