There are any number of everyday sayings that started out as phrases in literary works.
The example that comes most easily to mind is Hamlet. The script virtually acts as a Rosetta Stone of phrases that were probably fresh when first penned by William Shakespeare, but have since devolved into clichés. We won’t have time to explore all these in this entry; besides, Wikipedia has us covered.
Before introducing the two phrases I’d like to explore, a couple of honourable mentions:
- As a euphemism for death, the phrase kicking the bucket has been around for centuries. However, bucket list as an inventory of life goals was only created for the 2007 film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.
- The musician Alanis Morissette is credited in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first person to use the phrase friends with benefits. I’ll let you look that one up for yourself.
Monkey’s Paw
Last week at writing group, one of the members used the phrase monkey’s paw. Having never heard it before, I assumed this was the invention of the Internet era, perhaps in reference to some meme or another. As such, I was surprised to find it dates back to 1902, specifically a short story by W W Jacobs. With those initials, it’s a real shame he didn’t live to see the World Wide Web.
The story centres around a mummified monkey’s paw which has been cursed. The owner will be granted any wish by the paw, but always with unforeseen consequences. This has come to apply to any similar situation in real life where the positive effect is outweighed by the negative.
The Monkey’s Paw is now in the public domain and can be read on the Project Gutenberg website. On the whole, I feel it’s well-written, but I would like to have seen more time taken to ramp up the tension before the third wish was used.
Jekyll & Hyde
On Thursday of last week, I went with a couple of pals to a stage production of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; a search reveals the title is apparently not prefixed with The.
The concept of a Jekyll and Hyde character is so widely known that even those unfamiliar with the Robert Louis Stevenson novel often understand his duality. I too wasn’t particularly familiar with the story, but I enjoyed its execution and I’d be interested in reading it in full.
This particular adaptation took the source material and turned it into a one-woman stage production. Additionally, I’m already acquainted with the writer (J D Henshaw) and the performer (Heather-Rose Andrews), and we had a brief discussion after the show about the staging of it.
There was, unfortunately, just one scheduled performance or I would urge you to go and see one.
Gavin Cameron 