Origin of Expression - Spill the Beans!
Back for another round this week, when I investigate and share the story behind a common expression we use.
If your not familiar with this expression, it generally means to reveal or divulge some information, often a secret.
You could use it in a sentence to say; "Phil's wife spilled the beans when she accidentally told him the gender of the baby coming in April" (has not happened yet, but potentially a huge possibility).
But is it canned beans, or jelly beans or coffee beans?
Actually it does't matter, since it's not really about beans.
There is an old story that was actually the origin I was familiar with, which is in fact wrong or a myth that's being passed out. The false origin is about ancient voting from the like Greece or Rome when votes were held by everyone placing a colored bead or bean or stone into a jar or helmet. Then if someone who was moving the jar or casting a vote accidentally 'spilled the beans' the results of the secret ballet would be revealed.
Looks like the real linguist experts looked into this and determined it's not the origin at all, just some clever story that's floating around. If you've been following these posts, you'll see this seams to be quite common practice and it's certainly pretty neat and tidy compared to the real origin.
The experts have been able to trace it to being used first in the early 1900s. The first reference was in relation to horse racing and mostly just meant the results were an upset or unexpected results. Then it was recorded around the 1915s to have the common meaning about revealed a secret.
The real origin is quite clear about the use of the word spill since this is pretty much the real definition. Spilling is of course spilling to it makes perfect sense. Spill is often used in other similar expression, like "spill your guts" or if you "take a spill"
The "beans" part is way less clear. There is some usage of the word beans in reference to something without any value or something worthless like "not worth a bean" or "mound of beans" There is also some documented uses around the same time in the early 1900s when bean was often used in reference to money. This is where they put 2 and 2 together and figured this is why 'beans' was used in the initial horse racing expression. Since when the horse lost the race the gambler would be out a lot of money.
There's still no clear explanation for the change in meaning to our current one, but appears it was adopted by politics and there of course the outcome could be upset be secrets being revealed so perhaps that's how the transition occurred.
Well there we have it, it got a little confusing this week. If only the voting explanation was the real one
Footer by @bearone
Great sleuthing!! I'm sure that either a boy or girl, will be welcome and loved 😀.
@phelimint You are never going to Spill your Beans. We need to Keep STEEMIT as Spill Proof as Possible.................
Yeah, any spills will last forever on the block.
Good info @phelimint! I always enjoy your origins of phrases!
Thx man, It's a fun one to write.
Another good one. You hoping your wife spills the beans or would you like to wait until the baby is born? If you do decide to spill the beans you should do one of those reveal parties like athletes, where they hit a ball, shoot a puck etc and the puck/ball explodes into either pink or blue, that would be a fun way to reveal your new baby's sex
No no, the plan was not to find out, but she changed her mind at the ultrasound, so now she knows and I don't and I don't want to. I like surprises.
Spill the beans , hope you did not spilled the beans on the platform :).
I did not know about this expression but i am fammiliar to something called gossip .
A term used to describe that something is said and it shouldnt be said .
I must say, that's very detailed and informative. Thanks for sharing.
Once you run out of sayings to give us backgrounds on you need to come up with your own sayings and then you can record the origin on the block chain. Think how much time will be saved when researching the origin of said saying for future generations.
There you go man, just start my own expressions and try to popularize them.
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I think my teacher told me that story at school about voting, they need to get there facts straight!! Cheers bud
These are FASCINATING. Thank you for sharing. I really love learning about these as the origins of little sayings like this have always made me curious. The voting explanation did make a lot of sense, too!