Cold Feet

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:07 PM -0400 5/3/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>Daniel Engber of Slate Magazine has just put out an "Explainer" column on
>the origins of "cold feet", using the Fritz Reuter citation below as well
>as another one from Reuter that I subsequently tracked down.
>
>http://slate.msn.com/id/2117944/
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer
>

Complete with attribution to you.  Very nice, Ben--and I assume these
twin cites constitute the eponym of Reuters...

Larry

>On Tue, 3 May 2005 12:09:01 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer
><bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 3 May 2005 09:56:43 -0400, bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>>
>>>All over the newspapers for day after day after day now is the "runaway
>>>bride" who got "cold feet."
>>>..
>>>This is not merely "cold feet" and each example must be checked. I don't
>>>have that kind of time today.
>>>...
>>>...
>>>(OED)
>>[...]
>>>1893 S. CRANE Maggie (1896) xiv. 112, I knew this was the way it would
>>>be. They got *cold feet.
>>
>>It's definitely a challenge sorting out the literal and figurative usages
>>for this one.  Here's a cite from 1871 using the phrase both literally and
>>figuratively for the purposes of a joke...
>>
>>-----
>>http://tinyurl.com/8ovop
>>_The Living Age_, May 6, 1871, Volume 109, Issue 1405: p. 334, col. 2
>>
>>"Children, my feet are getting cold," said Bank, the shoemaker, "I am
>>going home."
>>"What? You may as well wait till the business comes to a head," said
>>Thiel, the cabinet-maker.
>>"What do you know about it?" said Bank. "It seems to me as if there was'nt
>>a word of truth in the whole story."
>>"What? You told me the story, yourself, this morning," said Thiel.
>>"Yes, that is so, but morning talk is not evening talk. I have considered
>>the matter since then."
>>"That is to say, you have got cold feet over it," said the tailor. All
>>laughed.
>>-----
>>
>>This is from _Seedtime and Harvest_, a translation of _Ut mine Stromtid_
>>(1862–64) by Fritz Reuter <http://www.bartleby.com/65/re/Reuter-F.html>.
>>The German equivalent for "get cold feet" is "kalte Füße bekommen", with
>>the same figurative usage.  So is "cold feet" merely a calque from German?
>>
>>
>>--Ben Zimmer