In working on something I’m writing, I started digging in on the idiom, “Cannot see the forest for the trees”.
The first recorded use of it used the old noun, wood, instead of trees:
“from him who sees no wood for trees
John Heywood, “The Proverbs of John Heywood” (1546), allegedly criticizing the Pope during the reign of Charles II in the first known use of the idiom, “cannot see the forest for the trees”.
And yet is busie as the bees
From him that’s settled on his lees
And speaketh not without his fees”.
I was bending it to a particular use, and thought I’d throw it into what I was writing – but it just looks pedantic there, as in the phrase, ‘unnecessarily pedantic’.
Thus, I looked into ‘the big picture’, whose meaning I believe people of my generation understand pretty well, though it wasn’t used much prior to the 1990s.
However, the first record of it in writing was in 1862!
There was nothing strange in it; it was but a panel from the big picture of life, such a one as you yourself might have traced out during those months spent at the sea-side – a very quiet panel, and I saw it principally through my window.
“A Romance of the Sea-side”, Chapter I, Chambers Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts, Conducted by William and Robert Chambers, Saturday, July 19th, 1862.
These encapsulate concepts that probably pre-date these findings. The common concept could be seen as framing, or focusing on different levels – things I consider to be the same things applied differently.
Sadly, I can’t really use this in the project, though I am using the idioms, so I thought I’d toss it up here.