Jocelyn in Richmond, Virginia, is curious about the expression busier than a one-armed paper hanger, meaning extremely busy. Perhaps the earliest version of this phrase comes from a 1908 short story by O. Henry: as busy as a one-armed man with the nettle rash pasting on wallpaper, which would be very busy indeed. In other versions, the embattled paper hanger is battling hives, the itch, the crabs, or the seven-year-itch. Other picturesque English phrases for such bustling activity include busy as a beaver, busy as a bee, busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, busier than flies in a tarpit, busier than a bee in a tar bucket, busier than a bee on a buzzsaw, busier than a cranberry merchant, and busier than a one-eyed cat watching three mice holes. Similar phrases mean not busy, such as busier than a pickpocket in a nudist camp, busy as a hen with one chick, busy as a puppy, and busy as a hibernating bear. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Busier Than a One-Armed Paper Hanger and Other Busy Sayings”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Jocelyn calling from Richmond, Virginia.
Hi, Jocelyn. Welcome.
What’s up? What can we do for you?
Thank you.
I was calling in about busier than a one-armed paper hanger.
Busier than a one-armed paper hanger. Where did you run across that?
Well, my lovely mother, who just had a birthday at the end of December, she has said it since I was a child.
And it means very busy, right?
It means, obviously, yeah, very busy. But I have always wondered what the heck, you know, inspired her to say that. Where’d she get it? And she doesn’t really, she didn’t really say, but.
Well, the interesting thing is the first use that we know of of a phrase that is just about exactly the same is by the short story writer O. Henry.
If you remember, he wrote The Gift of the Magi, which most people know.
In one of his 1908 stories, he writes the phrase as as busy as a one armed man with the nettle rash pasting on wallpaper.
And the nettle rash, if you ever have gotten rash from nettles, it is something to behold.
And a lot of the early uses of this term talk about a paper hanger with hives, with the itch, with the crabs, you know, body lice or the seven-year itch.
So a lot of them, it’s not just that they’ve got one arm and it’s not just that they’re doing a two-arm task.
It’s also that they’re trying to itch in unspeakable places.
They’re scratching away.
Yeah, they’re trying to scratch in unspeakable places.
That’s so crazy.
Which would be pretty busy.
It would be very busy.
And now there are a ton of these in English.
Obviously, everyone knows busy is a beaver or busy is a bee.
Those are really common.
A really common one is busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
Because how are you going to do that, right?
You’ve got to have a heck of a vertical leap with one leg to pull that one off.
And some of the older ones are kind of a mystery to the modern mind, at least to mine.
Busier than flies in a tar pit or a bee in a tar bucket.
You ever heard of those, Jocelyn?
No, because I can’t imagine bees would enjoy tar.
Yeah, I don’t know what it is.
I think they might think it’s water, and so they get stuck trying to get water.
Oh, and then they’re really busy.
Yeah, they’re trying to escape.
Busier than a bee on a buzzsaw.
I like that one for the sound of it.
That’s nice, right?
Martha and I talked about busier than a cranberry merchant on the show a while back.
And that’s just about those weeks before Thanksgiving when they’ve got to get all those cranberries shipped to the people who are expecting to go with their turkey.
I also like busier than a one-eyed cat watching three mice holes.
How about this one?
Busier than a pickpocket in a nudist camp, which I don’t think you’re busy at all.
And actually, a few of these are the opposite.
They mean that you’re not busy.
There’s some busy as a hen with one chick, meaning that you’re fussy over little things and not really busy at all.
Or busy as a puppy, meaning you’re not really doing anything and you have no responsibilities at all.
Or as busy as a hibernating bear, right?
So a few of them flip it.
They’re about being not busy at all rather than being very busy.
Wow.
Okay.
By the way, I want to leave you with one last busier than because I know people are thinking of it.
And I’m going to use the polite radio version of it.
It’s busier than a cat in a litter box.
There’s an impolite version of that.
Busier than a cat burying his business in the litter box, I guess.
I’ve heard a version of it that has to do with a cat on a marble floor, you know, trying to cover it up and having trouble.
So there are lots of different versions of this, Jocelyn.
Anyway, yeah, so your version, busier than a one-armed paper hanger, goes back to, as far as we know, to O. Henry, the short story writer in 1908.
Oh, my God, that’s great.
My mom’s a librarian historian, so she will love that.
Thank you so much for your call.
We really appreciate it.
Oh, thank you so much.
I had a great time.
Oh, take care.
Thanks, Jocelyn.
Thanks.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Call us with your language question, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email.
That address is words@waywordradio.org.
