My mom has been teaching an ESL class in the evenings. One of the students lives near her, and this week, my mom offered her a lift home. The student didn’t understand what she meant by “a lift.” My mom explained it, and the student asked why that was called a lift. My mom had no idea.
So, does anybody know why we call a ride a lift?
And does anybody know of any good online source for information of this type? (I couldn’t find anything too useful via Google.) My mom would like to give the students a better answer than “that’s just the way it is” if she can.
A rather useful site which searches four different English useage sites is alt.useage.English.
It searches alt-usage-english.org
John Lawler’s English Grammar FAQ
Paul Brians’ Common Errors in English
Garbl’s Editorial Style Manual
Jack Lynch’s Guide to Grammar and Style
Evan Morris’s Word Detective
Random House Mavens’ Word of the Day
Dave Wilton’s Etymology Page
Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words
The Yaelf site
from one seach engine. If you can’t find it there, then you ask here.
Hijack: it’s fascinating how memory works, when I read the question I had a visual, not verbal memory of that very scene in Martin Chuzzlewit(which I have read) from the BBC’s adaptation.
This is a really fascinating topic (at least to a word geek and self-styled philologist like me it is!). I have had no luck figuring this out either, but knowing that “lift” means to change in elevation, and is also the British English term for an elevator, I suspect the idiom originally came into being as a logical extension of meaning. The word “lift” dates from the Middle Ages (according to Dictionary.com) when most people walked, and getting a ride up a steep hill or mountain in a wagon would be desirable. Not having to walk would also tend to make one happy, or “lift” one’s spirits.
Thanks for all the answers, everyone. It’s too bad we didn’t solve the “lift” problem, but I think the resources you gave will be very helpful for future questions of the same sort.
I would like to share with you my beliefs around the saying lift,
My first idea is from the victorian times we’re lady’s used to ware big clothes and wigs to match after leaving or on the way to the use of a Sudan chair was occasionally used (A ONE PERSON SEATED CHAIR CARRAGE CARRIED BY 2 PEOPLE ONE IN THE FRONT AND ONE BEHIND)
so once you was sat the 2 carriers would lift you up and walk you to your destination hence being called A LIFT?
I ASKED THE 2 YOUNG MEN CARRING A SUDAN CHAIR IF THEY WAS FREE?
ONE MAN REPLYED YES WOULD YOU LIKE A LIFT?
I REPLIED NOT RIGHT NOW BUT COULD YOU POSSIBLY PICK ME UP AT 7PM?
SO THERE’S MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE SAYING LIFT,
SOUNDS EVEN MORE TRUE WHEN YOU SAY THE PICK ME UP PART
An ancient thread, but hey, the internet has a lot more stuff these days. The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say:
lift (n.)
mid-14c., “a man’s load, as much as a man can carry;” late 15c., “act or action of lifting,” from lift (v.). Figurative use from 1620s. Meaning “act of helping” is 1630s; that of “cheering influence” is from 1861. Sense of “elevator, hoisting machine to raise or lower between floors of a building” is from 1851; that of “upward force of an aircraft” is from 1902. Meaning “help given to a pedestrian by taking him along his way in a vehicle” is from 1712. As a dance move, from 1921. Sense of “heel-lift in a boot or shoe” is from 1670s.
The word once had a twin, Middle English lift “the air, the atmosphere; the sky, the firmament,” from Old English lyft “air” (see loft (n.)).
It seems clear to me that “helping a pedestrian by taking him in a vehicle” is derived from the earlier “act of helping” (from 1630). The connection between rising or elevating and helping is a bit fuzzier, but it’s not hard to guess how one might transform into the other, and the examples given seem to demonstrate the path it took (for instance, in the 14c it was used for “a man’s load”, which both had to be literally lifted to carry, but also might represent the way someone might help another).
It doesn’t say where from, but the 1712 date of the vehicle ride definition is earlier than the 1732 that samclem mentioned.
Nothing substantial to add to this thread, but it seems to me that if we accept that people are ‘carried’ on vehicles (indeed, vehicles are called ‘carriages’), the concept of ‘lift’ fits that very aptly and seems like the kind of thing that would just arise naturally as an idiom.
