November 17, 2015 - The jury finds the defendant “not guilty” to everyone’s surprise. Someone says, “Well, he just got off scot free.” People have been lamenting the fact that most people in this country pay no income taxes, and it is said, “they get off scot free” from paying taxes.
I am sure that you are familiar with that phrase and have probably uttered it many times. The question is what does it really mean? Research on the phrase reveals several “suggestions” by the word experts as to the phrase’s actual beginning. Apparently the phrase goes way back to the 11th century.
Many people, especially in the United States, are convinced that the phrase originated with the story of Dred Scott. If you remember anything about history from your school days, you will recall the story of Dred Scott who was a black slave born in Virginia in 1799. Mr. Scott wanted his freedom so badly that he filed numerous court cases, right up to the USA Supreme Court in 1857. All of his court cases failed, but Scott was later made a free man by his owners, the Blow family. Thus, the phrase Scott free became popular.
However, further examination of the phrase shows the danger of trying to prove a case on circumstantial evidence alone. In fact, we discover that the phrase has nothing to do with Mr. Dred Scott and his freedom.
Some researchers go to Scotland to search for the answer, given the reputation of Scotsmen as being careful with their money. However, they are again wrong. It appears that the basic word “skat” is a Scandinavian word for “a tax”, or a payment of such. This word migrated to Britain and mutated into “scot” as the name of a redistributive taxation, levied as early as the 10th century as a form of municipal poor relief. Thus, “scot” as a term for tax has been used since then in various forms – Church scot, school scot, county scot, and so on. Whatever the tax, the phrase “getting off scot free” simply refers to not paying one’s taxes.
No one likes paying tax and people have been getting off scot free since at least the 11th century. The first reference in print to “scot free” is in the Writ of Edward the Confessor, which was written prior to 1066, which is a long time before Dred Scott.
The use of the figurative version of the phrase gradually began to expand in the 16th century from not paying taxes to someone escaping custody, or being spared from death. An example would be one spared harm during a tornado in which someone might say, “Dan escaped scot free by God’s providence”. It would also apply to the defendant who is found “not guilty” by a jury of his peers – he got off scot free.
So, we can summarize the phrase “getting off scot free” today as meaning – without incurring payment, or escaping without punishment. Come next April 15th, or the next grand jury meeting, the meanings become even more important to us, don’t they? Aren’t words interesting?
