SEPTEMBER 2006
 Hello!
There are some expressions that have been used for hundreds of years yet we don’t know where they come from – even the experts are not sure.
For instance, when something happens that creates a glow of pleasure or sympathy, it’s said to warm the cockles of your heart.
Cockles are snail-like shellfish, bivalve molluscs that Molly Malone used to sell with mussels, from her Dublin wheelbarrow - what are they doing in your heart?
When I looked into it, I found that it was first recorded in the mid-17th century, and there are several possible explanations.
The cockle is often heart-shaped and so may have reminded people of the heart.
Alternatively, the chambers, or ventricles, of the heart used to be called cochleae cordis in medieval Latin, cochleae meaning snail, after the shape of the ventricles. Maybe the cochleae became known jocularly as cockles.
So next time you hear the expression, remember that what is really being said is ‘warming the chambers of your heart’ – or even ‘warming the snails of your heart’.
Happy puzzling!
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