Doom express.
Dear Word Detective: Why do we say that someone is “going to Hell in a handbasket”? Why a “handbasket”? What exactly does the full expression mean? — Sharm.
Well, it means that person is in a heap o’ trouble, on a slippery slope, circling the drain and on the road to perdition. But before we all get to gloating, we should note that a lot of us seem to be “handbasketeers” today. A quick search of Google News turns up more than 300 recent news media uses of “hell in a handbasket,” including this cheery note from the New York Daily News: “The economy is going down the drain, the cost of living is going through the roof, and low-income New Yorkers are going to hell in a handbasket” (July 11, 2008). And things are no better Down Under, to judge from the Australian newspaper The Age: “It’s hell in a handbasket time, or so it seems judging by the recent rush of bad news on all fronts” (July 20, 2008). It looks like buying stock in a handbasket manufacturer may be your best bet at this point.
I first tackled this question back in 1996, with limited success. Unfortunately, the origin of “going to hell in a handbasket,” meaning “to deteriorate, especially rapidly,” hasn’t become any more certain in the years since. We do know that the phrase is an American invention, and that it first appeared in print, as far as we know, in 1865: “Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would ’send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.’”
The question, of course, is “why a handbasket”? Is there something particularly diabolical about handbaskets (small baskets with handles, usually used for carrying fruit or flowers) that makes them suitable for conveying one to Hades? The answer appears to be no, since “going to hell in a handcart” seems to be a popular variant in Britain, and “going to hell in a bucket” is popular on the internet (as well as a wide variety of lame puns such as “going to hell in a Hummer” and “in a handbag”).
I think the addition of “in a handbasket” (or “handcart”) served two purposes. The first is simple alliteration, always a good way to make a phrase catchy and memorable. The second, the idea of being carried to hell in a basket or cart, makes the journey more concrete in the listener’s mind, since “go to hell” by itself is a worn phrase hardly anyone takes literally anymore. The basket or cart also implies swift and irrevocable transport to doom.
A friend of mine suggested it stemmed from the baskets used to catch the heads at the guillotine. I suspect that is so “obvious” it must be wrong.
Although it may have become such, I don’t see speed as the essential element in the phrase. Instead I see someone being so messed up that what’s left of him can can be delivered there in a handbasket (or handcart, as the case may be).
“Handbasket” is also a term for the woven gondola which carries passengers below a hot-air or other balloon. The first manned flights of hot-air balloons were in 1783, in France. Before the first untethered flight in France, there was concern that the balloon might fly to heaven or hell, and King Louis XVI decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, although two French balloon pioneers successfully petitioned him for the honor. Balloons were also used on both sides during the U.S. Civil War for surveillance and map making, so soldiers in 1865 could have easily been familiar with the term. Believe it or not, the first Civil War balloon, used at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, was named the Enterprise.
I always figured it derived from the conveyance of small animal companions — lap dogs, kittens — in such basket. Like, being carried there swiftly by an external power, with you gormless and ignorant of your doom.
Possibly from old mining practice of lowering children down in baskets to mines through smaller shafts. Fast drop by hand and rope in more primitive mines. Loss of control would be death. Thus “Hell in a Hand Basket” meant a fast plunge into danger/death.
Just a theory…
Hell implies the devil that he is throwing everyone into his handbasket implies to me the methodology of the antichrist. The people of Our world today are selecting for themselves the devil’s handbasket. The handbasket is a mode of transportation.The destination fits the goal of the people conjoined in any democratic society in the world today. Denial of Christ. is antichrist.
Words only mean what we agreethey mean. The same goes for phrases and stories.Parables are the thing.Get this sylogism. A domineerin personality creates a tyrant.A tyrant with power becomes an imperialist.We know power corrupsts. How can we be surprised that those to whom we give power will not turn on us. A safty clause is written into the contract called a fiduciary. Every government official has a duty t think in the best interest of his constituents before he thinks about his oun best interest. Legislators have droped the clause.
I always had the impression that the person going to hell in a handbasket was gliding merrily along, imagining that s/he was being lulled into something unknowingly. The analogy being that many can’t see (or don’t care to see) where they’re headed, as long as they’re comfortable in the process. I always pictured it as Moses floating along the river.
It seems like I hear someone say this expression every day. Here is my reply!
Things are going to hell in a bandbasket:
http://www.youtube.com/drewwcook#p/u/12/567v_GePgro
hi folks,
you have a newsletter?
and also,can you help me with the following meaning…there’s a new england saying, “they have seen the elephants & heard the hooty owl.”
i welcome your help. if you answer it could you direct me.
thanks, joey messina
I wonder if the saying refers to the Mormon handcart pioneers. Leaving from Iowa City going to Salt Lake City. Particularly to the fourth and fifth companies who left in June/July 1856 and arrived in November 1856
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers
I just heard the other day on show about mining, they were talking about that phrase originating
from mining. I can’t remember exactly what they said, I just caught a bit of it. It had to be on
either the History channel or history international or discovery channel or Natgeo.