This came of a sixteenth-century winter shows ordinary folk going about their daily tasks. The ordinary folk have ordinary names: Dick (short for Richard), Tom (Thomas) and Joan. In a number of idioms and proverbs, the common working man or woman is represented by a name typical of that class. As the sixteenth-century proverb has it, Jacke would be a gentleman if he could speake frenche. (Heywood, Proberbs, 1546)
That familiar pair Jack and Jill have been together since the fifteenth century: For Iak (Jack) nor for Gille(Jill) wille I turne my face (Towneley Cycle of the Mystery Plays, c.1460) Proverbial wisdom has it that Every Jack has his Jill and Good Jack makes good Jill, while their exploits fetching water made known in the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill went up the hill.
Standing alone, Jack represents his gender and class in a number of phrases that have survived from past centuries. JACK of all trades goes back to the early seventeenth century at least, while the proverb All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy dates frm around the middle of that century. Every man Jack, meaning ‘every single fellow without exception’, is quoted by Charles Dickens in Barnaby Rudge (1840). Common Sailors have been known as Jacks, short for Jack the Sailor, since the mid-seventeenth century. The early-twentieth-century phrase I’m alright Jack, to express smug self-satisfaction, originated on board ship but has been current amongst landlubbers since the middle of that century. Only the phrase before you can say Jack Robinson, meaning ‘done swiftly’, gives humble Jack a surname. The origins of this phrase are obscure; perhaps there was such a character. Or perhaps Robinson was regarded as a common enough surname to couple with Jack. Whatever the etymology, the phrase dates from the second half of the eighteenth century.
In the early seventeenth century, a statement by King James I, quoted by Thomas Fuller in his Church-History of Britain (1655), put Jack with a crowd of his common fellows, Then Jack, and Tom, and Will, and Dick shall meet and censure me and my Council (c.1640). In those days a random selection of common names served to denote ‘ordinary men or women’. Only a few years earlier, Shakespeare had similarly flung together Tom, Dicke, and Francis (Henry IV Part I, 1596). By the eighteenth century, however, one particular trio, Tom, Dick, and Harry, had emerged:
And they are with us still, representatives of the rest of mankind:
You go around raking up the past and sharing it with every Tom, Dick and Harry you bump into. (Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, 2003)
That familiar pair Jack and Jill have been together since the fifteenth century: For Iak (Jack) nor for Gille(Jill) wille I turne my face (Towneley Cycle of the Mystery Plays, c.1460) Proverbial wisdom has it that Every Jack has his Jill and Good Jack makes good Jill, while their exploits fetching water made known in the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill went up the hill.
Standing alone, Jack represents his gender and class in a number of phrases that have survived from past centuries. JACK of all trades goes back to the early seventeenth century at least, while the proverb All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy dates frm around the middle of that century. Every man Jack, meaning ‘every single fellow without exception’, is quoted by Charles Dickens in Barnaby Rudge (1840). Common Sailors have been known as Jacks, short for Jack the Sailor, since the mid-seventeenth century. The early-twentieth-century phrase I’m alright Jack, to express smug self-satisfaction, originated on board ship but has been current amongst landlubbers since the middle of that century. Only the phrase before you can say Jack Robinson, meaning ‘done swiftly’, gives humble Jack a surname. The origins of this phrase are obscure; perhaps there was such a character. Or perhaps Robinson was regarded as a common enough surname to couple with Jack. Whatever the etymology, the phrase dates from the second half of the eighteenth century.
In the early seventeenth century, a statement by King James I, quoted by Thomas Fuller in his Church-History of Britain (1655), put Jack with a crowd of his common fellows, Then Jack, and Tom, and Will, and Dick shall meet and censure me and my Council (c.1640). In those days a random selection of common names served to denote ‘ordinary men or women’. Only a few years earlier, Shakespeare had similarly flung together Tom, Dicke, and Francis (Henry IV Part I, 1596). By the eighteenth century, however, one particular trio, Tom, Dick, and Harry, had emerged:
Farewell, Tom, Dick, and Harry,
Farewell, Moll, Nell, and Sue.
(Song, Vocal Miscellany, 1734)
And they are with us still, representatives of the rest of mankind:
You go around raking up the past and sharing it with every Tom, Dick and Harry you bump into. (Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, 2003)
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