Advertise here from only 40 baht per week
Bobby’s British Breakfast Foods
UK Sausages, Ham, Bacon, Pies, Teas etc.
Call 087 155 7737 or 089 985 7473
SERVED UP BY...
A section for all you budding etymologists where each week the origin of a word or phrase is investigated.
This week it is..... I haven’t got a clue
Without any knowledge or understanding.
This little phrase, which is often given as ‘I don’t have a
clue’, doesn’t at first sight appear to be idiomatic at all
and hardly deserving of investigation. After all, a clue is
an insight or idea that points us towards a solution. To be
without a clue is simply to be ignorant. However, a clue
(also spelled clew) previously had a different meaning
- a globular ball formed from coiling worms or the like
or, more specifically, a ball of thread. Clew has been
used with that meaning for at least a thousand years and
citations of it in Old English date back to 897AD, when
no less an author than Aelfred, King of Wessex used
it in his West-Saxon translation of Gregory’s Pastoral
Care. Shakespeare also used the word with the ‘thread’
meaning, for example, in All’s Well that Ends Well, 1602:
“If it be so, you have wound a goodly clewe.”
That seems a long way from crossword clues or Sherlock
Holmes’ stories. How did we get from a ball of thread to
the current meaning of clue?
Go back to Greek myth and recall the tale of Theseus
and the Minotaur. Theseus entered the labyrinth to kill
the half-man, half-bull Minotaur. He did so but was only
able to find his way out by retracing his path, marked
by the string given to him by Ariadne. So, Theseus ‘had
a clew’ about the safe route out of the maze and was
able to escape.
Geoffrey Chaucer recorded this story in The Legend of
Ariadne, Part VI of The Legend of Good Women, 1385:
Therto have I a remedie in my thoght,
By a clewe of twyn as he hath gon,
The same weye he may returne a-non,
ffolwynge alwey the thred as he hath come.
So, don’t be clueless - all you need is some string.
A bonus origin this week, with the phrase ‘If wishes
were horses, beggers would ride’.
This proverb is recorded in English from quite an
early date. A version of the expression appeared in the
published works of William Camden in the 17th century.
Camden was an interesting character; a historian and
one of the select few who could write ‘Herald’ as his
job description. He was one of three senior heralds of
the College of Arms under Queen Elizabeth I. In 1605,
Camden collected together his miscellaneous notes on
English and Classic history and published them under
the title The Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning
Britain. He didn’t put his name to the work and dismissed
it as “the rude rubble and out-cast rubbish… of a greater
and more serious worke”. The book was republished in
several versions and included this proverb:
If wishes were thrushes, then beggers would eat birds
Acquiring thrushes has now somewhat gone out of
fashion as an aspiration of beggers. However, if eating
thrushes is your thing, Camden is your man.
It is clear that the ‘horses’ and ‘birds’ versions are
essentially the same proverb. Other 17th century
versions also exist