Lose your marbles - meaning and origin. Meaning. Lose your wits. Origin. To 'lose one's marbles' is to lose one's mind. In the 1. 95. 4 film The Caine Mutiny Humphrey Bogart linked insanity with marbles when he showed his character, the demented Lt. Queeg, restlessly jiggling a set of metal balls when under stress in court. Bogart's performance was so affecting that many have supposed the film to be the source of the phrase. It is American, but originated in the late 1. The expression has now been shortened to simply 'losing it'. The point is that the person in question has, as in another earlier variant, 'a bit missing'. Perhaps 'marbles' meant 'mind' or 'wits' before 'lose one's marbles' was coined. That's worth investigation at least, so let's have a go. Marbles are, of course, the little glass or metal balls that children use to play the eponymous game. From the mid 1. 9th century 'marbles' was also used to mean 'personal effects', 'goods', or more generally 'stuff'. This latter meaning derives from the French word 'meubles', which means 'furniture'. From the 1. 92. 0s onward two US expressions became established - 'to pick up the marbles' and 'to pick up one's marbles'. These mean 'to carry off the honours or prizes' and 'to withdraw from activity or game and cause it to cease' (like the UK variant 'take one's ball home'). It has been suggested that the 'losing one's mind' meaning derives from the Elgin Marbles. These are the collection of sculptures, some from the Parthenon Frieze, which were taken from Athens by Lord Elgin in 1. The supposition is that the expression derives from the loss of the artworks by the Greeks, or their subsequent loss at sea when the ship that was transporting them sank. An interesting theory, but no more than that; there's no evidence to support the idea. It's more likely that 'marbles' was coined as a slang term meaning 'wits/common sense', as a reference to the marbles that youngsters play with. The notion of 'losing something that is important to you' appears to have migrated from the image of a forlorn child having lost his prized playthings. An early citation of this figurative usage is found in an August 1. St. Louis Globe- Democrat: He has roamed the block all morning like a boy who had lost his marbles. During the late 1. This reference from New Zealand was printed in The Tuapeka Times, in August 1. For I tell you that no boy ever lost his marbles more irrevocably than you and I will lose our self- respect if we remain to take part in a wordy discussion that ends in a broil. Lose Your Marbles, Free Download by SegaSoft. Playing Jar of Marbles you will have to make marbles vanish from a jar. Lose Your Marbles PC at GameSpy - Check out the latest Lose Your Marbles cheats, cheat codes, walkthroughs, guides, videos and more! Lose your marbles Meaning. To 'lose one's marbles' is to lose one's mind. In the 1954 film The Caine Mutiny Humphrey Bogart linked insanity with marbles when he showed his character, the demented Lt. Segasoft Software Informer. Featured Segasoft free downloads and reviews. Latest updates on everything Segasoft Software related.
Davis, of Rio Grande. J. W. Jones as Gallia's candidate, but got. The expression took a little time to mature and was used in both 'anger' and 'sanity' senses for a few decades. What is common in all the early citations is the sense of loss and the consequent reaction to it. By 1. 92. 7, the loss of sanity meaning had won out and an edition of American Speech defined the term unambiguously. See other phrases that were coined in the USA. Robot Check. Enter the characters you see below. Sorry, we just need to make sure you're not a robot. For best results, please make sure your browser is accepting cookies.
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