It’s the last straw you’ll ever grab

QUESTION What is the origin of the phrase ‘clutching at straws’?

THIS refers to the way a drowning person will clutch at anything in an attempt to save their life – even straws, which, though they float, offer no prospect of supporting a person’s weight.

When we clutch at straws, we are pinning our hopes on a vague possibility of being helped.

Straw appears in a number of metaphors because it is a product of little value. An obsolete usage is to not give a straw, which means you couldn’t care less; a man of straw was an unworthy opponent; and to condemn someone to straw was to declare them ready for the asylum.

In business, people talk about a straw man – where a person’s argument is misrepresented by their opponent to make it easier to attack; a weak idea that can be challenged until it falls apart.

The first known citation of the phrase ‘to clutch at straws’ in the modern sense was made by cleric John Prime in his 1583 book Fruitful And Brief Discourse: ‘We do not as men redie to be drowned, catch at every straw.’ Bob Cubitt, Northampton.

QUESTION A sixpence was known as a ‘tanner’ or ‘sprazie’ and the shilling was a ‘bob’. What were the origins of these terms?

FURTHER to the earlier answer, another nickname for the sixpence, a coin worth half a shilling, was a ‘bender’.

Due to its silver content, it could be bent with your fingers to create love tokens.

Sixpence was also enough to get inebriated.

Taverns would allow you to drink all day for tuppence, so sixpence could pay for a threeday session, giving rise to the expression, ‘going on a bender’. Ian Ringrose, Morecambe, Lancs.