None of your Business

Perhaps it was my conversation with Yvonne DiVita at Lip-Sticking who told me she tries to blog every day. Or perhaps it’s because one of my retainer clients is having cash flow problems so I suddenly and regrettably find myself with an extra 15-20 hours a week on my hands – the better to blog with.

So starting today, I will be blogging with more regularity. I won’t commit to every day, but I’m going to try.

Like many people this weekend, I got sucked into the Terri Schiavo case. But unlike the executive and legislative branches of our government, the phrase that kept up popping up in my mind was not that her husband is killing her, the phrase that kept popping up in my mind is -- “ It’s none of your business.”

As I kept repeating that phrase to myself, over and over again this weekend, I realized I had no idea where the phrase originated.  Turns out like the Schiavo case, there doesn’t seem to be consensus.

According to the website Back-Roads Touring Company, an outfit that promises to take you out of the tourist façade, the term Mind Your Own business has to do with hygiene.

"Mind your Own business' Our ancestor's personal hygiene left much room for improvement. As a result, many women and men had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman's face she was told 'mind your own bee's wax'."

Dictionary.com indicates that none of your business gets its origins from Mind your own Bee’s wax.

"Not one's concern, as in How much I earn is none of your business. This expression employs business in the sense of "one's affairs," a usage dating from about 1600. (Also see mind one's own business.) A slangy, jocular variant from about 1930 is none of one's beeswax. The related verb phrase have no business is used to indicate that one should not meddle or interfere, as in He has no business discussing the will with outsiders."

This from wordorigins.org

Beeswax

This term, commonly used in the phrase none of your beeswax, is an Americanism dating to the 1930s. It is simply an intentional malapropism for business. It has nothing to do with actual wax.

While I wish that lots of people would be minding their own beeswax today, my search for meaning did uncover a a surprising and delightful find.

The  website for Back-Roads Touring Company has a disclaimer on the bottom of their homepage that I found so inspiring that I would like to adopt it.

With the amount of information we've tried to supply, there'll inevitably be typographical errors that we've failed to spot. Sorry for this. Should you find any, please let us know and we'll be delighted to send you a small gift for your trouble. 

Actually, I probably won’t send a gift, but I will post a personal acknowledgement.  I am a writer who definitely needs an editor. ( oh, and when I went to spellcheck this post, typepad sent an error saying the couldn't complete my request so there's probably a good chance that I will be thanking quite a few of you in the upcoming days!)