expressions o’ the day:
I recently heard the expression “canary in a coal mine” for the first time. Initially I thought it had something to do with the color–the bright yellow canary against the dark of the coal mine. That theory is completely wrong; it actually has to do with the fact that the canaries are more sensitive to possible toxic gases in the mines than humans, so the birds’ getting sick is a warning sign to the miners. And, in fact, there’s a whole wikipedia page about “animal sentinels.”
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I was recently thinking about the phrase “third time lucky.” ( I was probably listening to Foghat.) I guess the more common version in the U.S. would be “third time’s a charm.” I’ve always thought this had to do with the cultural significance of the number three (probably originated with the holy trinity (?), and shows up all over, like in baseball: three strikes, three bases (or four, but you know what i mean), or in Shakespeare: MacBeth‘s three witches, three visions, etc.). I don’t know if that’s true or not, but in looking into the expression I found this, which is vaguely amusing in that way the 1910s are:
The first citation I can find for it is in The Weekly Sentinel, June 1912. This is in a rather snooty court report about a Mrs. Martha Carliss, who had been twice married previously…:
That Mrs. Martha Carliss evidently believes in peace and happiness in wedlock and that she probably thinks third time’s a charm is shown by the fact that she was granted a license today to marry Andrew W. Mowery.