A doornail is the strike plate against which the door knocker strikes. Because it has been hit so many times, it must be dead.
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Dawned on Me
Harriet Beecher Stowe used the phrase in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (1852).
The late 19th-century pairing of ‘crack’ and ‘jack’ to form ‘crackerjack’ topped off a long history for those words. ‘Cracker’ is an elongation of ‘crack,’ an adjective meaning ‘expert’ or ‘superior’ that dates from 1793. Prior to that, ‘crack’ was a noun meaning ‘something superior’ and a verb meaning ‘to boast.’ (That verb use evolved from ‘to crack a boast,’ which came from the sense of ‘crack’ meaning ‘to make a loud sharp sound.’) ‘Jack’ has been used for ‘man’ since the mid-1500s, as in ‘jack-of-all-trades.’ ‘Crackerjack’ entered English first as a noun (‘someone or something of excellence’), then as an adjective. You may also know ‘Cracker Jack’ as a snack of candied popcorn and peanuts. The copyrighted product name dates from the 1890s.
In mid-18th century England a group of ladies decided to replace evenings of card playing and idle chatter with ‘conversation parties,’ inviting illustrious men of letters to discuss literary and intellectual topics with them. One regular guest was scholar- botanist Benjamin Stillingfleet. His hostesses willingly overlooked his cheap blue worsted stockings (a type disdained by the elite) in order to have the benefit of his lively conversation. Those who considered it inappropriate for women to aspire to learning derisively called the group the ‘Blue Stocking Society.’ The women who were the original bluestockings rose above the attempted put-down and adopted the epithet as a name for members of their society.
Not surprisingly, the first blackmailers were corrupt politicians, 17th century Scottish chieftains who demanded protection money from local farmers, who refused only at the risk of having their crops destroyed. The ‘mail,’ or payment, was said to be ‘black’ probably because the color black had long been associated with darkness and evil, but it might also have been because payment was usually made in livestock, rather than in silver (which was known as ‘white money’).
The ‘give me two cows or I’ll burn down your farm’ kind of blackmail first appeared in English around 1552, but by the early 1800’s we were using ‘blackmail’ to mean just about any sort of extortion, especially using threats to reveal secrets.