big deal

An important matter; also, so what, who cares. The differentia- tion between these two phrases depends on the speaker’s tone. An example of the first sense might be, “A first helicopter ride for a five-year-old is a big deal.” The  second  sense  appears  in,  “So  she  got  her  first  choice  of  col- leges—well, big  deal!” This  sense  can  also  be  conveyed  by  no  big  deal. All three usages date from about 1940.

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big cheese, the

The  boss,  an  important  person;  also,  a  self-important person. This term is a slangy Americanism dating from the late nineteenth century, and its etymology is disputed. Some believe it comes from the Per- sian or Urdu word chiz or cheez for “thing”; others believe it is simply a play on the English word chief. There are several synonymous usages, among them big gun, big shot, and big wheel. The first dates from the 1830s. An 1834 citation has  it, “The  big  guns  of  the  nation  are  there  [in Washington].”  The  last  two expressions both date from the 1930s.

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big as a house

Physically large, overweight, said of a person in an unflat- tering  way, as  in “I  saw  Marion  the  other  day  and  she’s  gotten  as  big  as  a house.” Why a house should have been chosen as a simile for a large person

is not clear, but it has been so used for a very long time.

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bide one’s time, to

To wait for the right moment to speak or take action. The verb to bide, meaning “to wait for” since about the year 950, survives today only in this cliché. Frederick W. Robertson used the expression in a sermon

(1853): “They bide their time and suddenly represent themselves.”

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bid adieu Say good-bye.

This  formulaic  farewell  uses  the  French  adieu, meaning “to God,” and has done so since Chaucer’s time. It is now considered rather formal, although it also is used humorously. In fact, humorist Charles Farrar  Browne, under  the  pen  name Artemus Ward, joked  about  it  back  in

1862: “I now bid you a welcome adoo” (ArtemusWard: His Book.The Shakers).

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beyond the pale

Unacceptable, outside the rules of society, morality, etc. The noun “pale,” from the Latin palum, meant a stake of the kind used to make fences, or a fence made of such stakes. By extension it came to mean the limits designated by a fence, at first literally and then figuratively. In the fourteenth century the English Pale was a name given to the part of Ireland then under English rule and therefore within the bounds of civilization (as perceived by the English). There was a similar pale around Calais. More fig- uratively still, the English printer William Caxton wrote in 1483, “The abbot and 21 monks went for to dwelle in deserte for to kepe more strayte- lye the profession of theyr pale.” Three centuries later and three thousand miles away, Thomas Jefferson referred to “within the pale of their own laws.”

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betwixt and between

Neither   here   nor   there,  unresolved;  halfway between  two  alternatives.  Betwixt  comes  from  Old  English  and  originally meant “by two”; now considered archaic, it survives largely in this expres- sion, which dates from the nineteenth century. An 1877 play by Besant and Rice  (Son  of Vulcan,  1.4)  has  it, “She’s  the  fool  and  he’s  the  knave,  so  it’s betwix and between.”

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