Not Up To Snuff

Here's a mystery we may have to put to a vote. Have you ever been fired from your job? If you had you might have said, "I've just been sacked." I asked Hendrickson about it and came up with two references.

Once upon a time ... There have been, throughout history, a lot of different ways to punish bad guys. A practice developed and widespread throughout the Roman empire saw law breakers sewn into a canvas sack and tossed into the river. This is a pretty straightforward way to keep down civil unrest but it may not be the root of the saying, "I got sacked." The other comes from medieval Europe artisans who often carried their tools in a large sack, long before the days of toolboxes and beat up Astro vans. These workmen often left their sacks on site so they didn't have to drag them back and forth to work. If your work wasn't cutting it you were fired, usually at the end of the day (some things never change) and you had to drag off your tools, letting everyone know you had been 'sacked'

Both seem likely, as we know that both were real life practices, but let's put it to a vote. Punishment for a crime or the humiliation of dragging your tools home early from work? Interestingly the word 'sack', according to legend was the last word spoken at the Tower of Babel just before God put a wrench in the works to prevent us from conspiring to reach heaven. As a result, says Hendrickson, the word 'sack' has pretty much the same meaning in over a dozen languages.