In a cleft stick
In a cleft stickMeaningIn a position where advance and retreat are both impossible; in a fix.OriginWhen we cleave something we split it into two pieces and it is then said to be 'cleft' or 'cloven'. These archaic-sounding words aren't commonly used alone these days and only persist in phrases like 'cleft-palate', 'cloven-hoofed' and 'in a cleft stick'. Cleft sticks are those which are split at one end, i.e. forked sticks. These were used as simple tools for carrying small items such as bundles of paper or candles. Jonathan Swift makes a reference to such in his 'Directions to Servants' in Works, circa 1745:"You may conveniently stick your candle in a bottle, or with a lump of butter against the wainscot, in a powder-horn, or in an old shoe, or in a cleft stick."Swift's use, although hardly serious, is a literal one and doesn't suggest the figurative use, which is first recorded in the correspondence in William Cowper's Works, 1782:"We are squeezed to death, between the two sides of that sort of alternative which is commonly called a cleft stick."'In a cleft stick' originated in the UK and its use elsewhere is limited. How then did it come to mean 'in a difficult situation, unable to move'? As is so often the case, there is more than one theory. Theory One has it that cleft sticks were used to capture snakes, pinning them to the ground so that they were unable to move. Theory Two suggests that cleft pegs were used to punish over-talkative women, pinching their tongues so that they were unable to speak. The first theory has the advantage of closely matching the meaning of the phrase - snakes certainly are sometimes caught and made immobile using split sticks. Also, the first citation of the use of a cleft stick to catch a snake predates references in other contexts. That comes in the Review of the Works of the Royal Society of London, 1751, in which Captain Silas Taylor described 'A Way to Kill Rattlesnakes':Procure a cleft Stick, and put into the Notch of it, a Quantity of the bruised Leaves of wild Pennyroyal; direct the End of the Stick towards the Serpent's Nose; as he avoids it, still pursue him with it; and in half an Hour's Time he will be killed by the mere Scent of the Herb. It is unlikely that the English antiquary Taylor ever came within a stick's length of a rattlesnake and his rather roundabout method of dispatching them isn't quite the evidence we are looking for. On to Theory Two. In 16th century England, any women who was considered to be a scold, i.e. a user of abusive or ribald language, especially against her husband, was in danger of being punished in a fearsome apparatus called a 'branks', also known as a 'scold's bridle' or gossip's bridle'. The device was an iron cage with a tongue that projected into the mouth of the victim and prevented speech. They A branks might look like a prop from a Ye Olde Englande B-feature, but they were widely used punishments throughout the Middle Ages. In 1890, when William Andrews published Old-time Punishments, Walton-on-Thames Parish Church had such a device on display. It was dated 1632 and inscribed with this little couplet:Chester presents Walton with a bridleTo curb women's tongues that talk too idle.The early English settlers to the USA didn't bring these punishment devices with them and other methods for chastising unruly women were used there. The Records of the Town of East-Hampton, 1639-1680, transcribed and published in 1883, record the use of the alternative 'cleft stick' method in the case of a woman described as "very ignorant, selfish and imperious":February 2, 1652. "It is ordered that Goody Edwards shal pay £3 or have her tongue in a cleft sticke for the Contempt of a warent." In addition to their superficial plausibility, what the two theories given above have in common is an American source. The phrase isn't American though and doesn't appear in print there until many years after Cowper's 1782 citation. It is more likely that 'in a cleft stick' never did refer to a specific item but to the general condition of immobility when stuck between a cleft stick's jaws. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Wright ● 6615d0 Comments