Origin of idioms

[Ela]

So, I know the origin of the term "gaslighting". I even know the definition. But this is one of those expressions that I don't really get in the sense that I would recognize and call something "gaslighting" when I see it. And when I see the expression used, I find I have to back up and re-read and remember what the expression means and why that thing could be called "gaslighting".

I'm not sure why that is.

Maybe cause it's an expression that was not commonly used when I was young and is now very commonly used? (Possibly even overused?) Not sure.

[Jonathon]

It really seems like its use has exploded in the last few years. And I think everyone has words and phrases like that that just don't quite stick for whatever reason. I know I do, but I can't think of what they are because, you know, they don't stick.

[Ela]

Gotcha. 

[Tante Shvester]

How can someone end up with the short end of the stick?  It's a stick. It has a definite, measurable length. How can one end be shorter than the other?

[Jonathon]

I really don't know. This post on the Phrase Finder doesn't really explain the meaning, though it says that it appears to come from an earlier "worse end of the staff" that dates back to the 1500s. Dictionary.com says, "The precise analogy in this term, first recorded in the 1930s, has been lost." They also mention the "worse end of the staff" connection but don't provide a clear explanation either. They say it might come from a stick poked up one's rectum (figuratively, I hope) or from fighting with sticks, where having a shorter stick is a disadvantage. (Though neither of those really explain why it's the short end of the stick.)

[rivka]

I always thought it referred to a stick with a curved end (so I guess a cane, really). One end (the curved one) is good for grasping. The other end (the short, blunt one) is mostly good for getting shoved at you (or you know, the ground), not so much for anything you would do with it.

(Can I use more parentheticals? I bet I can!)

[Tante Shvester]

If it was a Y- shaped stick, and you took one fork of the Y while someone else took the other and you each pulled until the stick broke, the one who gets the short end loses the wishbone pull.

But you don't usually think of sticks as wishbone- shaped. It would be getting the short end of the bone.

Q: What's brown and sticky?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A: A stick.

[Amilia]

In my head canon (read: something I made up at some point to explain stuff) the short end of the stick originated from that game where you have a stick, and the first person grabs the end in their fist, then the second person grabs just above the first person's fist, allowing the first person to let go and grab above the second person's fist, and so on up the stick.  And the person who ends up with the short end of the stick loses.

(In fact, before reading this conversation, I didn't even realize this must be just head canon.  I thought it was real . . . )

[Jonathon]

I feel like I've seen something like that on Looney Tunes.