Buzz
As autumn arrives, Halloween traditions dominate the scene. Streaming platforms showcase their top horror shows, pumpkin-themed items flood grocery stores, and neighbors transform their yards with an abundance of festive decorations.
You begin to notice the spooky in everyday language, even when it’s not tied to Halloween. To celebrate the season, here’s a look at the history behind five chilling phrases, from skeletons in the closet to graveyard shift.
Skeletons in the Closet
Keeping someone’s skeleton in your closet is deeply incriminating and embarrassing, making it a perfect metaphor for a hidden, shameful secret. When this phrase became popular in the early 19th century, it frequently alluded to family secrets. For instance, in a 1815 lecture, physician Joseph Adams noted the tendency “to hide the skeleton in the closet,” referring to a family’s history of hereditary illness. William Makepeace Thackeray, who is credited with bringing the phrase into literary prominence, wrote in an 1845 issue of Punch magazine, “Every house has its skeleton.”
The exact origins of skeletons in the closet remain uncertain. One theory traces it back to Bluebeard, a French folktale included in Charles Perrault’s renowned 1697 anthology of fairy tales. Bluebeard, a wealthy man, prohibits his wife from entering a particular room in his castle. When she defies him, she discovers the room contains the bodies of his former wives.
Another theory proposes that the phrase stems from the 18th- and early-19th-century practice of grave robbing to provide cadavers for physicians and medical students. Since this practice angered the public, it’s conceivable that a doctor might conceal stolen skeletons when not in use—though no concrete evidence supports this idea.
The Witching Hour
A late-19th-century depiction by Harold Copping. | Culture Club/GettyImagesBroadly defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, the witching hour signifies “the time, particularly the darkest part of the night, when evil or ominous events are thought to occur most frequently.” The phrase was influenced by the ancient superstition that witches and other supernatural entities are at their most powerful and active during the midnight hours.
But when exactly does the witching hour occur? While midnight is the most commonly cited time, some believe it spans from midnight to 3 a.m. or even 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. Shakespeare, one of the earliest to document this belief, didn’t pinpoint a specific time. In Hamlet, the prince remarks, “ ’Tis now the very witching time of night, / When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out / Contagion to this world.” (Though most characters remain awake, suggesting it might not be as late as 3 a.m.)
By the mid-1700s, Shakespeare’s witching time had evolved into the witching hour, as seen in Elizabeth Carolina Keene’s 1762 poem “Nightmare”:
“ ’Tis the baleful witching hour,Lo! the moon withdraws her light;Hark! from yonder mould’ring tow’rScreams th’ ill-boding bird of night . . . ”
Devil’s Advocate
Today, a devil’s advocate refers to someone who argues against a popular opinion, whether to play the role of a persistent contrarian or to thoroughly explore all perspectives on an issue. However, this term originated as an official role. In the Roman Catholic Church, the devil’s advocate (advocatus diaboli in Latin) was responsible for challenging the case of a candidate being considered for sainthood (or beatification, a step toward sainthood). This role ensured that any fraudulent miracles or hidden secrets were brought to light.
The term’s origins are traced back to the papacy of Pope Leo X, between 1513 and 1521, though the position wasn’t officially established until 1587. Known formally as promotor fidei, Latin for “promoter of the faith,” the role has since lost its central importance in the canonization process, thanks to reforms by Pope John Paul II in the 1980s.
Make Your Blood Curdle (Or Run Cold)
Could this make your blood curdle? | CSA Images/GettyImagesWhen something makes your blood curdle or run cold, it instills deep fear within you. The Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms notes that both phrases stem from medieval theories about the body’s four humors, with blood being one of them. “In this framework, blood represented the hot and moist element, so the sensation of horror or fear causing blood to run cold or curdle (solidify) disrupted its role in providing the body with essential warmth and energy,” the book explains.
Even without the connection to the four humors, these expressions align with other fear-related metaphors. If your blood runs cold and goosebumps cover your skin, you’re undoubtedly facing a spine-chilling, hair-raising moment. Conversely, if your blood curdles, it becomes too thick to circulate, leaving you frozen in fear.
However, to curdle the blood wasn’t always limited to fear; it originally encompassed any “intense negative emotion,” according to the OED, particularly “fear or dread.” Its first recorded use, in Edmund Spenser’s 1579 poem The Shepheardes Calender, addresses more than just fear. It describes the despair of February’s fleeting sunshine tricking you into believing spring has arrived, only for winter to return, “Drerily shooting his stormy darte, / Which cruddles the blood, and pricks the harte.” The result is “weeping, and wayling, and misery.” A truly bloodcurdling experience, though not in the eerie way we commonly understand it today.
Graveyard Shift
Legend has it that the term graveyard shift originally described the act of spending the night in a graveyard to rescue anyone mistakenly buried alive. However, historical evidence doesn’t back this eerie tale. In reality, graveyards had no connection to the phrase. Early references to graveyard shift and graveyard watch, which became common in the late 19th century, simply describe jobs or duties taking place during the late-night hours.
“All major gambling houses operate three shifts for each game. The shift after midnight, often called the graveyard shift, has no clear reason for its name compared to other time slots,” a Pennsylvania newspaper reported in 1888. Other sources mention graveyard shifts and watches spanning 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. or 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., further emphasizing late-night work.
Gershom Bradford’s 1927 Glossary of Sea Terms suggests the graveyard watch (from 12 a.m. to 4 a.m.) earned its name “due to the high number of disasters occurring during this period.” However, a 1929 nautical reference attributes the name to “the profound silence aboard the ship at this time.” Given the natural stillness of the late-night hours, the latter explanation seems particularly fitting.
