Word of the Week – Fit the Bill

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holy Week and Lenten season! I know some of you were reading along my 40 Days of Jesus challenge, and others weren’t–and now it’s back to usual blogging. (Only 3 days a week instead of the 6 of the challenge, LOL.)

My next book releases NEXT TUESDAY!!!! One of the items on my to-do list this week is getting my usual huge giveaway running by release day, so you definitely want to stay tuned for that. =)

In the meantime, while normal blogging was suspended for the reading challenge, I was still writing The Name Thief and having a blast (most of the time). And, of course, finding some words to feature on Mondays. 😉

Last week, I had my heroine poised to say that something “fit the bill,” and then I paused. Went to etymonline.com . . . and found that this time I couldn’t find it in such an easy click, so headed to Google instead, to trace the etymology of that phrase. (Found this entry.)

What I discovered was that while the idea of fit the bill was certainly around by 1914, that wasn’t how they said it. At the time, a “bill” wasn’t thought of as an invoice–it was more a program or advertisement that could be tacked up on a billboard (go figure). Think a restaurant’s “bill of fare.” So those who planned these events that used bills had to find things with which to fill them, to round them out. The original saying was, then, fill the bill.

So my instincts to check it were, this time, right. 😉