Comments on: Words and Expressions Related to “Palm”

By: Maeve

Maeve — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:37:59 +0000

Roberta B.,
Both expressions have been around for awhile.

“Palm on” with our meaning “palm off” is recorded in 1679. “Palm off” with that sense is recorded in 1822.

“Pawn upon” is recorded in 1763 with the meaning “pass off by trickery.” “Pawn off” with that sense is recorded from 1832.

I don’t see why the two couldn’t have been separate and unrelated coinages.

By: Nils

Nils — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:57:58 +0000

Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in pray’r.
Rom. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
Rom. Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg’d. [Kisses her.]
Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d!
Give me my sin again. [kisses her]

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet Act I scene V

By: Roberta B.

Roberta B. — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:19:20 +0000

I just checked another source which may prove me wrong by saying it’s other way around. It says – to dispose of by deception, as in: “They tried to pawn off a rebuilt computer as new” is an expression that may have originated as a corruption of palm off. So, I stand corrected, maybe……

By: Roberta B.

Roberta B. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:38:11 +0000

Regarding the expression “to palm off.” I actually believe that expression is something fairly recent which has morphed from the expression “to pawn off” (e.g., worthless goods, possibly by deception). Here’s a case where more commonly heard sports vernacular (e.g., to palm off a basketball – quickly hand off) has crept in to replace a similar sounding expression, with a close, but not the same, meaning.

By: Brad K.

Brad K. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:01:29 +0000

When you listed palmer, I recalled the Palmer Method. I don’t recall much of it, just that I encountered the Palmer Method of teaching penmanship in school.