August 2008 Issue.

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readme:

Well, here we are again, a mere month after the last issue.  Such an unseemly rush.  I may have to go lie down for a month or two.  Just kidding, maybe.

Speaking of such things, as you may know, people who subscribe to TWD-by-Email receive these columns at the same time actual newspapers do, which is some time before they are posted to this website, “some time” around here usually meaning anywhere from two to six months.  At the moment, however, due to a few lapses in my posting schedule, we are running about eight months behind, meaning that the columns in this issue were sent to subscribers back in November and December of 2007 (which explains the Christmas and Thanksgiving references you may notice in a few columns).

I have been posting more columns each month (18) than I write (12), so the gap will narrow eventually, but it will never vanish entirely.  There will always be at least a two-month delay.  So it behooves me to note that you can jump this tedious queue and read this stuff in real time by simply subscribing for a measly fifteen bucks per year.  It’s a win-win deal — you get to read the columns right away, and I get to pay my gas bill and buy cat food.  What’s not to like?

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By the way, the price of TWD-by-Email hasn’t increased since Day One, which was back in 1995.  If this site were a gas station, there would be lines around the block. So fill up now!

Lastly, I have started a “sideblog” (the link is over there in the right sidebar) where we can post links to interesting language-related stuff, so feel free to send me links.

And now, on with the show…

 

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Sleep tight.

Filed Under August 2008, columns | 1 Comment 

Swing low, stale guest.

Dear Word Detective:  A few years ago, I toured the Oakley Plantation house within the James Audubon Memorial Park south of St. Francisville, LA.  During the tour they showed us a bed with ropes supporting the mattress.  They mentioned that when a guest had outstayed their welcome, the servants were instructed to loosen the ropes so the mattress sagged.  My memory escapes me, but it seems this act was associated with a phrase.  The phrase would be ancient since ropes are no longer used to support a mattress, but perhaps someone has heard of this before.  If you have never had the opportunity to visit the Oakley Plantation House, I highly recommend it.  The best time to visit is late February or March when the Azelas are in bloom. — Bill Jones.

Thanks for an interesting question.  I looked up the Oakley Plantation House on the internet, and it does look fascinating.  It also seems to make quite an impression on visitors, because I found quite a few mentions of the place on personal blogs.  Serendipitously, several of these folks had evidently taken the same tour as you did, and they just happened to mention the story that the tour guides told you about the beds.  I was already fairly certain that I knew what phrase you were having trouble remembering, but it’s nice to get such precise confirmation of my hunch.

So let’s go to the tape and quote the story directly from one of these blogs: “The beds at the time did not have box springs, but instead had ropes tied tightly underneath the mattress to keep it firm and tight, hence the phrase, ‘Sleep tight.’  When a guest had overstayed their welcome, the household slaves would be instructed to loosen the ropes night by night, causing the mattress to sink in, rendering it more and more uncomfortable.”

Unfortunately, this story shows strong signs of being concocted as an embellishment of the popular theory that “sleep tight” originated as a reference to the “rope beds” mentioned above.  Such beds did indeed exist, and it was important to periodically tighten the ropes to prevent mattress-droop.

But the “tight” in “sleep tight,” meaning “sleep soundly,” almost certainly comes from the use of “tight” and “tightly” to mean “soundly, securely, properly,” a use that dates back to Shakespeare.  The phrase “sleep tight” also first appeared in the mid-19th century, a bit after such beds were popular, and from the first was most commonly heard in variations on the classic rhyming bedtime salutation “Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”  The impulse of tour guides to tie the phrase “sleep tight” to beds sporting ropes that had to be kept tight must be nearly irresistible, but I’m afraid that doesn’t make it true.  The good news is that the part about driving guests away by loosening the ropes probably isn’t true either.

 

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