Meaning:
To be in disgrace or out of favour.
Background:
In the Middle Ages `one's books' was understood to mean `one's reckoning or
cognizance', that is, the esteem in which one was held by others. To be `out
of someone's books' meant you were no longer part of their life and of no
interest to them. This meaning is first recorded in The Parlyament of
Deuylles, 1509 - "He is out of our bokes, and we out of his". The use of
books to indicate favour or disfavour is enshrined in several phrases - `good
books', `bad books', `black books'.
The first of these was `black books', which appears to have originated by
allusion to an actual book. In 1592, Robert Greene published his intention to
create a Blacke Booke, which was to list the misdemeanors of various classes
of criminal. As a preamble he wrote his Black Book's Messenger, which
included:
"Ned Brownes villanies which are too many to be described in my Blacke Booke."
This phrase had become used figuratively by 1785 (that is, as a form of
disfavour, but where no actual book was in evidence) when it was recorded in
Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
"He is down in the black book, that is, has a stain in his character."
`Bad books' arrived on the scene later and is first recorded in Perry's
History of the Church of England, 1861:
"The Arminians, who at that time were in his bad books."
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Politics has been anything but boring since last year but the past paled
compared to recent excitements. Mr. Musk, the President's man Friday, must have
felt like riding a rollercoaster, (or was it a water slide?) like the stock of his
company, and the thrill from plunging, free-fall, from the good into the bad books
of many MAGA people was all worth it.
