Old and Famous Expressions & Sayings There have been a great number of classic phrases we have all heard in our liftimes and more often than not, had no idea what the expressions meant nor where they came from. The following is a short list of a few of those expressions. Some of them have, at one time or another, been shrouded in controversy concerning their origin. I dont gaurantee that any of them are based in fact. This is the way I received them and if someone can show me proof that my assessment of the saying is incorrect, I will gladly change it. Im also open to the origins of any other old sayings to add here as well. Cat got your tongue?: This a very old expression. It got turned around at some point in history. Technically, it should be do you have a cats tongue? because it is based on the simple assumption that cats are incredibly quiet. Funnybone: Theres nothing funny about a knock on the inside of the elbow which hits the upper arm bone, the humerus, but it is the nerve which crosses over the humerus Its a cinch: This expression which means, its easy or no problem originates from the American West. A cinch strap holds the saddle on a horse. When the strap is properly cinched, there is no danger of the rider coming unseated because of a loose saddle. Egg on: To egg someone on is to encourage a person to keep doing something, usually something not quite nice. It has nothing to do with eggs, but is a corruption of the word edge. Flash in the pan: This is a classic dead metaphor. It means a spectacular beginning that is quickly followed by failure. The allusion is to the action of the old flint-lock rifles. Occasionally after being all primed (loaded) to fire, the gun would misfire--there would be a big flash of the gun-powder going off in the lock-pan, but the projectile would not be shot. Ax to grind: A person who has a selfish reason for wanting something to be done in a certain way or to a certain person is said to have an ax to grind. Benjamin Franklin once told a story about how a man came to him asking Ben to show him how the grindstone worked. He handed Ben an ax he had brought with him, and then pretended not to understand exactly how it worked until Ben had illustrated so often, the mans ax was thoroughly sharpened! Dyed-in-the-wool: This phrase has come to mean genuine, true friend, one who sticks with you in good or bad times. If wool yarn is dyed before it is woven into cloth, the dye will penetrate completely, and the color will last, whereas if the cloth is woven before it is dyed, it will only color the surface and, as the cloth becomes worn, the color will disappear. Fish or cut bait: There is no place for an idle person on fishing boat, so if you dont have something more useful to do even a child can cut bait for the others. Its easy to see how this applies in other situations. Mealy-mouth: This is derivation from a Greek expression meaning honey-mouth. It is used to describe a person who uses sweet, honeyed words hypocritically in order to curry favor with those more popular or more powerful. Gimmick: At circuses and fairs during the 19th century a gimmick was a hidden mechanical device used by magicians to aid them in the performance of tricks. Nowadays a gimmick is any tricky method of making a sales, or a business deal, often in the form of a special inducement that is unusual. The word is often used in reverse meaning by those who have exposed the trick that was meant to take them in: The gimmick is ... Curry Favor: This phrase, which means to seek to ingratiate yourself with someone by insincere flattery, or by doing small favors, is a corruption of the original saying, which was to curry Favel. Favel was the name of a horse in a satirical 14th century French play. The horse symbolized evil, and the characters in the play curried him in order to soothe him and ward off trouble. Give a Hoot: Hoot is a corruption or sound-alike for the word iota, which is the smallest and therefore the least consequential letter in the Greek alphabet. Learned people sometimes say, I dont give one iota. Lock, Stock and Barrel: Originally described the three parts of a musket. Lock (or flintlock mechanism), stock (wooden base rested against the shoulder) and barrel. If you had these three parts, you had the whole thing or the whole gun -- lock, stock and barrel. Mind your Ps & Qs Uppercase and Lowercase letters: When mechanical printing was accomplished (90+ years ago), the printing press master was created by arranging individual letters onto a plate and locking them into place. Youd have all the As in one bin, all the Bs in another bin, etc. so you had 26 bins + punctuation. There were 2 cases of bins of letters, one case contained Capitals, the other didnt. The capital letters were in the upper case, the others were in the lower case (bin). Since the printing machines forced the letters to be arranged upside down to the viewer, and since the letters were in mirror writing, it was easy to confuse an upside-down, backwards p with an upside-down, backwards q.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 19:47:44 +0000
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