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History
These Common English Expressions Have Gruesome Origins
These popular phrases all have roots in London’s dark past
Have you ever stopped to consider the etymology of the common phrases we use all the time? What I’ve learnt from 10 years as a London tour guide is a surprising amount of popular parlance may actually be about public executions….
One for the road
Admittedly, there are a few origin stories attributed to this one. But if tour-guiding lore, that sacred knowledge passed down through the generations, is to be believed, it’s this.
When convicts were travelling on the wagon from the notorious Newgate Prison to be hanged at the Tyburn tree on modern-day Oxford Street, they would pass a church that had next door to it a pub.
Legend has it, the priest of that church would stand outside and offer the condemned men one last drink to steady their nerves. One for the road.
On/off the wagon
Leading right on from “one for the road”, the unfortunate fellow tasked with driving these men to their deaths couldn’t partake of a drink himself — he was on the wagon.
If he decided to join in anyway and had one too many, he might fall off the…
