Origin of Brown as a Berry

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Lou Jane. I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you. I have a question about the phrase, brown as a berry.

It’s a phrase that my grandmother used a lot when I was growing up in Colorado.

And then when I used it once with my husband when I was in Milwaukee, he kind of looked at me funny because I said he had never heard the expression.

And then we were listening to the radio sometime later, and it was when we were back in Colorado, and there was a song that used the phrase brown is a berry.

So I quickly pointed it out to him that it wasn’t just my grandmother, but I didn’t get the name of the song, and so I was just wondering if it’s regional, if it’s old, or if it’s still in use, anything.

Well, your second hypothesis there is accurate.

It’s really old, isn’t it, Grant?

Yeah, yeah.

It goes back to at least 1400 or so.

You can find it in the writing of Geoffrey Chaucer.

And he used it pretty much the same way that we use it today to mean that somebody is dark or dusky or tan.

We often use it in reference to people, interestingly enough, and not so much anything else.

We always talk about the skin or appearance of somebody.

Sometimes you might use it to mean somebody who is dark-complected overall is brown as a berry.

It’s old. It’s widespread. It’s used throughout the English-speaking world.

As a matter of fact, Lou Jane, it’s so common.

It’s in lists of clichés to avoid in a lot of different writing manuals.

There’s this whole class of book that says that you should avoid using it in your writing because it’s trite and overused.

That’s interesting.

The question that usually comes up, and you didn’t ask it, but I think I’m going to ask it for you and answer it, is why brown?

Most berries aren’t brown, are they?

Right.

Yeah, I think of red and blue.

We think of fresh berries, but what about a dried berry?

They’re brownish, right?

And even more than that, the grain of wheat and barley has sometimes been known as the berry.

And there was a time when you might call a potato a berry.

So, of course, potatoes are brown.

So there are a lot of things that have been called berries that aren’t the raspberries or strawberries or blueberries that we might think of today, that certain class of brightly colorful, very sweet fruit.

Yeah, it’s interesting.

You don’t usually hear red as a berry or blue as a berry.

Well, you know, William Sapphire, may he rest in peace, William Sapphire in one of his books wrote that he thinks that the reason that brown as a berry has survived is simply because of alliteration because you’ve got the B and the B.

It’s just easy to say and it comes off the tongue very easily.

What do you think about that, Lou Jane?

Oh, I think that you’ve answered the question wonderfully.

Well, Grant usually does.

High marks all around. Thank you so much, Lou Jane.

You’re welcome.

Okay, thanks for calling.

All right, bye-bye.

All right, bye-bye.

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