Burn the candle at both ends

Filed Under March 2008, columns | 2 Comments

Lock, stock and balderdash.

Dear Word Detective: I’m a historical re-enactor and often give public demonstrations. For years I’ve shown my matchlock musket and explained that the match was usually lit at both ends to in case one end went out. I’ve told groups that the the phrase, “burning your candle at both ends” comes from this when it was originally “burning your fuse at both ends.” Please let me know if I’m correct and expound on this if possible. — Lloyd.

candle08.pngLloyd, Lloyd, Lloyd. I have one question. Did someone tell you that story, or did you cook it up yourself? If it was a gift, I would disregard any stock tips that person offers you. If you arrived at that explanation yourself, I commend you for your inventiveness, and implore you to stop. All around the world, innocent tourists are eagerly swarming to historical theme parks, roadside museums, ancient ruins and modern reenactments of famous events, only to stagger away hours later in a daze, their tiny, tender minds stuffed full of misinformation in the form of just such colorful anecdotes. Then they go home and write me to ask if “sleep tight” really comes from the days when colonists snoozed lashed to the rafters, or some such nonsense. I say “no,” and bam, I’ve retroactively tarnished their vacation. Everyone loses. And that’s not even counting the death threats I get from the gang at Colonial Williamsburg.

Just kidding about the threats. But the story of “candle” originally being “fuse” isn’t true, although it did prompt me to research matchlock musket technology. The “match,” of course, is really a bit of “match cord,” a slow-burning fuse (originally hemp cord) that was touched to the powder in the “pan” atop a musket, leading to the main charge exploding and the gun firing. Keeping both ends of the match burning makes sense to me, but, then again, I didn’t know a musket from a muskrat an hour ago.

One of the most basic things wrong with that story is that it doesn’t match the sense of “burning the candle at both ends” as the phrase is commonly used. A matchlock “match” lit at both ends would apparently be a good idea, but “to burn the candle at both ends” means to consume one’s energy with excessive work, little sleep, etc., a lifestyle generally considered a bad idea.

The earliest uses of the phrase in English (it was adapted from a French saying in 1611) also make it clear that a candle, at that time an expensive household necessity, was involved. The original meaning, in fact, was specifically financial — a couple in which both the husband and wife were spendthrifts was said to be “burning the candle at both ends,” wasting precious money in two different directions at once. The more general sense of “to burn oneself out through excess work or play,” though now the most common usage, was a later development.

 

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Work-brickle

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For peanuts.

Dear Word Detective: My paternal grandfather and father both used the term “work-brickle,” usually to describe what a lazy person wasn’t, as in “Don’t count on it being done today — that feller ain’t exactly workbrickle.” Somehow that term popped back into my head the other day, and I asked Unca Google where it came from. Unc had no real idea. So I’m turning to you. Do you know where the term “work-brickle” or “workbrickle” comes from? — Gregory Bloom.

workbrickle08.pngAh yes, good old Unca Google, bottomless well of … something. We’re not sure what. Sometimes searching Google produces quick and accurate answers, but much of the time it’s like peering into a huge room where everyone is shouting nonsense and bouncing off the walls.

As you probably gathered from the few mentions of “workbrickle” you found in your Googling, the word seems to be a major mystery. Everyone agrees on its meaning, “willing and eager to work; industrious,” but no one seems to know where it came from. One source suggests that “to brickle” a horse is antiquated slang for “breaking” it, i.e., taming it enough to be ridden. Thus “workbrickle,” goes the theory, would mean “resigned to or recognizing the necessity of work.” It’s a nice theory, and it may even be true, but I think the origin of “workbrickle” lies elsewhere.

While the Oxford English Dictionary makes no mention of “workbrickle” or “brickle” as a verb, it does have an entry for “work-brittle” with the same meaning of “eager to work, industrious,” dating back to 1647. This is obviously the same word, “brickle” being the Scots and English dialect form of “brittle” and a form common in the Midwestern US and Appalachia. But as far as the origin of “work-brittle” goes, the OED throws up its hands, noting that the “brittle” part appears to be the same word as “brittle” meaning “easily broken,” but “the sense-development remains obscure” (i.e., “beats us”). No dictionary of slang or dialectical terms I own offers any further information.

At this point in my research I sat for a while staring at my computer screen, and then suddenly realized where I had encountered the “brittle-brickle” pair before. “Peanut brittle,” easily breakable (thus “brittle”) hard toffee containing peanuts, is also known, in the US, as “peanut brickle.” There are other sorts of “brickle,” containing cashews, chocolate bits, etc, but in each the featured element is embedded in a sheet of not-terribly-exciting hard toffee “brittle.” The essence of a “brittle” is that added ingredient.

Now, it seems to me that if one were to take “brickle” as a metaphor for “full of” or “characterized by large amounts of,” then someone said to be “workbrickle” (perhaps originally “a workbrickle”) would be full of eagerness and dedication to the job, much as we speak of a “workaholic” today but without the negative overtones. Granted, it’s just a theory, but I find it very tasty.

 

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