In the Europe 1 program "Historically yours", Stéphane Bern looks every day at the roots of an everyday expression.

Wednesday, he is interested in the origins of "it's in my strings", which designates the fact of being able to do something, and which finds its origins in singing.

Stéphane Bern suggests every day, in 

Historically yours 

with Matthieu Noël, to discover these expressions that we use on a daily basis without necessarily knowing their origin. On Wednesday, the host of Europe 1 returns to the ancestral roots of the expression "it's in my strings", which designates the fact of being able to do something. 

Although used in boxing with "being on the ropes", the phrase "it's on my ropes" has nothing to do with two men competing in a ring, but rather with the vocal cords. In the 19th century, to ensure that a piece of music was interpretable by a singer, one wondered if the score was "on the strings" of the artist, in order to know if he was able to interpret it. Here we are talking more about classical music, baritones, sopranos ... Besides, concerning the latter, "sopra" in Italian means above. Nothing to do here with the singer's talent, but simply that his range is above tenors and violas for example. 

>> Find all the shows of Matthieu Noël and Stéphane Bern every day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

The chord as a synonym of musical note

In 1832, we find in the dictionary of the French academy the word "rope" as being synonymous with "musical note".

Today, we can easily imagine Gims singing Carla Bruni, or Christophe Willem singing Johnny, it will be more a question of feeling than of pure technique, all the repertoires seem in the strings of all the performers. 

In Spain, as in France, it is also said "to be within reach". Note that there is a musical lexical field. But in Brazil, we say "this is my beach" to say that it feels good there. In Sweden, on the other hand, you have to say "I feel good there as in mother's street" ... What could be more reassuring than the gentleness of a mother?