twice shy

I just discovered I didn't know the meaning of backbiting.

I was reading Jonathan Freedland's comment in the Guardian on the new Tory leadership - he quotes David Cameron claiming to be fed up of "the name calling, backbiting, pointscoring" style of politics at Westminster, and makes the accusation that George Osborne attacking the Chancellor "called names, bit backs and scored points."

Bit backs? I wanted it to be bit back!

But, apparently, that was just my idiosyncratic folk etymology - as it turns out, backbiting really is biting someone on the back, not biting back at somebody (as I hadn't realised I'd thought).

Weird.