I really hate the expression “A yeoman’s effort,” i.e. “He made a yeoman’s effort to finish the project on time.” Why is a yeoman’s job any more difficult than the others? I see this as very unfair to the rest of the crew.

My theory is that a bunch of yeomans did this themselves. They were drinking scotch and goofing off, and one of them said “When we get to shore, let’s make a point of saying ‘a yeoman’s effort’ to mean something hard or difficult. It’ll catch on like wildfire. Then we’ll get all the glory for this trip, even though the guy who did all the work was actually the coxswain.”