Q&A: Knock on wood?

Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, opportunity knocks…

Q: Hi AWC, knock knock.

A: Who’s there?

Q: No, it’s not a joke.

A: No, it’s not a joke, who?

Q: Stop it! I have something about “knock” to ask!

A: Ooooh, sorry about that. What is it?

Q: Why do we say “knock on wood” to hope for the best?

A: Good question. Merriam-Webster dictionary says it is “used interjectionally to ward off misfortune”.

Q: Oh, how funny – my mother was Miss Fortune 1979!

A: Oh, the same year Amii Stewart’s Knock on Wood came out.

Q: Well thanks for THAT ear worm.

A: You’re welcome. Anyway, Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary is a little wordier with its definition: “a saying appended to a statement about something good, in the hope of averting the bad luck that the positive nature of the statement may bring, that is, the opposite coming true.”

Q: Sounds about right.

A: Curiously, “knock on wood” is listed as being “Mainly American” in usage. In Britain and down here in Australia/NZ, many prefer to say “touch wood” for the same thing.

Q: Good point. Even so, wood is the common theme – so what’s so special about touching wood to stop bad things happening?

A: The most likely theory seems to date back to pagans like the Celts who believed that spirits lived in the trees. So, when you knocked on a tree it was seen as thanks to the gods for blessing them.

Q: It sounds like the plot to that Avatar movie with all the blue people…

A: Christians kept the wood theme going with the symbol of the wooden cross and the phrase itself is likely to have entered widespread English usage by the 18th century, but some form of “knocking three times for luck or to stave off evil” has found its way across many cultures throughout Europe and parts of South America, Egypt, Russia and India, to name just a few.

Q: Wow, quite the global traveller.

A: Want to hear more about “knock”?

Q: Yes please!

A: The word has been in use since at least the 12th century, from a family of Germanic/Saxon words that include knob, knot, knuckle and even gnarly. By the 1600s, to “knock up” was to bang on someone’s door – but with it also meaning “to copulate with” at that time.

Q: That makes sense – as to be “knocked up” nowadays means pregnant!

A: That’s right, although to “knock someone up” originally meant to punch them, yet to “knock something up” in Britain was also to make something quickly. The Online Etymology Dictionary only lists the “get pregnant” meaning from 1813. And in related news, by the 1860s, brothels were known as “knocking-shops”.

Q: Charming.

A: Boxing did get part of its meaning back, with “knockout” introduced to boxing in 1887. The exact definition being ‘to stun by a blow for a 10-count’. 

Q: Okay, we’ve knocked ON wood. What about all the ways to knock off?

A: Okay, well the oldest is to “knock off work” as in to stop, and that actually dates all the way back to the 1640s. In a similar vein, to tell someone to “knock it off” – i.e. to stop – came along in the 1880s. And finally, to “knock someone off”, like a hitman, is newer still – from 1919.

Q: What about when you go to Bali and buy a ‘knock-off’ handbag for $5 (haggled down from $6)? 

A: Remember “knock something up” being to make something hastily? Well, by 1817, to “knock off” also meant that. But it wouldn’t be until 1966 that the term “knock-offs” began being used for the finished product – and we’ve been getting bargains ever since.

Q: Absolutely. I love my “Lui Vaton” bag and “Gymmy Chew” shoes. 

A: Haha, yes they sound very authentic.

Q: Any other “knock” phrases?

A: Sure. To “knock down” something at an auction goes back to 1760. Being “knock kneed” – having knees bend in to touch each other when standing – became a description in 1774. And if you teased someone about it after 1893, you’d be “knocking them”. Finally, people started “knocking back” drinks in 1931 – right at the beginning of the Great Depression, so it makes sense.

Q: Ahem, what about, er…

A: What about what?

Q: Ummm, what about “knockers”?

A: Oh, okay. Knockers – as a large iron ring used as a “door banger” dates way back to the 1590s. But it wasn’t until 1941 that the word was first attested as slang for a woman’s breasts.

Q: Phew. I’m glad I got that off my chest.

A: Shall we do some more phrases?

Q: Sure, knock yourself out.

A: Ah – well that’s a good one right there. “Knock yourself out” since the 1930s has often been used in a negative, such as: “I know the deadline is tomorrow, but don’t knock yourself out getting it done” – akin to exhausting yourself. However, from the mid 20th century, it also came to informally mean, “go ahead – feel free”. Both are especially popular in North America.

Q: The School of Hard Knocks? Is it a real school?

A: No – it’s simply a metaphor for life’s hardships. It seems to have been first published in 1870 and was a favourite of newspaper journalists in the early 1900s.

Q: Back when schools actually gave you hard knocks…

A: True.

Q: I feel like there are still a lot more “knock” phrases.

A: Yep. We could be knocking all day.

Q: Okay, well let’s finish with a fun one: “You could have knocked me down with a feather!”

A: Haha, nice. Said to denote surprise, this idiom appears to have first appeared in 1796 in a book called Porcupine’s Works by William Cobbett. 

Q: Thanks! We really knocked it out of the park this week.

A: We did, and that one was originally literally to hit a home run in baseball, but has since came to mean any great achievement.

Q: Well, I have to go and pick up my new “Goochy” knock-off sunglasses. I hope they suit my face.

A: Knock on wood!

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