Cutting and running: where does that originate?

If you cut and run you depart with very little ceremony. Don’t waste time explaining why you are leaving, just go! But where does the expression “cut and run” come from?

The answer is the days of sail, when sometimes it might be necessary for a sailing ship to make a hasty departure when riding at anchor.

There are two possibilities as to what might be cut. The first concerns the sails that would be furled against the horizontal yards, of which there would be several to each mast on a square-rigged ship. The furls were held in place at intervals by cords that were tied by sailors who had the dangerous task of climbing out along the yards. To release the sails it was necessary to untie the cords, so sailors in a hurry might have been tempted to cut them instead.

However, it might be wondered whether the amount of time saved would be all that great. The cords would have normally been fixed with quick-release knots or hitches that would only have required a simple tug to undo them. Not only that, but the cords would have been linked together so that one pull would have released all the cords on a yard. Cutting the cords would not have been any quicker.

The other possible candidate for cutting was the anchor rope. An anchor for a large sailing ship was extremely heavy, and the method of raising it from the sea bed was to wind the anchor rope round a capstan, which was a horizontally mounted drum that could be turned by a group of sailors pushing on poles that were inserted into the top of the drum. Raising the anchor took a considerable amount of time and effort but was essential if the ship was going to be able to sail away. Cutting the rope was clearly going to be a lot quicker.

However, one can see that cutting and running was not something that a ship’s crew would do unless it was absolutely essential. If the sail ties were cut they would have to be re-knotted or replaced before the ship could refurl its sails, and if the ship did not carry a spare anchor it would face a huge problem at the end of its next journey.

Likewise, the modern version of cutting and running usually entails a sudden and unexpected event that calls for rapid action, possibly with little regard for the consequences.

© John Welford

A white elephant - an unwanted gift

We often use the term “white elephant” to describe a publicly funded project that costs a huge amount of money to build and maintain but is generally reckoned to be utterly useless. This is a case of a term being used for something very close to its original meaning, although it rarely applies to real elephants these days.

In old Siam (now known as Thailand) elephants were extremely useful animals when tamed and trained to do all sorts of agricultural work – just about everything that horses would do on western farms, or tractors in more recent times. They were also used to carry heavy goods and on ceremonial occasions.

As we know, elephants are usually grey, but sometimes a white one is born. This is a very rare event, so every time this happened in 18^th century Siam it automatically became the property of the King and therefore highly revered for that reason alone.

The white elephant’s special status meant that it could not be put to work or even ridden, but it had to be looked after and pampered. For someone to have charge of a white elephant but neglect it in any way was a serious offence.

That meant that the King had an excellent means of keeping people in order. If somebody annoyed him, but could not actually be accused of doing something for which he could be punished, the King would give him a present – namely a white elephant.

To be given anything by the King was clearly a great honour, and the recipient had no choice but to treat the gift with every consideration, but nobody who was given that particular gift was likely to be very happy about it. Here was a hulking great beast that was very expensive to maintain, was likely to have a lifespan that equaled or exceeded that of its new owner, but which could never be made to pay its way. Many people who were given white elephants suffered financial ruin as a result.

It is hardly surprising that British travelers to Siam saw the custom of royal gifts that bankrupted the recipients as being an excellent metaphor for the useless and costly buildings and monuments that their own government sought to foist upon the general public. The use of the term “white elephant” is still widespread, even though most people have no idea where it comes from.

© John Welford