With quite a few states having gone to the polls already, millions of people in our country must have walked enthusiastically or grudgingly in the hot sun to a nearby Government school to cast their bullet. Oops, I’m sorry, I mean ballot. But then, I’m not entirely wrong; for you see, although the words ballot and bullet come from different languages, they originally meant the same thing – little ball. This perhaps explains why in some parts of our country, police firing and bullets flying are a common feature on the day we cast the ballot!
In case you are wondering how anyone in their right mind can call a bullet a little ball, you must remember the first bullets did not look anything like those used today. The bullets then, were small and round.
The word ballot comes from the Italian ballota, and it literally means ‘a little ball’. Unlike the voters of today, the Ancient Greeks did not have electronic voting machines or pieces of paper on which they marked the candidate of their choice. All they had were small coloured stones shaped like a ball. If a voter favoured a candidate, he dropped a white ball in a container/box; if he did not like the candidate, he dropped a black one. It is from this practice of the ancient Greeks that we get the expression to blackball someone to mean to vote against someone from becoming a member of an organisation or a group.
Image Source:
Banner: https://search.app.goo.gl/kmWZcki
Police: https://search.app.goo.gl/TDMf9v8
Bullets: https://search.app.goo.gl/n3YaYdz
Pebbles: https://search.app.goo.gl/tQVu1KX
Know Your English 