By Brian E. Strayer
Kick the Bucket
If someone told you that a mutual friend had “kicked the bucket” last week, what would you think? Doubtless you would consider their use of that phrase an insensitive way of informing you of your friend’s demise. So why do we use that phrase to convey the idea of death?
Centuries ago in Europe, condemned criminals were executed in a variety of ways. They could be burned at the stake, beheaded, hanged, broken on the wheel, drawn and quartered, or simply tortured to death. Over the course of time, however, hanging became the preferred method of ending a criminal’s life. Dragging the accused up the steps onto an elevated wooden platform, the executioner and his team jammed a knotted loop of stout rope (called the noose) over the criminal’s head and bound it tightly around his neck.
Before the invention of the hinged drop door, the condemned was forced to stand on a bucket. When all was ready, the executioner kicked the bucket from beneath the accused’s feet. Unfortunately, in many cases, this did not provide sufficient force to break his neck. Instead, as the noose tightened around his throat, the poor victim, kicking and gagging, gradually choked to death. By the 19th century, the invention of the drop door hastened the criminal’s demise. Google a good website about methods of execution in Early Modern Europe this week!
Face the Music
My mother dearly loved Frederic Chopin’s piano compositions. I can remember as a boy lying on the living room floor pasting stamps into my albums and listening to one after another of Chopin’s “Polonaises” on the old LP stack-loader Hi-Fi record player.
But when she raised her voice and told me that if I didn’t do something she’d requested right away, I would soon “face the music,” I knew instinctively that she was not talking about Chopin’s ten “Nocturnes.” Failure to respond immediately would bring the hand of teaching down onto the seat of learning in a rather painful manner. Where did this colorful expression originate?
In Early Modern Europe, many armies marched onto the battlefield to the tunes of military music played by their regimental bands. The beating of the big bass drums helped soldiers march in step. It also intimidated the enemy whose soldiers faced them across the field. One of the last orders their commanding officer shouted before the bugles called for the charge was to “face the music.” That meant that the soldiers must now stop marching, turn their faces toward the band at their front, and await the order to charge the enemy. They knew instinctively that after “facing the music,” the unpleasant task of killing the enemy or being killed oneself would soon follow. Google a good website about military tactics in Early Modern Europe this week!
Next week: Let the cat out of the bag
