Old saying that pulls its weight

QUESTION Where did the phrase chock-a block (to mean over-full) come from?

This is of 19th-century nautical origin. sailing ships used hoists called block and tackle to raise cargo and swing it onto the deck or into holds.

The block is a wooden device with an arrangement of pulleys which allowed heavy weights to be raised by sailors pulling on the ropes. Two or more of these blocks were sometimes put on a single rope system to allow the lifting of very heavy cargo. When working the system hard, the two blocks sometimes jammed together. At this point they were said to be choked, or chock-a-block.

so when the ship was being heavily loaded and the pulley systems being worked to their limits, the term would often be heard, as in, ‘hauling the reeftackles chock-a-block’ (1840).

it’s thought the ‘chock’ part is derived from the term chockfull, also meaning stuffed or crammed full. This dates to Middle English.

it can be found in sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1400): ‘Charottez chokkefulle charegyde with golde.’ T. Baines, Milford Haven, Pembs.

QUESTION Timothy Treadwell, who claimed he loved bears more than humans, was killed by one. What other ironic deaths have there been? FurThEr to earlier answers, Bobby Leach was a daredevil famous for going over the Niagara Falls in a barrel back in 1911, a drop of 180 ft.

That fall fractured his jaw and broke both kneecaps, but did not kill him. it would define his life and he embarked on many publicity tours thereafter.

On one such tour, he slipped on orange peel. he broke his leg, which became infected with gangrene and was eventually amputated. he died from subsequent complications.