AboutTed Nesbitt Expertise I have an interest in the meanings of words and phrases, as well as how and when they became part of the English language. I enjoy
researching idioms, colloquialisms, dialects, and obscurities of
all kinds. I prefer short questions on a particular subject, and
I will not accept lengthy research projects or term papers. NOTE: ALLEXPERTS CLAIMS THAT I TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LATIN AND FROM LATIN TO ENGLISH. I DO NOT. ALLEXPERTS REFUSES TO DELETE THE LATIN-TO-ENGLISH SERVICE -- ONE THAT I DO NOT PROVIDE.
TRUST ME ON THIS: ALLEXPERTS IS WRONG. I DO NOT TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LANGUAGE. LOOK FOR A LANGUAGE EXPERT INSTEAD. ETYMOLOGY AND TRANSLATING SERVICES ARE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. ALLEXPERTS SHOULD KNOW THAT. ALLEXPERTS DOES NOT KNOW THAT. I HAVE TRIED FOR MANY YEARS TO GET THEM TO CHANGE. THEY WILL NOT. SORRY, BUT I DO NOT TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH TO LATIN.
Experience I am the bibliographic instruction and reference librarian at a public
college. My master's thesis concerns William Faulkner's tragic novels. I formerly taught advanced placement English at two schools in the Philadelphia area.
I have been a member of the grammar and writing section of Allexperts
for more than a year.
Education/Credentials Masters degrees in English, philosophy, and library science.
Question I am really sorry to read what you say about a rude questioner, and your unhappy response.
If you should have a change of heart, I promise to be eternally grateful--and acknowedge your
message.
I'd like to know--for background in a story I'm writing--the origin of the term "Let the devil take the hindmost."
Answer Dear Maruxa:
I don't know if I can tell you the exact "origin" of the phrase, since it most likely was used as an idiomatic expression long before it appeared in print. The following, however, is a great deal of information that I have taken from VERY RELIABLE sources.
According to "The Oxford English Dictionary," known as "the bible of the etymological world, the phrase entered written English in the year 1611. It probably was used orally long before that.
Since the "hindmost" is the very end of something, the phrase means that if you are not prompt or are running behind everyone else, you are in trouble -- "the devil may take you."
The Phrase Finder at Sheffield University in England is a good source for locating information about unusual sayings. According to their list, "It's every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost." Hindmost means, of course, the last in line. If you're in a line being chased by the Devil, then the one he's going to catch is going to be the last in line. It's a way of saying, "Don't be slow, because no one is going to stay behind and save you!"
In the United States, the phrase first appeared in 1742 in "The Colonial Record of Georgia." It is part of the proverb 'Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost." From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996) by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).
Here is another statement from Sheffield University:
From recollection, I think it may have been a common way of expressing the military order to run away. A 'retreat' is supposed to be a repositioning rearwards in good order, whereas the expression 'every man for himself' gives permission for the unit under command to run away as best they can - a 'rout' - a command that would be most likely given when faced with overwealmingly superior forces, e.g., lightly-armed infantry facing cavalry (prior to the use of a square, unable to form square or without the weapons needed to defend a square). The addition of 'and let the Devil take the hindmost' is giving emphasis to the consequence of not running away quickly enough. If one took the common soldiers' view that they were 'the damned' then saying that the devil would take them the emphasis was simply that they would lose their lives if they were at the back. This would be particularly true if infantry were being pursued by cavalry, who had little hesitation of riding down fleeing men.
Finally, in another sense, the phrase has come to mean "each man should look out for himself and not worry about other people" Upton Sinclair used the phrase in his novel, "The Jungle."
It was a war of each against all, and the devil take the hindmost.
Jack London also used it in his novel, "The Iron Heel."
LAISSEZ-FAIRE, the let-alone policy of each for himself and devil take the hindmost.
