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- Volume LVIII
Volume LVIII
Three expressions and their surprising origins
I. Can’t hold a candle 🕯️
This one first showed up in the mid-1700s in Europe, well before electric lighting was the norm, when people actually read and worked by candlelight.
Apprentices — think blacksmiths, craftsmen, tradesmen — had a clear pecking order, and the intern equivalent was the one stuck holding the candle so the skilled workers could operate. If you couldn’t even hold a candle, you weren’t good enough to help with the simplest task.
From there, the meaning carried over to someone or something not worthy of being in the same tier.
It’s why frozen TJs doesn’t belong at the same table as grandma’s cooking, buses (even if free) don’t stack up with the subway, and regular season hoops shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath as playoff basketball.
It’s no disrespect. Some things just aren’t playing the same game.
II. Win by a landslide 🗳️
Throughout history, landslides have been sudden, violent events. Massive amounts of rock and earth breaking loose, picking up speed, and burying anything in their path.
But the catch phrase we know today didn’t gain popularity until 1880 — when the American newspapers claimed the scruffy faced congressman from Ohio, James Garfield, as winning the presidency in an overwhelming ‘landslide.’
To the naked eye it was: Garfield took 214 of the 369 electoral votes. But the headlines were as misleading in the late nineteenth century as they are today. Garfield only won the popular vote by a slim 2,000 votes.
As our history buffs know, the headlines and celebrations were short lived: Garfield’s presidency — and his life — was ended four months into his term at the hands of a Webley British Bulldog revolver.
III. Basket Case 🧺
After World War I, rumors spread of soldiers who’d lost all four limbs being carried around in baskets because no wheelchair could hold what was left. The U.S. Army publicly denied these men existed, which is exactly the kind of denial that makes you wonder.
The term resurfaced in WWII with the same grim image and official pushback. By the ’50s, it had softened into slang for anyone mentally falling apart. A full journey from battlefield horror to something you call yourself after losing your car keys or spilling your morning cup of joe.