salad days

"Salad days" is an idiomatic expression, referring to a youthful time, accompanied by the inexperience, enthusiasm, idealism, innocence, or indiscretion that one associates with a young person. More modern use, especially in the United States, refers to a person's heyday when somebody was at the peak of his/her abilities—not necessarily in that person's youth.

History

The phrase was coined in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in 1606.^[1] In the speech at the end of Act One in which Cleopatra is regretting her youthful dalliances with Julius Caesar she says:^[2]

"...My salad days, / When I was green in judgment, cold in blood..."

The phrase became popular only from the middle of the 19th century, coming to mean “a period of youthful inexperience or indiscretion." The metaphor comes from Cleopatra's use of the word 'green' — presumably meaning someone youthful, inexperienced, or immature. Her references to "green in judgment" and "cold in blood" both suggest qualities of salads. ^[3]

Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage summarizes several other possible meanings of the metaphor:

Whether the point is that youth, like salad, is raw, or that salad is highly flavoured and youth loves high flavours, or that innocent herbs are youth's food as milk is babes' and meat is men's, few of those who use the phrase could perhaps tell us; if so, it is fitter for parrots' than for human speech.^[4]

Usage

"Aboard one Zodiac, Frank Hewetson, a 20-year Greenpeace veteran who in his salad days as a protester scaled the first BP deepwater oil rigs off Scotland, tried to direct his pilot toward the net so that he could throw a daisy chain of sandbags over its floating edge and allow the bluefin to escape."^[5]

In the 1987 Joel and Ethan Coen film Raising Arizona, Nicolas Cage as H.I. “Hi” McDunnough uses the expression twice in the first few minutes of the film. Speaking as the background voice-over rather than as a character, he first says, “These were the happy days, the salad days as they say, and Ed felt that having a critter was the next logical step. It was all she thought about.” A few moments later, again as the voice-over, he says, “Our love for each other was stronger than ever, but I preminisced [sic] no return of the salad days.”

The phrase is used in the Spandau Ballet song Gold.

"These are my salad days, slowly being eaten away"

In 1985, Washington, DC hardcore punk band Minor Threat released the song "Salad Days" reflecting on days of spirited youth in contrast to a time of adult disillusionment.

Episode 33 of the television series Monty Python's Flying Circus is called Salad Days.

The phrase has been used as the title of several books, including the novels Salad Days by Francoise Sagan^[6] and by Charles Romalotti^[7], the autobiography The Salad Days by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.,^[8] and numerous cookbooks.^[9][10]

The phrase is also used in the track "Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)" from Patrick Stump's Truant Wave EP. "Oh nostalgia I don't need you anymore. 'Cause the salad days are over and the meat is at my door."

See also

• Salad Days (musical)

References

External links

Look up salad days in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Dictionary.com entry
• World Wide Words discussion of 'Salad Days' usage, original and modern