Common terms like “o’clock” and “spilling the beans” can have some unexpected origins.
But today’s dismal weather left me wondering why we say someone “steals [a person’s] thunder” when they detract attention from the person who’s meant to be the centre of it.
After all “thunder” isn’t exactly something you want to hold onto, as my failed attempt at a run this morning taught me.
I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with Greek mythology (it’s sort of Zeus-y?), but no ― the phrase actually comes from The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
How?
According to BBC Learning English, the phrase came from London.
“The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane is the oldest theatre in London’s West End,” the broadcaster shared in a video.
“In 1709, a man named John Dennis invented a machine that made a noise just like a clap of thunder,” the BBC said.
The dramatist made it for one of his own works.
The thunder machine may have been revolutionary ― but its inventor’s play didn’t go down well with the public.
So, after his work proved unpopular with audiences, the Drury Lane theatre cut its run short and replaced it with crowd favourite MacBeth.
“When John Dennis went back to the Theatre Royal to see this new production, he was outraged to discover that his thunder machine was being used in MacBeth ― and no one had asked his permission,” the BBC revealed.
The legend goes that he shouted: “They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder!“
There’s an alternative version of the phrase
Alexander Pope referred to the event in a note in his 1727 book, The Dunciad: With Notes Variorum, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus.
“It is certain, that being once at a Tragedy of a new Author, he fell into a great passion at hearing some, and cry’d, “S’death! that is my Thunder,’” the quote goes.
Various retellings of the story saw variants of the quote, with the crucial “steal” being added to the saying in 1747.
“That is my thunder” lost out to its later “steal my thunder” by 1831, by which point it was a common enough phrase to appear in a London periodical.
I guess you could say it stole the original’s... you know what, never mind.