Lost in translation: five common English phrases you may be using incorrectly
Collecting errors in one fowl swoop
English is a language rich with imagery, meaning and metaphor – and when we want to express ourselves we can draw upon a canon replete with beautifully turned phrases, drawing from the language’s Latin, French and Germanic roots, through Chaucer and Shakespeare right up to myriad modern wordsmiths – not to mention those apt aphorisms that English has appropriated from other languages.
So why is it we so regularly misuse some of these phrases? Here are five of the most common sayings that have somehow become lost in translation.
'The proof is in the pudding'
This is a confusion of a proverb first recorded in 1605 in its correct form: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”. One of the reasons for the confusion is that the word “proof” is being used in the older sense “test” – preserved today in a proofreader who checks the test pages (or “proof”) of a book before publication. Confusion was further encouraged by the tendency for people to use a shortened version of the proverb – the proof of the pudding.
Since the word “proof” is today more commonly used to mean “evidence”, the phrase was reworded as if it implied that the evidence for some claim can be located in a pudding. The true explanation of this phrase is quite simple – especially for fans of the Great British Bake-Off – it doesn’t matter how fancy the decoration and presentation, the true test of a pudding is in how it tastes. Or, more generally, the success of something can only be judged by putting it to its intended use.
'The exception that proves the rule'
This phrase is most commonly used to argue that something that doesn’t conform to a rule somehow validates it. This can hardly be the correct use, however, since the claim that all birds can fly is invalidated rather than confirmed by the discovery of penguins or emus. This confusion is often attributed to an incorrect understanding of the word “prove”, which it is claimed is here being used to mean “test”. According to this explanation, the phrase means that an exception is the means by which a rule is tested. If the exception cannot be accounted for, the rule must be discarded.
However, the real confusion lies in the use of the word “exception”. Rather than referring to something that does not conform to a rule, “exception” here refers to something that has been deliberately excluded from it. The phrase derives from a translation of a Latin legal maxim, Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis, which may be translated as “the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted”. So a shop sign stating the exception, “Open late on Thursdays”, implies a rule that the shop does not open late on the other days of the week.
'Off your own back'
This phrase is often used to refer to something done using one’s own initiative. But in origin it is a cricketing idiom, and should correctly be “off your own bat” – distinguishing runs scored through the batsman’s skill from “extras” accrued without hitting the ball (byes, wides, no-balls, overthrows). This phrase is one of many cricketing idioms in regular use in English. The traditional association of cricket with fair play and good sportsmanship has given rise to expressions such as “play with a straight bat”, meaning to behave honestly, and “it’s just not cricket”, to refer to any behaviour that flouts common standards of decency.
Off his own bat: Joe Root is rarely stumped when he’s playing it straight. Anthony Devlin PA Wire/Press Association Images
If we find ourselves in a tricky situation we may be “stumped”, or “on a sticky wicket”. Someone who has lived to a ripe old age is said to have enjoyed a “good innings”, a phrase which compares long life to a successful period spent at the batting crease, while euphemisms for death include “close of play”, or the “drawing of stumps”.
'One foul swoop'
This phrase, used to refer to something that happens all at once, or in one go, should properly be “one fell swoop”. It is first recorded in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, where it is used by Macduff on learning of the cruel murder of his wife and children by the tyrannical king: “All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam, at one fell swoop?”
“Fell” is an archaic word meaning “fierce” or “deadly”, which only survives in this phrase and in the word “felon”.
Macduff’s use of the phrase imagines Macbeth as a ferocious bird of prey diving down to carry off his family in its cruel talons. Because the word “fell” is otherwise obsolete, people frequently replace it with a similar alternative, most commonly “foul”, but sometimes “full” and even “fowl” (even though chickens are hardly known for their aggressive swooping).
'Begs the question'
This phrase is often used as if it means “raises the question”, but that is not its original application. It originates in a logical principle discussed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle that refers to the practice of assuming something that an argument sets out to prove.
Raising the question: ‘Why wasn’t Aristotle’s phrase translated correctly?’
A crude example of this logical fallacy might be an argument that claims that, since Britain would be better off outside the European Union, the referendum vote was a positive outcome. Since this conclusion is based on an unproven assumption, it carries no force.
More commonly, arguments of this kind are subtle attempts to argue on the basis of an untested claim, so that the phrase is frequently used to mean “evades the question”. Much of our confusion may be blamed on the 16th-century translator who chose to render the Latin name for this fallacy, petitio principii, rather inaccurately as “beg the question”, instead of using a more literal – albeit somewhat less snappy – formulation such as “laying claim to a principle”.
All of which raises the question of common usage. Can we be said to be using a phrase incorrectly if it has assumed a new meaning by being repeatedly used in a certain way? That’s a whole different story.
Simon Horobin, Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Is it worth trying to save a common English expression from incorrect usage? That is the question raised by Oxford Professor Simon Horobin’s article about five such phrases. I long to say yes, especially when the corrupted phrase is quite meaningless. In our house we have not a few times rolled our eyes and exchanged tragic looks on hearing a voice from the television saying, “The proof is in the pudding,” so it was with a certain smug satisfaction that I found this particular mangled saying at the top of Prof Horobin’s list.
Sadly, it may be too late to save the original. For one thing, it is nine words long compared with the new version, which is only six, and in a contest between brevity and meaning today, brevity is bound to win. Perhaps you have some bugbears of this nature you would like to share in the comments.
Beside the real problems of the world, of course, English usage simply doesn’t rate. One of these is drug addiction, which is ruining many lives. From Cincinnati in the US, social researcher David Lapp writes about a young man who was introduced to drugs(through marijuana) at the tender age of 13 but who now, at the age of 25, has found a way to take control of his life again. It’s an important story, one that shows there is always hope for a person who really wants to change.
Carolyn Moynihan
Deputy Editor,
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