Could
you please tell me the origin of the words hot dog and hat trick?
Thank
you very much.
Roger
Woodham replies:
hat
trick
A hat trick was originally performed by a conjurer at a circus or variety
show. The conjurer or magician pulled rabbits or other impossible items out of
a top hat as if by magic.
In a sporting context, it was first used in the game of cricket in 1887
to describe an unlikely situation where a bowler takes three wickets with three
successive balls. This entitled the bowler to pass his hat around the ground for
a collection of cash, or he might have been presented with a new hat or cap by
the club he represented.
This
usage quickly spread to the game of football to describe three goals scored by
the same person in a football match:
Geoff
Hurst's hat trick in the 1966 World Cup Final will always be remembered
by English football fans.
It
has since spread to describe similar situations in other games:
Now
as he approaches the tenth green, he's on a hat trick of birdies. A birdie
on the eighth. A birdie on the ninth. Let's see if he can make it three in a row
with a birdie on the tenth.
old
hat
If
something is old hat, it is out of date or obsolete or so well-known and
familiar that it has become uninteresting or boring. The expression is thought
to originate from the fact that hats, and particularly ladies' hats, tend to go
out of fashion long before they are worn out.
Wearing
a tie with a jacket - for young people, that's really old hat.
hot
dog
For
those among you who don't yet know this Western delicacy, a hot dog is
a sausage, especially a frankfurter, inserted lengthways into a hot bread roll
and garnished with onions, ketchup or other relishes. It originated in America
and was an invention attributed to Henry Stevens, a caterer with the New York
Stadium in 1900. There may have been an allusion to the 'sausage' dog or dachshund
which is roughly the same shape.
A
diet of hot dogs, pumpkin pie and ice-cream sundaes is not good for your
waistline!
On
the pier there were all the usual side-shows, plus hot-dog, hamburger and
ice-cream stands.
Note
that we also have to hot dog in slang usage, possibly derived from top
dog or best person, meaning to show off or perform very well in skiing or surfing:
If you can hot dog on two-metre-high waves, you are king!
Similarly,
hot dogger (noun):
On
Bondi Beach in Australia, we noticed that almost every wave carried a hot-dogger
performing tricks - fast slides, rapid turns, cut-backs and flick-offs. They
were hot-dogging for all they were worth.
hot
pants
Hot
pants were very brief skin-tight shorts originally worn by young women in
the early 1970s in Britain - 'hot' because they looked sexy.
The
mini skirt is back in fashion, but I don't think hot pants ever will be.
hot
potato
A
hot potato is a delicate or tricky situation that has to be handled with
extreme care.
The new law is politically a hot potato for the government as many people
are very unhappy with it.
As
you will know, the original hot potatoes are difficult to handle when you
take them out of the oven or pluck them from the barbeque fire. Care has to be
taken not to drop them!
If
you want to practise using some of these words look at our in the You, Meand Us part of our website. Or can
you think of any more expressions using 'hot'?
