"Knock on wood" (was: Re: Query: Spitting in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding.")

[Gerald Cohen]

   Actually, it's not so much "thank goodness" as it's an old
superstition that expressions of joy/pride/etc. might attract bad
luck. Specifically, devils were believed to take particular pleasure
in zapping people who were happy/optimistic/ etc., and a statement
like "Things have been going great lately" could attract the
attention of a devil and put the kibosh on everything that had been
going well.

    So if someone did say that, a quick bit of protection was
necessary ("Knock on wood").  I always assumed (and thought I read
somewhere) that the original reference of this "knock on wood" was to
the cross.  Also, I think I remember reading years ago the life of
one of the Russian saints; when the devils (taken literally) would
approach him in his cell, he would hold up a cross and they would
flee.

Gerald Cohen


>At 9:52 AM -0500 3/3/03, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 11:53 PM -0800 3/2/03, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote:
>>
>>>... "knock
>>>on wood", after mentioning an undesirable possibility.
>>
>>??  I've only used it, or heard/seen it used when it meant,
>>essentially thank goodness - not an undesirable possibility.
>>
>Right, more like a *desirable* state of affairs but a tenuous one,
>often for a case of "so far so good."
>
>--larry