Q: FOLLOWING the question about Milfield Plain in Northumberland, another plain that interests me just to the north of Milfield is the Merse, which lies just beyond the Tweed in Scotland. Does its name have any link with the River Mersey? - Bill Hutchinson, Chester-le-Street.

A: I AM uncertain about the origin of the name Merse but I suspect it has something to do with this area being a border zone. The name of the River Mersey certainly derives from an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning border or frontier. A similar word is also likely to have given rise to the word march and in historical times march meant a border frontier, hence the Welsh Marches or the Scottish Border Marches. There is also a possibility that the word marsh might be related to Merse and march, since marshes were often important boundary features in ancient times.

Q: CAN you give any explanation for the phrases "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb", "Gone to pot", "The melting pot", "Open and shut case" and "On tick". - Doug McKenna, Stockton.

A: THE first phrase is rooted in a French saying which translates as "God regulates the cold to the shorn lamb" - in other words God protects the weak.

Gone to pot is often said to derive from a story about a tailor who lived near a cemetery. He used to throw a stone into a pot every time someone died. Eventually when he died, his neighbours proclaimed that he too, had gone to pot. An alternative explanation is that the phrase derives from Elizabethan times when poor pieces of meat were torn off a joint by a wealthy gentleman and placed in a pot for making a stew. The poor would queue at the pot for their share of the stew. If a wealthy man lost his money and his station in life, he too would have to queue at the pot. He would then be described "as gone to pot".

The term melting pot, in connection with mixed racial harmony, was first recorded in 1908 when it appeared in a publication called The Melting Pot published by Israel Zangwill in 1908. Zangwill wrote: "America is god's crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming".

Open and shut case originates in some kind of card game, possibly poker, and refers to the pot of money or case being closed immediately after the players have put up their stakes. Finally, to buy something on tick is to buy on credit. The phrase was first used in 1648 with tick being an abbreviation for ticket.

If you have a Burning Question, or can improve on any of the answers above, please write to Burning Questions, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF or e-mail david.simpson@nne.co.uk

Published: Monday, September 3, 2001