Welcome to the second segment of . . . The Wonderful Words of Wednesday. Quite the mouthful, eh? To shorten it I'll call it Dub^3.
For those of you who are new, Dub^3 is the time of the week when you get a dictionary thrown at your head and are forced to learn the meaning of the random words or phrases that fascinate me.
This week, I decided to choose a phrase to analyze: "Kick the bucket". How come when someone dies, they are said to have kicked the bucket? Were people punished in the olden days whenever they kicked buckets around? Was there a time when buckets were dangerous and killed you when you kicked them? Is the bucket filled with nitroglycerin?
After a little research, I believe I've found a pretty good explanation as to why buckets are kicked when people die. The first link between buckets and death was made in approx. 1785 when it appeared in Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: "To kick the bucket, to die."
The phrase is speculated to have arisen from the notion that when people hang themselves, they stand up on a bucket with a noose around their neck and kick the bucket away to bring about their end.
Another explanation is that "bucket" has another meaning. It also refers to the beam from which animals (mainly pigs) are hung by the feet before slaughtering. Therefore, kicking the bucket would be in reference to the spasms the animal goes through once it's dead.
What a happy note to start your Wednesday, eh? Oh well, at least you learned something. Knowledge is power! The more you know, the more you grow.
References here and here
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