Pylimitics

Everything that’s on sale is for sale, but not everything for sale is on sale. It hasn’t always been that way. If you go back far enough — say to the 700s — “sell” meant to give. You can find it in Beowulf, and that’s what it meant in those days. 

A couple of centuries later “sell” came to mean to hand something over to an enemy. That meaning is still with us in the phrase “sell out,” although that phrase didn’t appear until the 1800s. 

Somewhere around the year 1000 “sell” began to be used to mean handing something over in exchange for a price. The “sale” form appeared around 1050, and that form has always had to do with exchanges for a price. “For sale” goes back to the 1600s, and first appears in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline:

“The other is not a thing for sale.”

The phrase “on sale”, which was originally “upon sale” is nearly as old, and originally meant exactly the same thing as “for sale” — and stayed that way for centuries. 

“A book which has been upon sale ever since it was published twelve years ago” comes from 1835, and “The times is on sale for 3d. per Copy at all railway bookstalls in England and Wales” is from 1901. 

It was around the mid 1800s (when “department stores” first arose) that “sale” began to have a second meaning: selling something at a discount. The earliest citation is from 1866, in Chambers’s Journal:

“Enormous and incredible sale … for ten days only!!!” (Even in 1866 marketers thought hyperbole and exclamation marks were definitely the cleverest approach.)

It was probably to clarify the subtle differences between the two meanings of “sale” that the phrases “for sale” and “on sale” began to diverge in the 20th century. The distinction may be more prevalent in the US than in England, at least judging by dictionaries — the OED doesn’t a unique meaning for “on sale” other than “available for purchase”, but US dictionaries (Merriam-Webster and American Heritage) both point out that “on sale” has two meanings, “available for purchase” and “available at a discount.” 

If you think about it, that’s really two meanings for the price of one! And after all, everybody loves a bargain. Speaking of which, “bargain” is derived from the Old French “bargaignier,” which meant “to haggle.” It’s been around since Middle English, and it also has two meanings: as a verb it means “to haggle” and as a noun and/or adjective it means a discount price. 

All these words have been around in English for a long time, so we’re due for some new ones. And that means… Enormous and incredible opportunity to use these words … while they last!!!”