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November 18, 2004

Come out in the "Wash"

Dear Word Detective: I have always been led to believe that the meaning of the phrase "It will always come out in the wash" meant more than just once it's been in the tub or washing machine it will disappear. There's a belief round where I live, the eastern side of England to the north of the region known as East Anglia where a certain part of the North Sea forms into a huge bay that a number of rivers flow into, that it meant just that. Anything caught up in that effluence will end up literally in the Wash! Perhaps it's just a local hijack of an older meaning phrase? Maybe it alludes to the wash of a boat, meaning that anything that is tipped overboard (or drained from the bilges!) ends up round the stern of the boat? -- Godfrey Waller, via the internet.

That's an interesting question, but before we begin a little clarification is necessary. The place where rivers flow into the sea, called an "estuary," often includes areas known as "washes" which are covered at high tide and exposed at low. In some places, however (and this seems to be the case where you live), the entire estuary is itself known locally as "the Wash."

So the question is whether the phrase "to come out in the wash," meaning "to be made clear or to be resolved," refers to this kind of "wash," reflecting the fact that anything dumped in the river upstream will eventually turn up down in the estuary.

"Wash," of course, is a very old word, and, not surprisingly, comes from the same Germanic root as our modern word "water." Over the centuries, "wash" has acquired a slew of secondary meanings, from the "wash" where rivers join the sea (based on the surging action of the water) to the "wash" (surging turbulence) of a boat's wake.

But the primary meaning of "wash" has always been "to clean with water," and when we say that something "will come out in the wash," as we have since at least 1903, we are referring metaphorically to stains or soil being removed in the washing process.

Another interesting use of "wash" is to mean "failure," as in "Harry's plan to train squirrels as pizza deliverers was promising, but proved to be a wash." Again, the underlying metaphor is cleansing, in this case an of idea that did not survive the turbulent "washing" of reality. "Wash" in this sense is probably a shortening of the more established slang term "washout."

gleaned from here

Posted by sgowell at November 18, 2004 03:16 PM

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