Where Did We Get the Phrase "Have All Your Ducks in a Row?"

Part 3 of a 5-part series on the origin of popular phrases

When you're ready, we say you "have all your ducks in a row."

American bowlers originated the phrase in the mid-19th century.

Gambling among bowlers was taking such a toll on family finances at the time that governments began to pass laws prohibiting the game.

Bowling alley operators skirted the laws by changing the rules of the game, increasing the number of pins (from nine to ten) and modifying their shape. The new-fangled pins quickly became known as "ducks."

Bowling alley operators at the time also employed "pin boys," whose job was to set up your ducks before each frame.

When the pin boy's work was complete, you were ready—because you would "have all your ducks in a row."

NOTE: Special thanks to Ann Ramsey, writer, producer and historiographer of all things cryptic, for nominating the phrases in this series.

Where Did We Get the Phrase "Touch and Go?"

Part 2 of a 5-part series on the origin of popular phrases

When a situation looks precarious, we say it's "touch and go."

Seafarers originated the phrase in the 18th century.

When a ship scraped bottom, but escaped running aground, sailors would say that passage through the dangerous waters was "touch and go."

Where Did We Get the Phrase "Make the Grade?"

Part 1 of a 5-part series on the origin of popular phrases

When you succeed or measure up, we often say you "make the grade."

Engineers who built the railroads that crisscross the US originated the phrase in the 19th century.

When constructing routes through mountainous areas, they had to be sure to design gradients locomotives could handle.

Otherwise, the trains couldn't "make the grade."

How Did We Get the Word "Target?"

Part 5 in a 5-part series on word histories

The Franks used the word targe to signify an archer's shield.

During breaks from battle, archers would hang their shields on trees and shoot at them to improve their aim.

By the 14th century, the French used targette to denote a light shield.

Two centuries later, English-speakers adopted the word.

By the 18th century, target came to mean something shot at for practice.

Where DId We Get the Word "Salary?"

Part 4 of a 5-part series on word histories

In Ancient Rome, centuries before refrigeration, soldiers received a regular allowance to buy sal, the Latin word for salt.

They used the salt to preserve food.

The allowance was called a salarium.

English-speakers eventually changed the word to salary.

Echoing the word's origin, we still say, "He's worth his salt."

And if an Ancient  Roman soldier went beyond the call of duty he received a bonus, the Latin word for good.

Where Did We Get the Word "Zombie?"

Part 3 of a 5-part series on word histories

During the 18th and 19th centuries, along with thousands of West Africans, voodoo was transported to North America on slave ships.

Voodoo's practitioners brought with them the word zombie, the name for a snake god with the power to reanimate the dead.

When the dead walked, they were called zombies.

Got it? 

Now, run!

Where Did We Get the Word "Slogan?"

Part 2 of a 5-part series on word histories

Slogan has a war-loving past.

The Irish word for army is sluagh.

In Irish, sluagh was combined with gairm, the word for shout, to mean war cry.

Sluaghgairm later appeared in Scottish English as slogorn.

By the 17th century, the word was spelled slogan and conveyed the meaning motto. 

In the early 20th century—around the time of World War I—slogan became synonymous with a company's or group's goal or position.

NOTE: Today's post, Number 300, is a milestone. It feels like one, anyway. Stay thirsty, my friends.

Where Did We Get the Word "Budget?"

Part 1 of a 5-part series on word histories

Many of the most common words, to borrow a phrase from Nietszche, are "coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins."

Where did we get the word "budget?"

The Ancient Romans called a leather pouch a bulga.

The French, by the 12th century, called it a bougette.

The English borrowed the French word in the 15th century, transforming it into bowgette.

By the 16th century, the English pronounced the word as budget. To them, budget meant the contents of a pouch.

Flash forward to the 18th century and you'll find the English government using budget to mean a statement of our financial position.

By the 19th century, budget was being used to mean the money available for households and businesses, as well the government.

Teach Your Children

Every year, Washington, DC's public schools spend more per child than any state in the nation ($29,409, to be precise). Yet DC's students continue among the nation's poorest performers in math and reading, and only 60 percent finish high school.

We understand the reason, as  our forebears understood it a century ago, when the following appeared in Gustav Stickley's magazine The Craftsman:

"Before the home can be expected to do its share toward solving this problem of education that now besets the country and puzzles the wisest heads among us, there would have to be some change in the character of the home. But of this we do not despair. The present tendency toward trivial pursuits and artificial living is merely the reaction from the hard and burdensome drudgery of household and farm work a generation or two ago. When the burden was lifted by the introduction of machines and labor-saving devices it was only natural that the pendulum should swing in the opposite direction and that work and education alike should be delegated to the organizations of trained workers outside the home.

“But it is pretty nearly time for the pendulum to swing back, and even now we are beginning to realize that lighter burdens and added leisure mean that we now have time for real life and moral and mental growth on a broader scale than we have ever known before. When we grasp the opportunity and utilize it for the training of our children, there will be no more ground for complaint against the schools.”

You can't change the "character of the home" in DC. But you can help increase literacy. Donate now to DC LEARNS.

Tip #3 for Getting Money

Read the Newspapers
Part 3 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

"Always take a trustworthy newspaper, and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world," says P.T. Barnum in Art of Money Getting.

The businessperson who doesn't read every day "is cut off from his species."

"In these days of telegraphs and steam," Barnum writes, "many important inventions and improvements in every branch of trade are being made, and he who don't consult the newspapers will soon find himself and his business left out in the cold."

The Last Word in Websites

Pinterest may end the reign of the word, changing the Web into a mammoth picture book.

So says marketing consultant Frank Reed, writing for Biznology.

Reed claims "we are rapidly moving toward the point where we are going to be communicating in flash cards of images—and words may be an unsettling extra, if needed at all."

Marketers may be forced to ditch copy for pictures, Reed says, for the simple reason that "everyone is doing it."

Google—because its engine indexes words—has spurred marketers to build copy-intensive Websites, in an effort to optimize searches.

But the age of copy-heavy Websites may be at an end, thanks to the surge in popularity of Pinterest.

Customers' preference for pictures poses a predicament for marketers, Reed asserts. 

They must move quickly "toward toward a dumbed down version of communication," or run the risk of driving Website visitors away.

"Is your business ready for its image to be represented in images?" Reed asks.

"Are you able to help the over-informed get to your point as quickly as possible through eye candy? If not, you may find yourself looking antiquated quicker than you could have ever imagined."