In one of history’s greatest stories about yarn, Theseus famously made it back out of the deadly Minotaur’s labyrinth by unspooling a ball of yarn so he could retrace his steps. In Middle English, such rolled-up yarn was called a clewe. Eventually, clew took on the metaphorical meaning of something that will lead you to a solution. Pretty soon, the spelling was changed to clue, and now we’ve got that awesome board game and of course, that blue pooch and his bits of evidence. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Origin of “Clue””
As far back as the 10th century, a clue that C-L-E-W-E was a ball of yarn.
So like if you have a little cat playing on the floor, it’s playing with a little clue.
Okay, put that aside for a moment and go back to ancient Greece.
Now, the Greek hero Theseus was the guy who had to fight the Minotaur.
You remember that? The Minotaur was this horrible monster who lived in the labyrinth.
Like the head of a bull or something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And he lived inside this maze-like structure, and he would catch people there as they were trying to find their way out.
But in order to slay this beast, what Theseus did very cleverly was to take a ball of yarn with him into the maze.
Right.
And that’s how he found his way in, and then after slaying the beast, found his way out.
And by Chaucer’s time, people were using this word clue for a ball of yarn to metaphorically mean something that will lead you to a solution.
And the spelling later got standardized as C-L-U-E.
Isn’t that cool?
What a great origin story.
That’s wonderful.
Love it.
Who knew that language could be so interesting?
We did!
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