Chrysti The Wordsmith: Cold Feet

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Runaway brides and nervous homebuyers who back out on the deal are said to have gotten cold feet. No one is sure what inspired this idiom but here are some theories with its current meaning the expression has been in common use since the 19th century. There may be a military component to the phrase since combat soldiers whose feet were frozen out of fear or inadequate footwear were exempted from battle because they got cold feet. The saying became associated with loss of nerve at best and cowardice at worst. The proliferation of this expression may have been influenced by a scene in an 1862 novel by the German writer Fritz Reuter losing his money and his nerve at a high stakes game of cards. One of the novel's characters claimed literal cold feet as an excuse to withdraw from the game. His cronies however suspected feet had nothing to do with his retreat. He was simply fearful of losing more money. Then again the cliche

might simply refer to a physical response to fear blood rushing from the extremities literally giving one cold feet. I'm Christie the wordsmith. Be sure to visit my website wordsmith radio dot org where you can find a bibliography of word books and read about the players involved in this radio series including guitarist Stuart Weber who provides the theme music for this show. Good day verb of course Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.