THE CAT'S PAJAMAS XX

Tad Tuleja

A collection of the (mostly) true origins of familiar phrases

ANTS IN  HIS PANTS 

This expression for being fidgety or restless recalls an old English cure for lethargy. In Yorkshire, up until the turn of the century (1800), when someone yawned or slept more than normal, it was said that he had "tired blood." The condition could be remedied by mild exercise, but the exercise had to be constant. The sleepy circulation could only be quickened by being prodded continually throughout the day. To accomplish this, the country healers recommended placing within the victim's clothing small animals designed to keep him twitching. The 1741 Countryman's Physicke lists the four curative pests - two of which appear in contemporary slang. "The laggarde may be cured within a fortnight if he wears A bee in his bonnet, a shirt full of moos/Ants in his pants and slugs in his shoes. Moos here is Yorkshire dialect for "mouse." Perhaps because mice were hard to keep shirt-bound, the rodent cure seems to have faded by the 19th century. The slug cure also disappeared, but bees and ants were still being used as late as the 1930's. Ants in his pants has kept its original connotation. Bee in his bonnet took on its sense of mental obsession around 1900, presumably because someone with a stinging insect under his hat metaphorically represented a person with an idea he could not get rid of. [The expression today is more often "Bee in her bonnet" because of the association of bonnets with women.]