{"id":19476,"date":"2020-01-31T09:45:45","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T09:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=19476"},"modified":"2020-01-31T15:41:57","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T15:41:57","slug":"why-we-knock-on-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/why-we-knock-on-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we knock on wood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rosemary V. Hathaway<\/a>, West Virginia University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Ever said something like, \u201cI\u2019ve never gotten a speeding ticket\u201d \u2013 and then quickly, for luck, rapped your knuckles on a wooden table or doorframe?<\/p>\n

Americans accompany this action by saying, \u201cKnock on wood.\u201d In Great Britain, it\u2019s \u201cTouch wood.\u201d They knock on wood in Turkey<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n

As a teacher of folklore<\/a> \u2013 the study of \u201cthe expressive culture of everyday life,\u201d as my favorite short definition puts it<\/a> \u2013 I\u2019m often asked why people knock on wood.<\/p>\n

The answer is complicated<\/h2>\n

The common explanation for knocking on wood claims the ritual is a holdover from Europe\u2019s pagan days, an appeal to tree-dwelling spirits to ward off bad luck or an expression of gratitude for good fortune<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Brewer\u2019s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable<\/a>, \u201ctraditionally, certain trees, such as the oak, ash, hazel, hawthorn and willow, had a sacred significance and thus protective powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the theory goes, Christian reformers in Europe may have deliberately transformed this heathenish belief into a more acceptable Christian one by introducing the idea that the \u201cwood\u201d in \u201cknock on wood\u201d referred to the wood of the cross of Jesus\u2019 crucifixion.<\/p>\n

However, no tangible evidence supports these origin stories.<\/p>\n

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the phrase<\/a> \u201ctouch wood\u201d only back to the early 19th century, locating its origins in a British children\u2019s tag game called Tiggy-touch-wood, in which children could make themselves \u201cexempt\u2026from capture [by] touching wood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, much folklore is learned informally, by word of mouth or customary behavior. So it\u2019s possible \u2013 even likely \u2013 that the phrase and the ritual predate its first appearance in print.<\/p>\n

So why do we still knock on wood?<\/h2>\n

I\u2019d wager few, if any, people today think \u2013 after saying something that might bring bad luck \u2013 \u201cI\u2019d better ask the tree spirits for help!\u201d<\/p>\n

Still they knock, to avoid negative consequences.<\/p>\n

That puts knocking on wood in a category with other \u201cconversion rituals\u201d like throwing salt over one\u2019s shoulder<\/a>: actions people perform, almost automatically, to \u201cundo\u201d any bad luck just created.<\/p>\n

The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski has a theory about such actions, called the \u201canxiety-ritual theory<\/a>.\u201d It states that the anxiety created by uncertainty leads people to turn to magic and ritual to gain a sense of control.<\/p>\n

Knocking on wood may seem trivial, but it is one small way people quell their fears in a life full of anxieties.<\/p>\n

[ Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Rosemary V. Hathaway<\/a>, Associate Professor of English, West Virginia University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rosemary V. Hathaway, West Virginia University Ever said something like, \u201cI\u2019ve never gotten a speeding ticket\u201d \u2013 and then quickly, for luck, rapped your knuckles on a wooden table or doorframe? Americans accompany this action by saying, \u201cKnock on wood.\u201d In Great Britain, it\u2019s \u201cTouch wood.\u201d They knock on wood in Turkey, too. As a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":19477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[4491,7604,5676,6610,3759,4424],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19487,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19476\/revisions\/19487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}