Table of Contents
Gerry
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
This strange expression dates all the way back to the 1500s. Believe it or not, people in the 16th century only bathed once a year and as Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I famously said, she bathed twice a year whether she needed it or not. Such profligacy. To make matters worse, entire groups of people used the same bath and the same water. The water was not changed as each person took turns bathing.
The men would go first, the women were second, and the children and babies went last. You can imagine how dirty that water was by the time the babies were up. In fact, it was so filthy that the water became clouded. Sometimes, mothers had to make sure that the babies weren’t literally thrown out with the dirty bathwater. Whatever happened to women and children first?
The phrase “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” now means that you should make sure you don’t throw out anything valuable while disposing of unnecessary things. Nothing is more valuable than a newborn baby, so the phrase still rings true today. Fortunately, we all get to take our own baths (or showers) today.
The aphorism was well illustrated recently in the ‘American Thinker’ in a piece written by Alison Tempestilli entitled ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’. She stated that “The propensity of the left to throw out the good with what it believes is bad could not be more pervasive (and) drives its willingness to face failure and uncertainty for a mere instant of smug satisfaction. The left wants to change direction on a number of policies and institutions without regard for the ramifications … it’s expediency in transformation that counts. Regrettably, they’re ready and willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Please share this BFD article so others can discover The BFD.
