Question: Recently I heard someone use "knuckle down" to mean "apply oneself." I was about to ask if they meant "buckle down," but I kept my mouth shut, knowing how elusive idioms can be. Was this person using a known expression?
Answer: "Knuckle down," as in "Let's knuckle down and finish this," has been known since at least the 1860s, for we find it in our unabridged dictionary of 1864 defined as "to apply oneself earnestly or vigorously." The expression may have derived from the game of marbles. In many versions of the game, the player must "knuckle down" while shooting, that is, keep at least one knuckle touching the ground. Knuckling down at marbles goes way back - little boys knew what it meant back in the first half of the 18th century. The attention and diligence required to keep the hand in place may have led to the expression's transfer of meaning to broader applications.
"Buckle down," on the other hand, actually started out in the 16th century as "buckle to." Edmund Burke used this version in the 18th century: "I have shook off idleness and begun to buckle to." Sometimes it also appeared as "buckle in." The figurative "buckle" is thought to allude to the buckling of armor in preparation for a contest or battle. (Armor really was buckled, in case you are in doubt; we read of the buckling of helmets in Chaucer.)
It is possible that the "down" was later added to "buckle" in imitation of the "down" in "knuckle down." In any case, "buckle down" first appears in print in a magazine in 1865, used just as we would today: "If he would only buckle down to serious study."
Interestingly, there is another parallel employment of "knuckle" and "buckle" in two expressions that mean "yield" or "submit": "He knuckled under and conceded defeat" and "He finally buckled under pressure."
"Buckle" and "knuckle" are further closely tied in modern slang. "Buckle" since the 1970s, can mean "argue" or "fight." "Knuckle up" is contemporary slang for "fight."
Question: I wonder if you could tell me the origin of the term "bachelor's degree" for four years of college and "master's degree" for advanced work. This discussion came up recently and I decided to write you.
Answer: "Bachelor" (from Old French "bacheler") is thought to have derived from Latin "baccalaria," a word for a division of land. A worker of the land, an impoverished tenant farmer, was a "baccalarius"; "baccalaria," in turn, may even go back to the Latin word for "cow," "bacca."
In English, the earliest "bachelor" was a young knight, either too poor or too inexperienced to fight under his own banner. In Britain today, the rank of "knight bachelor" is still conferred as the lowest ranking (but most ancient) order of knighthood.
The "novice" sense was carried over to the medieval system of guilds. University faculties as well as trades were organized into guilds. The "bachelor" was at the lowest level; in the university he was one who had completed merely the first stage of his education. (Thus "bachelor" in its most common sense today, as "an unmarried man," a use first attested in the 14th century, is a departure from the oldest historical sense of the word.)
A "master" was one who had achieved proficiency in his area of study or his trade. The oldest sense of "master" (from Latin "magister") was that of "teacher" or "tutor." Originally, the master's degree conveyed authority to teach in the university. Likewise, a "master" was a tradesman qualified by experience to teach apprentices.
To go one step further - "doctor" also originally meant "teacher" (from Latin "docere," to "teach"). In some universities, the degree of doctor was equivalent to the master's degree, each being conferred as the highest level of learning in certain subjects and qualifying the recipient as a professor. Professors in the faculties of law and medicine tended to be called doctors; in the arts, masters. However, the master of arts (arts including, among other subjects, grammar, astronomy, music, and geometry) might advance his studies by undertaking the study of philosophy (when "philosophy" encompassed all nontechnical and nonpractical learning), for which a doctor of philosophy degree was granted.