Where did that Phrase come from?????

[Warph]

"Zig-zag"

Meaning
A series of short straight lines, ( /\/\/\/\/\ ) set at angles to one another and connected to form a continuous line. Often forming a regular pattern, but not necessarily so. Also, the action of moving along such a course.

Origin
This term seems to have come into English from Continental Europe - The Netherlands, France, or possibly Germany. The origin is unknown. The reduplication is suggestive of alternation, as with other phrases of that sort, e.g. tick-tock and see-saw.

In 1706, the Dutch author Roelof Roukema published Naam-boek der beroemde genees- en heelmeesters van alle eeuwen [Book of Medicine and Healers]. This contains the line:

"eenige in de voorstad van St. Germain zig zag bewegen"

which loosely translates into English as:

"some in the suburb of St. Germain move zig zag"

The German word 'zickzack' dates from around the same time and is known (in Sperander) from 1727. That usage referred to the fortifications of castles, the walls of which were sometimes built in zig-zag form.

Zic-zac/zick-zack soon began to be written as zig-zag. The first record we have of that is in Johnathan Swift's prose poem My Lady's Lamentation, 1728:

'How proudly he talks
Of zigzags and walks'

It didn't take long for the term to begin to be used in a figurative sense, i.e.: in reference to any continual changes; for example, in William Cowper's Conversation, 1781:

"Though such continual zig-zags in a book,
Such drunken reelings, have an awkward look."

[Warph]

"You can lead a Horse to water, but you can't make it drink"

Meaning:
People, like horses, will only do what they have a mind to do.


Origin:
Proverbs give richness to language and, to some extent, define a culture. 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink' might be thought to encapsulate the English-speaking people's mindset better than any other saying, as it appears to be the oldest English proverb that is still in regular use today. It was recorded as early as 1175 in Old English Homilies:

Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken
[who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]

There are other pretenders to the throne of the oldest English proverb; for example:

A friend in need is a friend indeed.
(mid 11th century in English; 5th century BC in Greek)

When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
(late 9th century in English; Bible, Luke Chapter 6)

Whilst the above were spoken in English earlier than 'lead a horse to water...', they derive from either a Greek or Biblical source and so can't claim to be the 'full English'. Either that or, like the 11th century proverb 'full cup, steady hand', they haven't stood the test of time.

The proverb 'lead a horse to water' has been in continuous use since the 12th century. John Heywood listed it in the influential glossary A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of all the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue:

"A man maie well bring a horse to the water, But he can not make him drinke without he will."

It also appeared in literature over the centuries in a variety of forms; for example, in the play Narcissus, which was published in 1602, of unknown authorship, subtitled as A Twelfe Night merriment, played by youths of the parish at the College of Saint John the Baptist in Oxford:

Your parents have done what they coode,
They can but bringe horse to the water brinke,
But horse may choose whether that horse will drinke.

It wasn't until the 20th century that 'lead a horse to water...' got a substantial rewrite, when Dorothy Parker reworked it from its proverbial form into the epigram 'you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think'.

[Warph]

"You are what you eat"

Meaning
The notion that to be fit and healthy you need to eat good food.

Origin

This phrase has come to us via quite a tortuous route. Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, in Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante, 1826:

"Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are].

In an essay entitled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, 1863/4, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach wrote:

"Der Mensch ist, was er ißt."

That translates into English as 'man is what he eats'.

Neither Brillat-Savarin or Feuerbach meant their quotations to be taken literally. They were stating that that the food one eats has a bearing on what one's state of mind and health.

The actual phrase didn't emerge in English until some time later. In the 1920s and 30s, the nutritionist Victor Lindlahr, who was a strong believer in the idea that food controls health, developed the Catabolic Diet. That view gained some adherents at the time and the earliest known printed example is from an advert for beef in a 1923 edition of the Bridgeport Telegraph, for 'United Meet [sic] Markets':

"Ninety per cent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs. You are what you eat."

In 1942, Lindlahr published You Are What You Eat: how to win and keep health with diet. That seems to be the vehicle that took the phrase into the public consciousness. Lindlahr is likely to have also used the term in his radio talks in the late 1930s (now lost unfortunately), which would also have reached a large audience.

The phrase got a new lease of life in the 1960s hippy era. The food of choice of the champions of this notion was macrobiotic wholefood and the phrase was adopted by them as a slogan for healthy eating. The belief in the diet in some quarters was so strong that when Adelle Davis, a leading spokesperson for the organic food movement, contracted the cancer that later killed her, she attributed the illness to the junk food she had eaten at college.

Some commentators have suggested that the idea is from much earlier and that it has a religious rather than dietary basis. Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are changed into the body and blood of Jesus (Transubstantiation).

Is the phrase Catholic rather than catabolic?

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549:

We offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.

Transubstantiation certainly links food and the body, but there doesn't appear to be a clear link between the belief and the phrase. It's safe to assume the origin is more supper than supplication.

[Warph]

"Keep your pecker up"

Meaning

Remain cheerful - keep your head held high.

Origin

Whilst pecker is a word now associated with American slang the usage here is the English pecker, i.e. nose or mouth, as opposed to the American, i.e. penis. The phrase is equivalent to keep your chin up.

The pecker is generally thought of as the mouth, although the earliest known use of the word in this phrase clearly alludes to the nose. The imagery is of a bird that pecks for food. That citation is from The Times, September 1845:

"Mr. King... misstated the fact in saying that he had put a piece of lighted paper to the master's nose while asleep in that house; it was his hot pipe that he applied to the sleeper's nostrils, at the same time crying: Come, old chap, keep your pecker up."