Words and Their Stories: English Expressions With Kick
04 June 2011
Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
(MUSIC)
From birth to death, the word
kick
has been given an important part in expressing human experience. The proud and happy mother feels the first signs of life
kicking
inside her womb. And that same life -- many years later -- comes to its end in a widely-used expression,
to kick the bucket
, meaning to die.
The expression to kick the bucket is almost two hundred years old. One belief is that it started when an English stableman committed suicide by hanging himself while standing on a pail, or bucket. He put a rope around his neck and tied it to a beam in the ceiling, and then kicked the bucket away from under him.
After a while, to die in any way was called kicking the bucket.
Another old expression that comes from England is to
kick over the traces
, meaning to resist the commands of one's parents, or to oppose or reject authority. Traces were the chains that held a horse or mule to a wagon or plow. Sometimes, an animal rebelled and kicked over the traces.
The word kick sometimes is used to describe a complaint or some kind of dissatisfaction. Workers, for example, kick about long hours and low pay.
There are times when workers are forced to
kick back
some of their wages to their employers as part of their job. This kickback is illegal. So is another kind of kickback: a secret payment made by a supplier to an official who buys supplies for a government or company.
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