It could go on for any figure of reasons . Maybe you note a bigspidercrawling out of your empty shoe , find a tomentum in thefoodyou’re serve at a eating place , listen an unexpected noise in the middle of the night . Or , bad yet , suspect the noise came from a monster concealment under your seam . Whatever the cause , when yourskinstarts to grovel , yourheartbegins to pound and your senses go on full alerting , you might say that you have a case of " the willies . " This uncomfortable , panic-struck , jittery look is probably a intimate one . The origins of the term , however , might be strange . How did " the willies " get its name ?
Some historians bespeak to productions of the ballet " Giselle , " which debut in Paris in the 1840s . In it , a young heroine falls in love with a humankind venture to be someone else . In reality , he ’s a villain who ’s already plight to another woman . When the heroine discovers the betrayal during a passionate dance scene , she dies of a broken in warmheartedness and joins the Queen of the Wilis , who is accompanied by a boniface of female spirits who have also been scorn . Together , these ghost – hump collectively as the Wilis – seek revenge upon men they encounter in the haunted woods by dancing them to death . To see the Wilis appear as apparitions on degree probably was enough to give viewers a little fright , something that eventually led to the common term " the willies " [ source : Crabb ] .
There are a numeral of other possibility for the origin of the term , though . Some suspect it was infer from early American name - vocation . Children , it turns out , once called other children " willie - boy " instead of " Milquetoast , " and the conception was eventually apply to have " the willies . " Other experts point to a Slavic sprite known as aviliorwili . Still another bad explanation stems from the foresighted woolen underclothing worn by American frontiersmen . These undergarments , called " woolies , " were often petulant and irritating to the skin . This may be why we relate a jittery , setaceous , " goosebumps " feeling with " the willies " [ source : Alpha Dictionary ] .
no matter of how the term started , " the willies " are a very real feeling for many . Whether they ’re stimulate by watching a shivery movie , read a suspenseful novel or bumping into an object in the dark , " the willies " seems to be a universal sense datum .
