ASK SUE-BELINDA

THANK you to Jo and Ed for your great question about burning. Jo and Ed are regular readers of the column (thank you!) and they wrote to me about “burning expressions”.

It seems they were enjoying a morning cuppa over the Bulletin when one announced in response to an article: “That really burns me”. There was some heated discussion about the expression and a few others, followed by an email in which they asked what was the origin of burn-related expressions and how long have they been around.

Well, I’ve had a slip of paper on the desk beside my keyboard and I’ve been jotting down expressions for a bit over a week now – burn the midnight oil, burnt to a crisp, burning through something, burn the candle at both ends, burn your bridges, burning a hole in my pocket, burning desire, my ears were burning, burn with a blue flame, burn daylight, burn for you, burn off, keep the home fires burning, burn up, burn to a cinder – I ought to have begun with a larger piece of paper!

Well, I’ve not enough words in my column limit to discuss them all so I’ll pick the eyes out and go with them.

Burn your bridges – this expression is the oldest dating back to our friends the Romans.

In the days before easily located bridges, the Roman legions would sail up rivers to meet their army wishing to cross the river to the other side. They would lash their boats together effectively forming a bridge from one side of the river to the other. All men would then march across the boats to prepare for battle. Next came the question of what to do with the boats? Should they be kept in place as a makeshift bridge or cast adrift or even burnt.

If they stayed, the enemy may retreat over them and escape, if they burnt them, then there could be no retreat. “Burn your bridges” evolved from the earlier expression “burn your boats”. If you destroy the bridge or what that bridge represents in your metaphor (the friendship of someone, your position of trust, your reputation, lines of supply etc.) then there can be no change of heart, you are committed and can only move forward.

Burn the midnight oil – in days past, there was no electricity and artificial light was created by candles or the lamplight of oil lamps. Both candles and oil for lamps were expensive and used only when necessary.

So, if something was so important that you would stay up working on it, completing it or worrying about it, necessitating burning candles or lamps, you were said to be “burning the midnight oil”. If it grew to be midnight it was very late indeed as most folk kept “bird hours” working between the hours of dawn and dark and staying awake much beyond darkness was late indeed for those of meagre means. The term first appears in print in Emblemes written by Francis Quarles in 1635. He wrote: “Wee spend our mid-day sweat, or mid-night oyle; Wee tyre the night in thought; the day in toyle.”

To burn through something – this expression is relatively modern and the first print mentions are found during the post-World War I era. This period marks the beginning of many “slang” expressions. An example of this expression might be “Tom burnt through his $3 million inheritance in six short months with nothing to show for it”. This would mean that he had gone through the money with such speed that it might just as well have been consumed by fire. Either way, he had nothing to show for it.

Keep the home fires burning – this expression dates back to Anglo-saxon times before the fifth century in England. During this time communities, often of extended family groups, might have to travel far on hunting expeditions. When night fell, it would be difficult to find your way back to the settlement, so those who had been left behind, the old, the very young and women to care for them would light bonfires that illuminated the night and guided the hunters home again. Once home, a meal would be shared before resting for the next day’s hunt.

In 1914, Ivor Novello wrote a song (lyrics were penned by American poetess Lena Ford) that took its name from this expression. Now the fires were in the hearths of homes waiting for sons and fathers to be guided back when they returned from war. By February 1916, more than one million copies of the sheet music had been sold and translations carried out in at least six languages.

Burn the candle at both ends – if a candle burns at both ends, it burns twice as fast and is consumed twice as quickly. The expression was in such common use that when Nathan Bailey penned his Dictionarium Britannicum in 1730 he makes reference to several applications: he notes that wealth when inherited rather than earnt, is like a candle burnt at both ends – something valuable but consumed quickly and recklessly. He notes that the meaning implies reckless waste.

Burn daylight – this one sounds quite modern, but comes in fact from the pen of Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet (1595) Mercutio uses the expression to mean to waste time during daylight hours just as burning candles or torches during the daylight would be a waste of resources. In 2020 it’s enjoying a resurgence in use. The film industry uses it often as the natural daylight offers better lighting and wasting daylight hours leads to expensive resetting of scenes.