One of Shakespeare’s famous passages is Hamlet’s concluding speech, which includes the phrase “aye, there’s the rub.” You can tell from the context that what Hamlet means by “the rub” is an obstacle or difficulty of some sort. But without the context — and in fact, without that particular famous passage — how would anybody know what the phrase was supposed to mean?
A particular group of people would know. They enjoy lawn bowling. Lawn bowling has been around since before Shakespeare’s time (it was called “bowls” in those days), and in the game a “rub” is anything in the grass that slows or stops your ball from rolling. Using the word that way is based on the same idea as “rubbing” in general — if a rolling ball rubs against some weeds, for example, it slows down.
The same concept is used in golf, in the phrase “the rub of the green.” (This is heresay as far as I’m concerned; I never heard that phrase before finding it in looking this up.) In this case the rub is anything at all that stops your golf ball.They may take it a bit too far — if you accidentally hit a tree, that’s called “the rub of the green” too.
Shakespeare was neither the first nor the last to use “rub” in a figurative sense. Thomas Nashe used it in 1590: “Some small rubs, as I hear, have been cast in my way to hinder my coming forth, but they shall not profit.” It’s the passage from Hamlet that has kept “there’s the rub” in use even today, but you can find “rub of the green” occasionally as well. For example, in 1982 James Elroy used it in his novel “Clandestine:” “I’m a deputy district attorney, for the city of Los Angeles. We have the same employer. I would rather be a deputy public defender, but that’s the rub of the green, as Dad would say.”
Even though lawn bowling is still played, the “rub” is far more likely to be used figuratively now, thanks to Shakespeare. In fact, you can buy a box at Walmart with all the equipment you need for lawn bowling, and it comes with a pamphlet explaining the rules. But you won’t find “the rub” mentioned anywhere in that pamphlet. Aye, there’s the rub.
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