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James Hervey by Thomas Kitchin (1718-1784)[1]

"Blessings in Disguise", 1865.[2]

A blessing in disguise is an English language idiom referring to the idea that something that appears to be a misfortune can have unexpected benefits. It first appeared in James Hervey's hymn "Since all the downward tracts of time" in 1746, and is in current use in everyday speech and as the title of creative works such as novels, songs and poetry.

The phrase originated in the hymn "Since all the downward tracts of time" by James Hervey (1714-1758), first published in "Reflections on a Flower-garden. In a letter to a lady" (1746), a volume in his best known work, Meditations and Contemplations (1746-1747), but composed earlier. In the hymn, Hervey meditated on the wisdom of accepting whatever God, in his infinite wisdom, chose to bestow on us, even things that appeared at first to be negative, because they were "blessings in disguise":

Since all the downward tracts of time

God's watchful eye surveys,

O who so wise to choose our lot

Or to appoint our ways?

Good when He gives, supremely good,

Nor less when He denies;

Ev'n crosses from His sovereign hand

Are blessings in disguise.

Why should we doubt a Father's love,

So constant and so kind?

To His unerring, gracious will

Be every wish resigned.

The draft manuscript of "Reflections on a Flower-garden", along with other works by Hervey, is held by the University of Leeds Special Collections.

The phrase has been used in a variety of mediums. In 1865, a cartoon titled "Blessings in Disguise" from the American Civil War era showed Confederate states president Jefferson Davis surrounded by cities in which the Confederates had been defeated, asking whether the losses were a "blessing in disguise" that prevented the Confederate Army being stretched too thinly. A Chinese folk tale tells of how an injury saved a man's life by preventing him from being killed in battle. The phrase is expressed in the words An Zhi Fei Fu. In 1900, The British Medical Journal commented on a number of cases where an assault or injury inadvertently led to the curing of a medical condition, describing them as surgical blessings in disguise.

In the modern era, the phrase has been used as the title of multiple books, such as the novel of that name by Danielle Steel (2019), songs by Michael McDonald, Michael Martin Murphy and others, and as the name of a charity.

Related phrases are "count your blessings", meaning to be grateful for the good things that have happened to you and not spending time regretting the bad, and a "mixed blessing", meaning something that has good and bad aspects.

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A blessing in disguise is an English language idiom referring to the idea that something that appears to be a misfortune can have unexpected benefits. It first appeared in James Hervey's hymn "Since all the downward tracts of time" in 1746, and is in current use in everyday speech and as the title of creative works such as novels, songs and poetry.

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A BLESSING IN DISGUISE definition: 1. something that seems bad or unlucky at first, but results in something good happening later: 2.... Learn more.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A dime a dozen is an American English idiom, meaning "so common as to be practically worthless".

A Dime a Dozen or Dime a Dozen may also refer to:

"A Dime a Dozen", an episode in season 1 of the detective series Hawaiian Eye

A Dime a Dozen, a 1952 episode of the radio anthology Stars over Hollywood starring Jan Sterling

A Dime a Dozen, a 1998 book by American children's author Nikki Grimes

Dime a Dozen, a 1962 revue by Julius Monk's troupe

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A dime a dozen is an American English idiom, meaning "so common as to be practically worthless".

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https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dime-a-dozen?q=A+dime+a+dozen

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A DIME A DOZEN definition: common and not special: . Learn more.

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Start the Beat around the bush article, using the Article Wizard if you wish, or add a request for it; but please remember that Wikipedia is not a dictionary.

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1. to avoid talking about what is important: 2. to avoid talking about what is…

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disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Better Late Than Never. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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1. said when you think that it is better for someone or something to be late…

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

" Biting the bullet" is a metaphor which is used to describe a situation, often a debate, where one accepts an inevitable impending hardship or hard-to-refute point, and then endures the resulting pain with fortitude. The phrase (as "bite on the bullet") was first recorded by Rudyard Kipling in his 1891 novel The Light that Failed.

It has been suggested that it is derived historically from the practice of having a patient clench a bullet in their teeth as a way to cope with the pain of a surgical procedure without anesthetic. Evidence for biting a bullet rather than a leather strap during surgery is sparse, although Harriet Tubman related having once assisted in a Civil War amputation in which the patient was given a bullet to bite down on. It has been speculated to have evolved from the British expression "to bite the cartridge", which dates to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, but the phrase "chew a bullet", with a similar meaning, dates to at least 1796. It may be helpful for modern audiences to recall that in the era of the origin of this phrase bullets were typically made of lead, a very soft metal, and would have been independent of any charge or cartridge.

The phrase was used in a literal sense in the 1975 film Bite the Bullet. One of the characters has a broken, aching tooth and cannot get treatment. He uses a shell casing to cover the exposed nerve; the slug was removed from the cartridge, the cap was hit to expend the charge, and the casing was cut down to allow it to sit level with his other teeth.[better source needed ]

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia " Biting the bullet" is a metaphor which is used to describe a situation, often a debate, where one accepts an inevitable impending hardship or hard-to-refute point, and then endures the resulting pain with fortitude.

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BITE THE BULLET definition: 1. to force yourself to do something unpleasant or difficult, or to be brave in a difficult.... Learn more.

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" Break a leg" is a typical English idiom used in the context of theatre or other performing arts to wish a performer " good luck". An ironic or non-literal saying of uncertain origin (a dead metaphor), "break a leg" is commonly said to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform or before an audition. Though the term likely originates in German, the English expression is first attributed in the 1930s or possibly 1920s, originally documented without specifically theatrical associations. Among professional dancers, the traditional saying is not "break a leg", but the French word .

Yiddish-German pun theory

Most commonly favored as a credible theory by etymologists and other scholars, the term was possibly a loan translation from the German phrase Hals- und Beinbruch, literally "neck and leg(bone) break", itself a loan translation from, and pun on, a Yiddish phrase (Yiddish: הצלחה און ברכה, romanized: hatsloche un broche, 'success and blessing', Hebrew: hatzlacha u-bracha), a wish for good luck, because of the Yiddish phrase's humorously similar pronunciation to the unrelated German phrase. For example, Luftwaffe pilots are reported as using the phrase Hals- und Beinbruch to wish each other luck. The German-language term continues to mean "good luck" but is still not specific to the theatre.

Superstition theory

The urbane Irish nationalist Robert Wilson Lynd published an article, "A Defence of Superstition", in the 1 October 1921 edition of the New Statesman, a British liberal political and cultural magazine, regarding the theatre as the second-most superstitious institution in England, after horse racing. In horse racing, Lynd asserted that to wish a man luck is considered unlucky and so "You should say something insulting such as, 'May you break your leg!'" Thus, the expression could reflect a now-forgotten superstition (perhaps a theatrical superstition, though Lynd's 1921 mention is non-theatrical) in which directly wishing a person "good luck" would be considered bad luck, therefore an alternative way of wishing luck was employed. Lynd did not attribute the phrase in any way to theatre people, but he was familiar with many of them and frequently mingled with actors backstage[clarification needed ].

The aforementioned theory regarding Hals- und Beinbruch, a German saying via Yiddish origins, suggests that the term transferred from German aviation to German society at large and then, as early as the 1920s, into the American (or British and then American) theatre. The English translation of the term is probably explained by German-speaking Jewish immigrants entering the American entertainment industry after the First World War. The alternative theory that the term reflects an ironic superstition would date the term as originating around the same time.

The earliest published example in writing specifically within a theatre context comes from American writer Edna Ferber's 1939 autobiography A Peculiar Treasure, in which she writes about the fascination in the theatre of "all the understudies sitting in the back row politely wishing the various principals would break a leg". American playwright Bernard Sobel's 1948 The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays describes theatrical superstitions: "before a performance actors never wish each other good luck, but say 'I hope you break a leg.'" There is some anecdotal evidence from theatrical memoirs and personal letters as early as the 1920s.

Other popular but implausible theories

The performer bowing

The term "break a leg" may refer to a performer bowing or curtsying to the audience in the metaphorical sense of bending one's leg to do so.

The performer breaking the leg line

The edge of a stage just beyond the vantage point of the audience forms a line, imaginary or actually marked, that can be referred to as the "leg line", named after a type of concealing stage curtain: a leg. For an unpaid stand-by performer to cross or "break" this line would mean that the performer was getting an opportunity to go onstage and be paid; therefore, "break a leg" might have shifted from a specific hope for this outcome to a general hope for any performer's good fortune. Even less plausible, the saying could originally express the hope that an enthusiastic audience repeatedly calls for further bows or encores. This might cause a performer to repeatedly "break" the leg line, or, alternatively, it might even cause the leg curtains themselves to break from overuse.

Allusion to David Garrick

During a performance of Shakespeare's Richard III, the famed 18th-century British actor David Garrick became so entranced in the performance that he was supposedly unaware of a literal fracture in his leg.

Audience chair legs

Various folk-theories propose that Elizabethan or even Ancient Greek theatrical audiences either stomped their literal legs or banged chair legs to express applause.

Allusion to John Wilkes Booth

One popular etymology derives the phrase from the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln, during which John Wilkes Booth, the actor-turned-assassin, claimed in his diary that he broke his leg leaping to the stage of Ford's Theatre after murdering the president. The fact that actors did not start wishing each other to "break a leg" until as early as the 1920s (more than 50 years later) makes this an unlikely source. Furthermore, Booth often exaggerated and falsified his diary entries to make them more dramatic.

There is an older, likely unrelated meaning of "break a leg" going back to the 17th and 18th centuries that refers to having "a bastard / natural child".

Professional dancers do not wish each other good luck by saying "break a leg;" instead they say , the French word for "shit". In turn, theater people have picked up this usage and may wish each other merde alone or in combination with "break a leg". In Spanish, the phrase is mucha mierda, or "lots of shit". In Portuguese, it's muita merda, with the same meaning. This term refers to the times when carriages would take the audience to the theatre. A quick look to the street in front of the venue would tell if the play was successful: a lot of horse dung would mean many carriages had stopped to leave spectators.

Opera singers use , an idiom used to ward off a spell or hex, often accompanied by knocking on wood, and onomatopoeic, spitting (or imitating the sound of spitting). Saliva traditionally was supposed to have demon-banishing powers. From Rotwelsch tof, from Yiddish tov ("good", derived from the Hebrew טוב and with phonetic similarities to the Old German word for "Devil"). One explanation sees "toi toi toi" as the onomatopoeic rendition of spitting three times. Spitting three times over someone's head or shoulder is a gesture to ward off evil spirits. A similar-sounding expression for verbal spitting occurs in modern Hebrew as "Tfu, tfu" (here, only twice), which some say that Hebrew-speakers borrowed from Russian.

An alternate operatic good luck charm, originating from Italy, is the phrase In bocca al lupo! (In the mouth of the wolf) with the response Crepi il lupo! (May the wolf die).

In Australia, the term 'chookas' has been used also. According to one oral tradition, one of the company would check audience numbers. If there were not many in the seats, the performers would have bread to eat following the performance. If the theatre was full they could then have "chook" -Australian slang for chicken - for dinner. Therefore, if it was a full house, the performer would call out "Chook it is!", which became abbreviated to "Chookas!" It is now used by performers prior to a show regardless of the number of patrons; and may be a wish for a successful turnout.

In Russian, a similar tradition existed for hunters, with one being told Ни пуха, ни пера! ( romanized: Ni pukha, ni pera, "Neither fur nor feather") before the hunt, with the reply being ( romanized: K chiortu, "Go to hell"). Today, this exchange is customary for students before an exam.

Both the 2001 Broadway musical comedy The Producers as well as the 2005 film version of the musical features a song titled "It's Bad Luck To Say 'Good Luck' On Opening Night", in which the novice producer Leo Bloom is instructed that the proper way to wish someone good luck on Broadway is to say "Break a leg". Moments later, the show's star is seen to break his leg-preventing him from performing-and in a later scene he breaks his other leg.

Macerena, Vintage.(2019)."The theories and origins of nonsense and tomfoolery in the modern age". Journal of Cultural Reference. Pg 134-136.

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" Break a leg" is a typical English idiom used in the context of theatre or other performing arts to wish a performer " good luck". An ironic or non-literal saying of uncertain origin (a dead metaphor), "break a leg" is commonly said to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform or before an audition.

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BREAK A LEG definition: 1. used for wishing someone good luck, especially before a performance 2. used for wishing someone.... Learn more.