"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 20/09/17 (going from pillar, pillores-stockings)

I have to thank Audrey Jones today, because dhe asked me... She wrote in to ask why we talk about going from pillar to post when we're making a great effort to achieve something. So thanks to Audrey and everyone who writes in. There are two theories about this. The first is that it goes back to the sport of real tennis. We know it first appears in English in around the 15th century but it first appear from post to pillar, so the other way round. And the explanation, the theory behind this one is that a tennis player chasing the ball ricocheting from the posts and pillars of the indoor courts in those days was a really vivid metaphor for somebody who was just going hither and thither in search of something, in an effort to achieve something. But there is another theory, which is the most plausible and ehich the evidence seems to fit a little bit better, and that interprets the post as a whipping post and the pillar as pillory, which was punishment, really through humiliation. It was this contraption, as you probably know - it was a short post and it was topped with a wooden frame, and the offender's head and hands would go through this, and essentially they would be mocked by every passer-by, the ocational pigeon, etc - real humiliation, which is why, of course, we talk about pillorying someboby today if we're really given them a hard time. So not a very nice origin but, as I say, that's probably the most plausible one. But while we're on pillories, worth mentioned stockings, as well, because it's slightly strange that an item of lingerie today actually began with that same instrument of torture, or at least a very similar one. The idea was that people put their legs through this horrible wooden blocks in the same way that you'd put your legs into stockings, so very strange progression but we thing that stockings almost certanly go back to those original pilories and stocks.