English is a colorful language

                    English is a colorful language.      

             I have always been fascinated by the use of idioms in the English language. Usually, there is no literal correlation of the words spoken to the meaning conveyed. The phrase is just an assemblage of words that have come together, by popular usage, to represent a certain meaning. Usually, the meaning is transitory and the phrase lasts but a generation. “Wrong way Corrigan,” “23 skidoo,” and a dozen other once popular idioms would only bring a look of puzzlement to modern listeners today, hearing them perhaps for the first time. Certainly, all students of English would scratch their head when hearing such colloquial gems as “That dog won’t hunt.” (something that won’t work)

        There are many phrases that survive the centuries, reinforced over and over again by ensuing generations until the meaning is crystal clear, even if the outward verbal utterance is less than socially acceptable. One of those time-tested and colorful phrases is “They were so poor that they didn’t have a pot to piss in.” I can remember hearing this rather earthy appraisal, regarding a family’s economic status, on any number of occasions while growing up. I never really knew the source of  its provenance. I figured that it was just one more colorful idiom that had arisen in the American vernacular, much to the horror of our British cousins.

            In fact,  it turns out the phrase is actually British in origin, originating from Elizabethan London. At the time, the leather tanneries had their principal factories deep in the bowels of the poorer sections of greater    London. These wily manufacturers had found that human urine was of great use to them in the tanning of hides and making quality leather products. I don’t know the nature of the chemical reaction, just that it helped the leather makers turn out a leather product with a smoother finish.

          As a consequence, the thrifty makers of leather offered the surrounding populace a penny for a pot of their nightly discharge. The citizens had to collect said leavings and carry them to the factory daily for their penny. It was a good source of income for them. But, like all such groupings, there were people in their midst who had not the financial wherewithal to even afford the humble pot that was necessary to garner the needed nightly leavings. The other citizens, not too charitably, had sneeringly referred to these poorer neighbors as someone who was so poor that “they didn’t even have a pot to piss in.” Thus, one of the more colorful idioms of the English language was born. Naturally, it was carried across the ocean by arriving immigrants to the United States. It has survived these several centuries and is still in colloquial use today.

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                                    (469 words)

                               Joseph Xavier Martin