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Do you wonder why we say certain things, or what they really mean? Each week we will examine a different word or phrase and tell you how it came about. 20th century, because the source was included, as High This week it is...Over the moon Diddle Diddle, in the influential 16th century nursery Very happy or delighted. This phrase has been part of the language for more rhyme collection, Mother Goose’s Melody; or Sonnets than a century. It became more widely used in the late from the Cradle, circa 1760: High diddle diddle, twentieth century, when it was adopted by English The Cat and the Fiddle, The Cow jump’d over the Moon, The little dog laugh’d to see such Craft, football managers in interviews after a victory. The increased use of televised post-match interviews And the Dish ran away with the Spoon. and hours of studio commentary during the 1970s As with most nursery rhymes, the first appearance in brought many football managers before the cameras. print may well post-date the first use by years, centuries Before that they were usually British ex-footballers who even - children didn’t write their rhymes down. The had left schools in the English or Scottish back streets text of such rhymes inevitably varied over time and, early to play football. It’s fair to say that many of them whatever the origin may have been, the version passed had little interest in the finer points of English grammar. down to us is quite probably nonsense and isn’t easily The satirical publication Private Eye had a regular interpreted. What is clear is that the ‘over the moon’ column, ‘Colemanballs’ which lampooned the utterances line is a reference to excitement and energy. That’s of professional sports participants, commentators and evidenced by one of the earliest allusions to the phrase in print - Charles Molloy’s The Coquet, or, The English other celebrities, which made the phrase popular. The actual origin of ‘over the moon’ is much earlier and, Chevalier, 1718: although not widely used before the 1970s, it would “Tis he! I know him now: I shall jump over the Moon have been familiar to all who grew up in Britain in the for Joy!” get across town and down great coffee at net café
Last week’s solution
Across 1. Small African antelope, Thompson’s ___ (7) 4. Parasitic arachnids (5) 7. Bone forming part of a cage (3) 10. Simian (3) 11. Feline (3) 12. Freshwater fish, resembling catfish (5) 13. Sign of the zodiac aka The Ram (5) 14. Domestic goat raised for its silky hair (6)
16. Deciduous horn of one of the deer family (6) 20. Omnivorous mammal of Central/ S.America (5) 21. Small plant-sucking insect (5) 23. Young goat (3) 24. Young bear (3) 25. Female swan (3) 26. Ophidian (5) 27. Tropical birds with short, hooked beaks (7)
Down 1. Largest anthropoid ape (7) 2. Striped African equine (5) 3. Bloodsucking worm (5) 5. Talons (5) 6. Woolly ruminant (5) 8. Male red deer (4) 9. Pertaining to birds (5) 15. European freshwater food fish (5) 17. Small gnawing animals (7) 18. Long-snouted fresh water fish with lean flesh (4) 19. Web-footed, broadbilled swimming birds (5) 20. Venemous elapid snake of Africa and Asia (5) 21. Small terrestrial viper (5) 22. Massive thickskinned animal of Africa, in short (5)
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