I received an email from a member of a group I’m in. He said that “all things being equal”, he would be able to attend a scheduled meeting.
“All things being equal” is an informal idiom which means that it is a phrase whose meaning isn't obvious from the words it contains. All things are never equal and even if they could be, that is not the inference behind that particular arrangement of words.
There are many word arrangements we understand even when the sense is nothing like the literal meaning of those words.
During a television programme on the evening of the budget, a trio of analysts discussed the Chancellor and what she had achieved. One of the pundits referred to her as having been “rolling the pitch” during the preceding weeks and within 20 minutes, all three of them had used that expression at least once.
I had never heard that idiom before but I immediately understood it to mean that she had been doing the necessary preparatory groundwork to make us ready for the budget’s measures.
“Rolling the pitch” is such a basic requirement before a cricket match that most people from a cricket playing country would have understood what it meant in the context of a budget, even if like me they had never heard it before. I don’t know what an American or German viewer would have made of it.
There are many other idioms we use that have to be learnt because they have a meaning that doesn’t match the precise words. Consequently, they are hard to understand for people who do not have English as their first language.
I asked Lena, a Romanian who cuts my hair and speaks fluent English, what she would understand if I told her that something cost an arm and a leg. She didn’t know immediately but guessed it very quickly.
“All things being equal” originates from the Latin “ceteris paribus” and was popularised in 17th century written English through its use by philosophers and economists. It became more common in the 18th century after it was used by authors.
The person who sent that email meant “assuming nothing changes, I will be there.” We have come to understand “all things being equal” to have that intended meaning. Writing “barring unforeseen circumstances...” would have been literal and clearer.
“All things being equal” is only literally true when used to clarify that a statement would generally be true if no other circumstances interfere. “All things being equal, the fastest runner will win the race”. That is clear and undeniably true.
“All things being equal” is the equivalent of a “fair test” in science. For example, to find out what fat is best for roasting potatoes, all things must be equal: potato variety, time of par boiling, oven temperature, and roasting time. Incidentally, my fair test has proven that clotted cream is the best.
Some idioms are so strange that it is almost as if one day in the future, someone with the influence and authority to do, so will dictate that saying, “under the wall” will now be an idiom meaning “certainly not” or “never”.
Then, a conversation might contain this exchange:
“I’ve tickets for Giselle. Would you like to come?”
“Under the wall. I hate ballet.”
Today, that seems ridiculously contrived and unlikely but there must have been a time in the past when “all things being equal” sounded strange and was misunderstood by the reader or listener.
A letter to The Times recently began thus: Sir, There are a number of bromides regularly delivered by government spokespersons which…
That is a word usage that will mean absolutely nothing to many people. “A number of bromides” refers to statements or remarks that are trite, clichéd, and unoriginal but nobody, unless they had come across that wording before, would have any idea that was its meaning. Bromide compounds have been used as sedatives in the past
Most idioms seem to have a basis in real life experiences, especially those of agricultural origin and their meaning is close to what would be expected:
Waiting “until the cows come home” may obviously be interpreted as meaning a long wait. “A stitch in time saves nine” clearly indicates that early remedial treatment will save later heavy expense. There is no interpretation needed with them unlike “all things being equal”.
I used to think that someone described “as mad as a Hatter” was a saying derived from the character of the Mad Hatter who features in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Then, I discovered that the saying dates from more than 100 years before that book was written and Lewis Carroll featured a Mad Hatter because hat makers or Hatters, were known to suffer from mercury poisoning from the glue they used, causing tremors and symptoms of insanity.
There are idioms that have a meaning that doesn’t match the words in their composition.
“A bitter pill to swallow” being an unpleasant truth that is hard to accept, is similar to something that is “hard to swallow” which is difficult to believe or acknowledge. The sense of both sayings becomes apparent with just a little thought. Similarly, hearing that someone was “up the creek without a paddle” becomes clear and understood with a little imagination to mean they were in a difficulty that had no obvious solution.
Just to make things really confusing, if something has a “fat chance” or a “slim chance” of happening, they both are very unlikely to occur. That has come about despite a “fat profit” and a “slim profit” having quite different meanings.
We often hear about an aspect of a task that require “heavy lifting” these days. That is a noun phrase that rarely describes hard physical work. More usually, it depicts the mental effort needed to complete a project.
A person might say something like, “As I handled the heavy lifting on this scheme, I deserve the credit.
The adverbs “awfully” and “terribly” before a word would usually imply that something has gone wrong or is unpleasant as in “We played awfully badly” or “I feel terribly ill’ but there are occasions when they mean something quite different. If a painting is “awfully nice" it could also be “terribly good”.
We speak a strange language.
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