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a.

A secret that someone is embarrassed about.

b.

The phrase likely originated in the early 19th century, during a time when medical practices were not well-regulated, and doctors sometimes kept human skeletons for study. These skeletons were often obtained through questionable means, such as grave robbing, and were hidden away to avoid scandal.

  i.  

These grave robbers were called resurrectionists or body snatchers. They usually worked at night and took fresh bodies before they could start to decay. The medical schools paid them well, so it became a profitable but dangerous job.

  ii.  

Some of the most famous resurrectionists were William Burke and William Hare, who lived in Edinburgh, Scotland. They did not only steal bodies—they murdered people to sell their bodies to doctors. This became known as the Burke and Hare murders. In 1828, the police caught them, and Burke was executed. His body was later given to medical students for study.

c.

Another theory suggests the phrase may have been inspired by Gothic literature, which often featured dark secrets and hidden horrors.

Hi, everyone and welcome back to one of your favorite segments【词源考古研究所】, in English we call it 【It means what?】  Hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu, hi everyone.

Every  time there's a new sound.

Okay. So In this segment, 安澜 and I will get to the bottom of some of the commonly used phrases or words and find out some of the interesting origin stories.

Yes.

So what word or what phrase we're gonna talk about today.

Today we're gonna talk about a bit of a gruesome expression.

Whoo~ I love gruesome.

Skeleton in the Closet or Skeleton in the Cupboard.

Skeleton in the Closet直译为柜子里的骷髅, sounds very horror movie like.

I know what it means. But I just love the imagery because it's so classically horror film, horror story.

Yes. So it literally means a secret that somebody is embarrassed about.

就有点中文里什么丑事, 隐秘的这种丑闻的意思is it always about a family though?

Well, It can be a family. It can be in someone's personal life. It's something that could be destructive. It could be dangerous for other people to know If it is revealed.

You know that in Chinese, we say家丑不可外扬. Hang on. I remember there was another way of saying it, this was dirty laundry叫做脏衣服. How's that different from skeleton in the closet?

Well, ‘Don't air your dirty linen in public’ means don't let other people know, but ‘skeleton in the closet/skeleton in the cupboard’ has a similar meaning, but it doesn't mean that you're letting other people know.

For us, it's more the imagery....let's take, for example, a big CEO so very very successful, he has a brilliant career, but he has an embarrassing secret that could destroy him or damage him if other people found out.

In that situation, we would say he has a skeleton in the closet or a skeleton in the cupboard.

我明白了, 像dirty laundry或者dirty linen, you mostly use it after to air or don't air your dirty linen or dirty laundry. 说所谓的外扬;

but skeleton in the closet doesn't have that imagery. It's more like it's remain hidden, I guess that's why when gay people they show their sexual orientation, they sort of announce their sexual orientation. They say come out of the closet because closet is always concealed, is concealing secrets.

Yeah, because ultimately nobody really goes through your closet or cupboard.

No, that's like your private hiding places I would say, things that you wanna keep hidden.  Where does it come from? Is it...? Please don't tell me people actually hid real skeletons in their closet.

Unfortunately yes.

So the phrase likely comes from the early 19th Century. Now this was a time when medical practices were not well regulated. And doctors found it difficult to get human bodies and skeletons for study.

Hang on a minute. Where did they get those skeletons if they needed skeletons for medical research and experiments? Where did they get... those were real human skeletons, right?  

They're real human skeletons. They're real human bodies. They used to get them from criminals. So criminals that were executed, but they were just simply not enough. So they robbed graves.

The doctors robbed graves in order to dig out skeletons, human remains?

Well, not the doctors, they used to use grave robbers called “resurrectionists” or “body snatchers”.

Oh that I actually know body snatchers就是那种盗墓贼, but they are not actually stealing things like jewelry and stuff. Well, at least not for in this particular case, they literally snatch dead bodies, corpse, and they sold them to doctors.

They had to be very careful because technically taking a body wasn't illegal, but taking any possessions was illegal. And these resurrectionists or body snatchers usually worked at night. They took fresh bodies before they started to decay and smell.  And the medical schools paid them very, very well. So it was a profitable but a very dangerous job.

So although it wasn't really the legal thing to do, but the medical schools they all knew where their bodies came from, right? They just paid them off under the table.

Yeah, it was a sort of don't ask, don't tell, so... gray area.

Yeah, the doctors didn't really want to know where the bodies came from. They weren't that interested in where the bodies came from. So it was very much...

They just needed plenty of bodies to study.

Exactly. They just needed plenty of bodies to study.

Yeah, I remember there was a gruesome case. I forgot their names, but there's a pair of them, I watched it in a documentary, the pair of resurrectionists or the body snatchers, they ran out of graves and bodies to dig up. So they actually murdered people themselves so that they could sell the bodies to the doctors.

William Burke and William Hare, Burke and Hare.

Wow.

This was a very, very famous case.

Notorious?

Notorious probably is a better way of describing it. Burke and Hare lived in Edinburgh in Scotland.

Now they stole bodies, but one day they were drinking with someone or someone was staying with them and they died during the night. And instead of reporting to the authorities, they sold the body to a local doctor and then they started to realize, hang on, instead of robbing graves, what we could do is we could is kill people.

So they started to murder people to sell their bodies to doctors.

Wow, 脑回路你也是可以的. So basically, murdering was so much easier than digging of graves, which was a dirty work.

Exactly. And these became known as the Burke and Hare murders. In 1828, the police caught them and Hare turned on his friend.

Hare basically said, okay, if let me go, if you let me free, then I will give you evidence against Burke. Hare was released, Burke was executed and guess what happened to his body.

Please don't tell me his body was given to medical students for research and study.

Absolutely. And you can actually still see his body in a museum up in Scotland.

That is really karma, 这叫天道好轮回.

So during his lifetime, he murdered people, he dug up graves so that he could give these bodies to medical students, to medical schools for a study and when he was executed... after he was executed, his body was given to medical students for study. Completing the cycle.

Very very ironic. You gotta love the irony.

Yeah, it's pretty ironic,  by the way, speaking of skeleton in the closet or a skeleton in the cupboard, didn’t your old school used to have or still have a really famous skeleton in the cupboard?

安澜其中一个母校是UCL, UCL是有一个skeleton in the cupboard, 对吧?

That is correct, but it's not a shameful secret. It's the skeleton of our founder Jeremy Bentham. And if you go to UCL you can still see his body in a cupboard.

Yeah, but probably put on display.

It is on display. It's something that we're not ashamed about. It's something that we're not embarrassed about.

It's something you're proud of.

It's something we're proud of. It's on display. And if you ever go to UCL you can still see our own skeleton in the cupboard.

By the way, I think this whole skeleton in the closet, skeleton in the cupboard thing is also very gothic sounding. I could imagine it being used in many of the gothic literature, either literally or figuratively because gothic literature is often about dark secrets and hidden horrors.

Absolutely. So some people say it comes from gothic literature, but personally I'd like to think it comes from the resurrectionists or body snatches.

The body snatches, yeah , so to finish today's discussion, 安澜, do you have a skeleton in the closet that I or we don't know about?

Do you honestly think I'll be announcing that on a podcast.

But at least I can get a yes or no. So I'm taking that as a yes.

I am not gonna make a comment.

No comments.

Just no comment.

Are you not gonna ask me? Ask me ,ask me .

I'm pretty sure you got quite a few skeletons in the cupboard. It's amazing how you could fit your clothes in there as well.

Yeah, my cupboard or my closet is filled with skeletons. There’s chock full of skeletons.

Yeah, all the interesting people have that.

You think I'm interesting.

I won't go that far.

Okay. Thank you. So hopefully you guys enjoy the episode and leave us comment if you have anything to say about skeleton in the closet or in the cupboard or put in request for any other words you want us to explore in this segment. And thank you 安澜 for coming to the show.

Thanks, Lulu, thanks everyone.

We'll see you next time.

 Bye

Bye.