December 8, 2000

go to the mat

Lately I have heard two or three different political pundits on TV say that Bush, Gore, or both are willing to "go to the mattress" in this election controversy. Isn't the original expression go to the mat? The latter expression brings to mind a wrestling match; I hesitate to speculate what those who say "go to the mattress" are thinking of.

Bush and Gore going to the mattress? They say that politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is ridiculous! Of course you're absolutely right--about the phrase itself and its origins in wrestling. The pundits surely meant to say that Bush and Gore would go to the mat--that both candidates were determined to continue their post-election struggle until one side or the other won conclusively. The image evoked by that phrase is of two wrestlers locked in sweaty combat, each unwilling to concede until finally pinned to the mat.

However, our shared conclusion is complicated by the existence of go to (or hit) the mattresses (note the plural form) which, according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, means 'to arm oneself heavily and fortify a place...as refuge from enemy gang members'. Can the political war have gone this far? I can't believe that this was the intended meaning.

The phrase go to the mat has been around since the early 1900s, although it has appeared in literary contexts that are somewhat less violent than one might have expected, e.g.: "I...heard...you and Aunt Constance going to the mat about poor old Phyllis" (Wodehouse, 1924). Etymologically, mat and mattress are at most very distantly related. Mat comes from Old English matte, derived from Late Latin matta 'mat of rushes', in turn coming from an early Semitic language; compare Hebrew mittah 'bed'. Mattress, from Middle English materas, derives, through Old French and Italian, from Arabic (also a Semitic language) al-matrah 'mat, cushion'. Although the words are semantic siblings--each referring to a padded object used to keep one off the hard floor--the most likely reason for the commentators' confusion of two semantically disparate phrases is simply the similarity in sound between mat and mattress.

There can be a number of reasons for mangling what should be a frozen expression, including mishearing ("It's a doggie-dog world" for "...dog-eat-dog") or misunderstanding what you do hear ("We're at your beckoned call" for "...beck and call"). See, for example, the early Word-of-the-Day column on mondegreen. But in this mat/mattress case, the speakers--accustomed to using idioms and metaphors without thinking--groped for the sound and just weren't paying attention to the meaning. As a result, we have a malapropism--unfortunate, in that such things detract from a speaker's serious intent.

Rutgers University professor Jack Lynch, in an on-line Guide to Grammar and Style, cites a similar mangled cliché to illustrate the dangers of using stock phrases without thinking: "A U.S. Senator, trying to reassure his constituents that the budget talks were going well in spite of the apparent chaos, told reporters, 'It's always darkest before the storm,' rather than 'before the dawn,' suggesting that things are going to get worse, not better."

But we all occasionally fall victim to misspeaking; these confusions are all around us. A nice collection has been gathered by "friends and survivors of the Calvin College English Department." The chosen phrases may seem too good to be true, but they are said to be genuine--read or overheard by those who submitted them. One of their more disconcerting clichés where, like mattress for mat, the confusion is based on sound, is: "Those two get on like a horse on fire."

But this discussion doesn't even begin to cover the topic. There are also mixed metaphors ("One must not drop anchor until one is out of the woods," attributed to President Harding) and, my personal favorites, blends, where two familiar phrases are mangled by mingling ("You've buttered your bread; now lie in it"). But we'll get to them. I'll be burning the midnight oil at both ends.

Enid