Footloose and Fancy Free - Theatre Etymology - Part 8

Many people associate the phrase footloose and fancy free with dancing. This is most likely because of the 1984 movie, Footloose. Sometimes, it is also associated with the theatre. It tends to mean to be free of any commitments and to be able to move about as one pleases.

Part of the phrase does originate with theatre, but the other part does not. The phrase fancy free comes from the theatre. It seems that it was first used by Shakespeare in his 1598 play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. When Shakespeare used the phrase, it meant to be free of any romantic or amorous thoughts or commitments. This was because in Tudor England, fancy meant an amorous inclination. Oberon states, "But I might see young cupid's fiery shaft / Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, / And the imperial votaress passed on, / In maiden meditation, fancy free."

However, it is debated if footloose comes from sailing terms or from terms used in law. There don't seem to be years related to when the term would be used with sailing. However, the story for the origin of the word footloose with sailing states that the bottom of the main sail, the foot, was always tied to the base, or the foot, of a boom in order to keep it from flapping in the wind. At times, there were reasons for a main sail not being tied to a boom, especially if the shape were not to be kept the same. At other times, the bottoms of smaller sails were not tied to a boom. It is thought that these sails were said to be footloose.

The idea of the word footloose coming from the law has a stronger basis. It is thought that the word has been used to mean free to act as one pleases as early as the 17th century. Online dictionaries state that the word was first used sometime between 1650 and 1700, but give no sources.

It is known that on January 16, 1834, the Indianapolis Journal reported on a case about a financier and it said, "The Senate declared this connection unlawful, and immediately divorced this great financier from the revenue bill, sent the bill back to the House without its defilement, leaving the great financier again foot loose in the world."

It is thought that the two phrases (or word and phrase) were put together simply because the alliteration sounded good. Different sites give what they think was the first usage. The earliest seems to be from the Wednesday, March 20, 1867 edition of the Nashville, Tennessee periodical, Republican Banner. The part of the story that used the phrase read, "The people of Tennessee hate, loathe and spurn all professional slanderers as they hate, loathe and spurn all political corruptionists, shoulderstrikers, mobbists, incendiaries, [sic] civil government in our midst, and we want the aid of no extremists, North or South. We are the ally of no party hostile to the Government or the Congress. We are foot-loose and fancy-ree [sic], bound at the wrist by no entangling alliances. We shall make a plain Republican effort here for a plain Republican fabric - and we shall GO IT ALONE."

The next time the phrase appeared seems to be in the Louisville, Kentucky newspaper, The Courier-Journal, from Sunday and Monday, Gust 29 and 30, 1869 when it said that the Democratic party was "foot-loose and fancy free, with the whole country pick and choose from." The phrase also appeared in a January 1877 edition of the Daily Arkansas Gazette that said "Footloose, fancy free, but of marriageable age" and the October 19, 1882 edition of the Jackson Sentinel from Maquoketa, Iowa that said, "All of which, fellow citizen, means that the people are footloose and fancy free."

Even though only part of the phrase originated in the theatre, with the current meaning of the phrase, footloose and fancy free, being that a person is free from commitments and able to do what he or she wants, it makes perfect sense to be in a theatre. Sometimes, even though actors actors are extremely dedicated to the productions, they seem to have a freedom that others do not. The phrase could also be one that a person gives a theatre when starting to work with the theatre because they will need the time to work with the theatre and will need to be free of other commitments and to move about the theatre as needed.

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