Trip the Light Fantastic

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Megan from Boonville, New York.

Hi, Megan. Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

What can we do for you today?

Well, I had a question about a phrase somebody asked me when I was at work one night.

This gentleman came up to me. He was an older gentleman in his 70s or so.

And it was at nighttime, and he asked me if I was going to be tripping the light fantastic.

And I had never heard that phrase before, so I looked at him, you know, like he was crazy.

And I said I didn’t know what that meant.

So he said basically that it meant, like, painting the town red or whatever.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, well, it means to dance, dance the night away, that kind of thing.

But this phrase has to do with the fact that the word trip can mean more than just stumble.

You know, you think of trip and walking along and stumbling.

But a much older sense of the word was to dance and to dance really well, to dance nimbly.

And back in the 1640s, the poet John Milton wrote a poem that was encouraging someone to dance.

And it goes, come and trip it as you go on the light fantastic toe.

And the light there means lightweight or light footed.

And fantastic means extravagantly wonderful, like the thing that you would only see in a fantasy.

So trip the light fantastic toe.

And then that got adapted in different versions over the years.

And do you know the song that goes east side, west side, all around the town?

No.

Okay.

You made me sing, Megan.

I hate when that happens.

That song was called The Sidewalks of New York.

And there was a line in there about tripping the light fantastic again.

And so that’s probably why it appeals to older people and is more in the vocabulary.

Because that song was really big in the late 1800s.

Yeah, yeah.

It was about we tripped the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York.

So it does have to do with dancing, and it goes all the way back to John Milton and an older sense of the word trip, meaning to dance.

And then there was the Procol Harum song, right?

The 1960s?

Yeah.

Do you remember that one, Megan?

No.

Well, Grant can sing that one for you.

But they change it, and they say, skipped the light fandango, which is a kind of dance.

And so the phrase continues to morph and change and become something new in English.

Yeah, so you haven’t heard that one either, huh?

No, well, I was born in 1984, so.

I see, Megan.

Well, they do have oldies radio, so.

So, Megan, what do you say if you want to talk about dancing the night away, or you had a great time?

Tripping the light fantastic.

Yes! All right. Very good. I’m glad you’re adopting that one.

All right. Thanks so much for calling.

Thank you for having me.

Okay. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.