Unexpected Origins of Common English Idioms
When aiming to enhance your language with vivid expressions, consider utilizing idioms, which can add depth and emotion to your speech or writing, a strategy often employed by professionals from a thesis writing service.
The English language is full of weird idioms. Let’s look back through history to find the origin of a few of them.
‘To Blackmail’ means to demand money from somebody by means of immoral measures like violence, threats, or the potential to disclose private information. The idiom originated in Scotland around 1600. Scottish farmers paid the rent in silver coins. They were known as ‘white money’ and spelled like ‘mail’ or ‘male’. Additional payment, which clan chiefs extorted from the farmers using violence and threat was known as ‘blackmail’. Later, this word was adopted when around 1900 criminals started to send letters demanding money in order not to reveal personal secrets (Dalton, 2014).
