What Is The Origin Of (225)?…
A word in edgeways
There is an art to conversation. In a perfect world, a conversation is between two or more people, each of whom has the time and opportunity to put forward their point of view. Comments may be laced with wit, sarcasm or may just be downright rude and the subject matter may veer from one thing to another. It is one of the joys of having the gift of language to engage in witty, illuminating conversations with friends, family and acquaintance.
But not everyone abides by the unwritten rules of conversation. Often, more often than I care for, I encounter someone who likes the sound of their own voice, who is full of their own opinions and unwilling to pass the baton of conversation on to others in the circle. In these circumstances, I find it hard to get a word in edgeways, to break into the conversation.
The root of the phrase is the word edgeways and, perhaps unsurprisingly because of our nautical heritage, it owes its origins to our nautical friends. Bringing a boat into harbour is a tricky business, with all the other boats moored at anchor to avoid. The experienced captain would slowly inch their way slowly to their intended destination by turning the boat to the starboard and then to port, a manoeuvre known as tacking. A painstaking business, to be sure, and to the observer the boat seemed to be edging its way forward.
This form of tacking, edging, was used particularly by captains of ships that were either not so adept at handling windy conditions or when it was blowing a gale. One of the first uses of it, in print at least, is to be found in Captain John Smith’s account of The generall historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Islands, from 1624; “it being but a faire gale of wind, we edged towards her to see what she was.”
But edgeways, a compound word formed from edge and way, made its appearance in the English language midway through the 16th century and meant “with the edge turned forward or towards a particular point.” That it predates Smith’s usage of edge in a nautical sense does not necessarily mean that it did not come from the argot of sailors. England was already a maritime nation by then and edging was a technique in the armoury of any competent sea-captain.
It didn’t take much longer for edging to be used in a figurative sense and, in particular, in relation to that everyday human activity, talking. David Abercromby in his Ars artium; or the art of Divine Converse, published in 1683, wrote, “without giving them so much time as to edge in a word.” The inability to break into a conversation or to get your point of view across was clearly not a modern-day predicament.
The use of the adverb edgeways in the context of conversation seems to have been a 19th century development. In 1821, in a one-act play called Twelve precisely! Or A night at Dover, one of the leading characters, Sir Ferdinand Frisky (great name) says, “Curse me, if I can get a word in edgeways.” Three years later Mary Russell Mitford, in a collection of rural sketches called Our Village, wrote, “As if it were possible for any of us to slide in a word edgewise!”
And there we have it.
