Here are a few word derivations concerned with headgear...

Thinking Cap

Scholars in the Middle Ages wore a distinctive costume. Some of its details varied from one university to another, but two basic pieces were standard – a long black gown and a square-cut cap that fitted tightly against the skull. Clergymen and jurists also wore gowns, so that the distinctive little cap became the symbol of the professional scholar.

Most common folk at that time were illiterate. They had great respect for any man who wore the cap that showed him to possess learning. There was a widespread belief that the cap actually aided its owner to think. Many an idle fellow boasted about what he would do if he could only get a thinking cap.

This superstition disappeared long ago. So did the 'thinking cap', although it left its mark on academic headgear right up to the third millenium. The expression, linked to the costume of early scholars remains in speech, so those wishing to analyse a problem are likely to say that they must put on their thinking cap, even if they remain bare headed.
 
Eat One’s Hat

Many a man engaged in a contest of some sort or another has offered to eat his hat if he loses. In such a situation knowledge of etymology would be of great value – for the expression eat one’s hat once referred not to a Stetson or a Panama, but to a culinary dish.

Napier’s famous Boke of Cookry, one of the oldest European cookbooks, gives the following directions: 'Hattes are made of eggs, veal, dates, saffron, salt and so forth'. In the hands of amateur cooks, the concoction was infrequently so unpalatable that it required a strong stomach to eat it. Even so, the early braggart who offered to ‘eat a hatte’ had in mind nothing so distasteful as felt or straw.
 
Tight as Dick’s Hatband

When a person wishes to say that a thing fits very closely indeed, it’s likely to be described as being as tight as Dick’s hatband.  Logic suggests that some famous person named Dick must have had a very tight hat. That’s not quite the case.

One theory regarding the origin of the expression is that it refers to King Richard III who seized the throne in 1483. To do so he had to get rid of the rightful claimant and his younger brother, Richard’s nephews. The two young boys were imprisoned in the Tower of London never to be seen again. The murder of the two princes was attributed to Richard. The usurper eventually got his punishment when he was defeated and killed at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 by Henry Tudor, who became King Henry VII.

Modern historians think that Shakespeare, to curry favour with Henry’s granddaughter Queen Elizabeth I, put a malevolent spin on Richard’s character in his play Richard III, which may not be justified.

The expression tight as Dick’s hatband is a grim reminder that the crown was too tight, or dangerous, for 'King Dick' to safely wear – and others need pay heed when in an analogous situation.

Justified or not, Shakespeare's Richard is a most likable villian, and extraordinarily attractive despite his crippled body and malignant nature. Recently Anthony Sher played him brilliantly on the stage, and Ian McKellen made a modernised film version which I also strongly recommend.

I believe that in the broadest cultural sense, Richard  the Third has been the most influential of all Shakespeare's characters, Hamlet notwithstanding. Johnny Lyndon, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols (and not, in real life, an insensirive fool ) based his jerky and incohate stage movements, and ugly stage persona, on a close study of Laurence Olivier's Richard III, which is still definitive, although he takes shocking liberties with the play. Richard is so marvellously, wonderfully, conspiratorially evil  that he can appeal  to anybody. 'House of Cards', the political  black comedy which starred Ian Richardson as an overambitious Tory, also showed very clearly the influence of Shakespeare's most popular villain, with a few touches of 'Macbeth' as well.

Meaning - the art of pulling of grotesque faces.

 

This British term - much better known in Britain and Commonwealth countries than in the US - has at times been applied to the pulling of faces as a competitive activity. A surviving example is that in the Lake District, where the Egremont Crab-Apple Fair has an annual contest, which they call the World Championship Gurning Competition and which they say dates back to 1266. There is also an Australian national competition, and there may be others too.

At one time, such face-pulling contests were a common entertainment at fairs and gatherings around the UK (before the days of radio and television you had to make your own entertainment). The rules at Egremont are simple: competitors put their heads through a horse collar and then have a set time in which to contort their faces into the most gruesome, scary or daft expressions possible. False teeth may be left in or taken out, or even turned upside down if desired. The winner is the person who gets the most audience applause.

The word seems to have been originally Scottish, in the form 'girn', which - appropriately enough - may have been a contorted form of 'grin'. It has had several meanings, of which the oldest - from medieval times - is still current in Scots and Irish dialect, and which is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as, 'to show the teeth in rage, pain, disappointment, etc; to snarl as a dog; to complain persistently; to be fretful or peevish'. These days only the losers in the World Championship Gurning Competition do much of that.

Apparently the tradition grew from a practice, dating from the Middle Ages, when the putative 'village idiot' would have a horse collar hung around his neck, and be encouraged to make bizarre faces in exchange for a few pints of ale. Today, the horse collar which frames the finished product in gurning is called a 'braffin'.

The 'Popeye' gurn so popular a few decades ago is no longer seen much, because competitors these days usually have a full set of teeth. Some readers may think to themselves, 'I could do better than that', but in the globalised world of twenty-first century post-modern gurning it is not as easy as you think. Just puffing out your cheeks and popping your eyes (which is what most beginners tend to do) is regarded these days as hopelessly cliched and passe. So is the lupine half sneer, associated with a crinkling of the eyes. These days you have to be fresh and innovative to gain world prominence.

Of course all children love pulling faces. When I was young our elders would tell us not to do it, because the wind might change, and that would fix the silly expression on our face forever. It is possible that something like this may have happened to Margaret Thatcher and Cherie Blair when they were little.
 
Jumbo

Late in 1869 a hunting party captured one of the, largest elephants ever seen in West Africa. The natives had a superstitious fear of the 13,000 pound beast, and in their dialect, they spoke of him as being possessed by a jumbo, or evil spirit. Traders who purchased the elephant thought the native word to be its name, and called the big fellow 'Jumbo'.

Jumbo was shipped to London and placed in its zoological garden. He attracted many visitors, but would have made no contribution to modern speech had it not been for a master salesman, Phineas Taylor Barnum.

Seeking a special attraction for his new Barnum and Bailey Circus, the American turned to Jumbo. He bought the animal in February 1882 and began billing him as the star attraction in his new circus. Among Barnum’s many publicity stunts, he persuaded Philadelphia merchants to offer a new shade of grey - alleged to match the elephant’s hide -that briefly sold as ‘jumbo'.

Barnum’s showmanship made the name of the elephant a household word before the close of 1882. Borrowed by advertising copywriters with the capitalisation dropped, jumbo entered everyday speech as a vivid synonym for 'huge'.
 
Barbarian

Historians pay tribute to ancient Greece as the world's greatest centre of culture and learning. Their judgment is not new; the Greeks themselves were proudly confident that they excelled in every area of life. Arrogance ran so high that they sneeringly referred to the speech of non-Greeks as made up of unintelligible sounds, like 'bar-bar'. Consequently, any foreigner came to be called barbarus.

Passing through Latin, the label of contempt eventually entered English as 'barbarian'. Little changed by centuries of usage, the term of mockery is now applied to any rude or savage person. Its long record indicates that in every age, and among all peoples, many take it for granted that anyone who speaks with an unfamiliar accent can't possibly have anything significant to say.

The caustic American comic Lenny Bruce once pointed out that in the United States anybody with a Southern accent was automatically assumed to be almost half-witted, even though many of America's most outstanding scholars and scientists had come from the deep southern states.

It is also worth adding that the foreigners were also bearded, and I think 'barber' has the same origin as 'barbarian'. Saffy will correct me if I am wrong.
 

During the Second World War, prior to the Allied landings in North Africa, the American General Mark Clark was landed secretly on the coast of Algeria to make contact with friendly French officials and pro-Allies conspirators. He narrowly escaped being captured by the Vichy French police. Unfortunately, there was a mix-up as to which beach Clark should land on, with the result that the reception committee consisted solely of a man who inquired whether the General would like to meet his pretty sister. The interpreter gave such a strong negative that the man got the wrong idea and said, hastily, 'My brother then?' At which point the General (who had not been following the conversation) said, 'Ask him if be can get us the harbour master'. The man replied, 'My brother will come cheaper'.

In a BBC Music and Movement programme for children (which, happily for posterity, was recorded), a woman presenter said: 'We are going to play a hiding and finding game. Imagine we've got some balls. They might be hidden. You don't know where I'm going to hide your balls. Now, are your balls high up or low down? Close your eyes a minute and dance around, and look for them. Are they high up? Or are they low down? If you have found your balls, toss them over your shoulder and play with them...'

Paris Match asked a former British Ambassador to France what he would like for Christmas if he could have absolutely anything he wanted. The Ambassador at first demurred and said no, no, he couldn't possibly, but eventually made his choice. The next issue of Paris Match duly carried its feature 'What the world would like for Christmas' in which Mikhail Gorbachev said he wanted an end to the arms race, Ronald Reagan opted for peace on earth, and so on. Finally there was the request of the British ambassador: 'A small box of crystallized fruits, please'.
 

A small selection of ‘sick-notes’ received at school from parents:

Sorry Kevin was late but me and my husband rather overdone it this morning.

My son is under a doctor’s care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.

Sorry Anne was absent from school but she had an ulster in her throat.

Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father’s fault.

I’m pleased you are keeping Moira in detention. I think it will have a sanitary effect on her.

Please excuse Samantha having a shower, being how she is. Being how you are yourself sometimes, you will understand how she is.

Please excuse Josie for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.
 

'Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something'.

 Pancho Villa was a Mexican bandit, revolutionary, and folk hero.  He conducted a guerilla war against the national government for many years, until he was granted amnesty and a hacienda in return for laying down his arms.  He retired in Chihuahua, Mexico, but was assassinated by supporters of his long-time enemy, General Alvaro Obregon.  Villa made his last request to newspaper reporters as he lay dying.
 
General John Sedgwick, "Uncle John," (1813-1864)
 
'They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--'
 
 General John Sedgwick was a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War.  At the Battle of the Wilderness, while inspecting his troops, he approached a parapet and peered out over the surrounding countryside.  His officers and men urged him to take cover from small arms fire, but Sedgwick scoffed at their concerns, 'What! What men! This will never do, dodging from single bullets!'   As the general spoke his last words, a Confederate sharpshooter shot him in the head.
 

From a graveyard in Aberdeen, Scotland:

From Bolsover, Derbyshire, England:

Saffron - June 2001