Expressions you know, that you never knew the story behind ...

LighterGuy

Heard the origins to a few over the last while ...

"Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner"

Years ago every Las Vegas casino had a 3 piece chicken dinner with potato and veggie for $1.79. A standard bet back then was $2.00, hence when you won a bet you had enough for a chicken dinner

"Give a wide birth"

A metaphor from seamanship. A berth is, among other things, a place where a ship is at anchor or at a wharf. A wide berth is plenty of room, especially important in former days for a ship swinging at anchor.

To catch "red handed"

That is to say, before there has been time to wash off the victim's blood. Red-handed was an adaptation by Walter Scott (in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805) of older Scottish expressions 'redhand' and 'with red hand', both legal terms and both now obsolete.

"Chip on ones shoulder"

The reference is to a custom originating in the USA, but also known in Canada, in which a person who was looking for a fight carried a chip of wood on his shoulder and invited people to knock it off; anyone who did so agreeing to fight. Perhaps the custom made better sense in pioneering days when chips of wood were litter as common as pieces of paper today, and fighting for its own sake was equally common.

contribute :P

ball

"Dead ringer" and "graveyard shift":

People would be buried with a rope leading from inside the coffin to a bell above the ground. This enabled anyone who was buried alive to ring the bell and to draw attention to the mistake. Since people would not expect to see their 'dead' loved ones again, a person resembling the deceased is a 'dead ringer'. This is also reputed to be the origin of the expression 'graveyard shift' because people from the village used to take it in turns to listen for the bell.

2 birds with one stone

cml387

Taking the p*ss.

Urine was a valuable commodity for clothes bleaching.
Carrying it on board ship was not a popular job,people would tend to describe the cargo as something else.
But fellow captains would pour scorn on the explanation.

LighterGuy

LighterGuy wrote: »

"Give a wide birth"

It's berth ffs... you're going to confuse everyone

LighterGuy

bluewolf wrote: »

It's berth ffs... you're going to confuse everyone

"Spelling Nazi"

a person who freaks out when a little spelling mistake has occured or has be a constant little asshole about it.
person a: here's my thesis for the pythagoream theorem

orourkeda

cml387 wrote: »

Taking the p*ss.

Urine was a valuable commodity for clothes bleaching.
Carrying it on board ship was not a popular job,people would tend to describe the cargo as something else.
But fellow captains would pour scorn on the explanation.

Mickey Bliss is cockney rhyming slang for p*ss.

Therefore taking the mick and taking the p*ss are one and the same phrase effectively

citizen_p

if you don't know it, just wait for it to Come up in Dictionary Corner like the rest of us.

Gillington

DUTCH COURAGE

In the 17th century England and Holland were rivals. They fought wars in 1652-54, 1665-67 and 1672-74. It was said (very unfairly) that the Dutch had to drink alcohol to build up their courage. Other insulting phrases are Dutch treat (meaning you pay for yourself) and Double Dutch meaning gibberish.

DUTCH OVEN

The act of trapping a person under bed covers after releasing vile ass fumes

Dyr

ball wrote: »

"Dead ringer" and "graveyard shift":


2 birds with one stone

Its a load of bollix as far as Im concerned, every stiff breeze would have bells going off and villagers digging up stiffs

orourkeda

There are several of these phrases that I have only recently found out the origin of.

1. Boxing day is derived from the practice in England of distributing the contents of collection boxes that were filled on or before christmas day. They were counted and distributed among the needy on 26th December. I'm not sure if this practice continues but thats how it got its name.

2. Bakers Dozen. In the middle ages in England there were heavy fines for leaving customers short. Therefore business people use to err on the side of caution and give there customers more than wasdue to them to avoid fines. Another aspect of this porblem was that a lot of manual labourers wer either poorly educated or were illiterate.

cml387

Maybe there are some people who don't know the origin of "spam" to describe useless emails:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

ball

orourkeda wrote: »

2. Bakers Dozen. In the middle ages in England there were heavy fines for leaving customers short. Therefore business people use to err on the side of caution and give there customers more than wasdue to them to avoid fines. Another aspect of this porblem was that a lot of manual labourers wer either poorly educated or were illiterate.

I always thought it was a dozen, plus one for the baker

Dyr

orourkeda wrote: »

There are several of these phrases that I have only recently found out the origin of.

1. Boxing day is derived from the practice in England of distributing the contents of collection boxes that were filled on christmas day. They were counted and distributed among the needy on 26th December. I'm not sure if this practice continues but thats how it got its name.

2. Bakers Dozen. In the middle ages in England there were heavy fines for leaving customers short. Therefore business people use to err on the side of caution and give there customers more than wasdue to them to avoid fines. Another aspect of this porblem was that a lot of manual labourers wer either poorly educated or were illiterate.

I read that the bakers dozen originated in france, where at one stage, the penalty for a baker leaving one of his trays short was execution.

There's meant to be a country in africa where people thump each other on boxing day

Sea Sharp

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle
finger of all captured English soldiers.

Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future.

This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").

Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, See, we can still pluck yew!

Since 'pluck yew' is rather
difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F , and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one finger salute!

Fcuk you all.

orourkeda

Bambi wrote: »

I read that the bakers dozen originated in france, where at one stage, the penalty for a baker leaving one of his trays short was execution.

There's meant to be a country in africa where people thump each other on boxing day

Perhap that was the case in france. I'm not sure.

Thumping each other in Africa might make a pleasant change.

OwenM

Freeze the balls off of a brass monkey:

Old warships carried their cannon balls stacked in a pyramid. The tray they were stacked in was called a monkey and sometimes they were made out of brass. So we have a 'Brass Monkey' ....

The cannon balls were made of iron and if the weather was very cold the balls would not sit properly on it because iron and brass have different co-efficients of expansion, the brass tray would get to small to hold the cannon balls and they would freeze off.

orourkeda

Back to Square one - This phrase is believed to have originated from early football commentaries on BBC radio in the 1920's (or thereabouts). Certain sections on the field were given numbers. Defence 1 and 2 midfield 3 and 4 and so on It is believed that an attack that broke down and was cleared back upfield was referred to as back to square one.

Wetai

cml387 wrote: »

Maybe there are some people who don't know the origin of "spam" to describe useless emails

I thought SPAM was an acronym for Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages

Del2005

LighterGuy wrote: »

"Spelling Nazi"

Just watched QI on Dave. This thread should have ended, Godwin's Law

jaykhunter

Gillington wrote: »

DUTCH COURAGE

I thought it was people who get drunk/confident drinking Dutch Gold. Wasn't too far off :pac:

Logical Fallacy

"as mad as a hatter"

Mercury used to be used in the making of hats. This was known to have affected the nervous systems of hatters, causing them to tremble and appear insane.

--Kaiser--

Devil's Advocate

During the canonization (declaring a saint) process of the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith popularly known as the Devil's advocate, was a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of the candidate. It was their job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, etc. The Devil's advocate opposed God's advocate, whose task is to make the argument in favor of canonization.

--Kaiser--

Sea Sharp wrote: »

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle
finger of all captured English soldiers.

Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future.

This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").

Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, See, we can still pluck yew!

Since 'pluck yew' is rather
difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F , and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one finger salute!

Bollox I'm afraid, fvck comes from the German word Fich, meaning to penetrate.

The 'middle finger' salute explanation is also dubious, as it has been around for thousands of years

dpe

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Bollox I'm afraid, fvck comes from the German word Fich, meaning to penetrate.

The 'middle finger' salute explanation is also dubious, as it has been around for thousands of years

And the French cutting fingers off thing is a myth as well.

As a non-Irish person, maybe someone can tell me the origin of "Cute Hoor"? I've been hearing it a lot lately in relation to a certain TD...

jon1981

one for the road
"The suggestion that this phrase derives from the supposed practice of offering condemned felons a final drink at pubs on the way to the the place of public execution in London - The Tyburn Tree"

POSH
A popular story derives the word as an acronym from "Port Out, Starboard Home", referring to first class cabins shaded from the sun on outbound voyages east and homeward heading voyages west.

Logical Fallacy

dpe wrote: »

And the French cutting fingers off thing is a myth as well.

As a non-Irish person, maybe someone can tell me the origin of "Cute Hoor"? I've been hearing it a lot lately in relation to a certain TD...

I would guess that it's basically down to the fact that "cute" as well as meaning pretty can also be used for "clever" or "sharp witted" in it's more traditional sense (derived from acute) and "hoor" or "whore" would imply certain questionableness morals.

dpe

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

I would guess that it's basically down to the fact that "cute" as well as meaning pretty can also be used for "clever" or "sharp witted" in it's more traditional sense (derived from acute) and "hoor" or "whore" would imply certain questionableness morals.

Yeah I got that, but the way its used I assumed had an origin or an initial context; I was watching Ireland AM yesterday and some politico described the whole MHR thing as "cute hoorism of the worst kind", which made me LOL.

Captain Darling

'Ride me sideways that was another one'

Winty

Pidgin not Pigeon English

The origin of the word pidgin is uncertain. The first time pidgin appeared in print was in 1850 and there are many sources from which the word may be derived. For example:

• The Chinese pronunciation of the English word business.[5]
• English pigeon, a bird sometimes used for carrying brief written messages, especially in times prior to modern telecommunications

Logical Fallacy

dpe wrote: »

Yeah I got that, but the way its used I assumed had an origin or an initial context; I was watching Ireland AM yesterday and some politico described the whole MHR thing as "cute hoorism of the worst kind", which made me LOL.

Nah, don't think it has any specific origin beyond being a cool way to call someone a bell end. lol

Jagera

Some interesting theories in here, but to be honest most sound made up, or at least wildy varied versions of the true origin.

In regards to "F..k you", I heard the same about cutting off bowmen's fingers, but it was the first 2 fingers. No-one did the middle finger until recently, and no-one ever said f..k you back in those days.

And.... the origin for the f work was (again, supposedly) fornication under consent of the king.

Anyway, this is buzzkill over & out.

--Kaiser--

bw wrote: »

Some interesting theories in here, but to be honest most sound made up, or at least wildy varied versions of the true origin.

In regards to "F..k you", I heard the same about cutting off bowmen's fingers, but it was the first 2 fingers. No-one did the middle finger until recently, and no-one ever said f..k you back in those days.

And.... the origin for the f work was (again, supposedly) fornication under consent of the king.

Anyway, this is buzzkill over & out.

Explanations for words such as F U C K (Fornicating Under Consent of the King) and G O L F (Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden) are also rubbish as acronyms only came into wide use in the last hundred years.

I'd suggest people check up on Snopes before posting a dubious phrase origin

OutlawPete

Well, you learn something knew everyday:

Wikipedia: In the 14th century it was discovered that, when humans suffered constipation, it was thought that blood flow in the bowel was severely restricted and was the cause of the overall effect of low blood pressure which was often associated with the condition. This, they felt at the time, explained the light-headedness that people often complained of while trying to force a bowel movement in an effort to expel the contents of their colon.

Similarly, 'idiotic thinking' was also associated with diminished circulation, only in this case, cerebral circulation. Medical hypothesises soon began to link the two and in 1385 (when patients were presented at asylums in severe states of confusion and speaking gibberishly and nonsensically; poor bowel circulation was suspected. Patients were then given laxatives told to: "Go and have a bowel movement." This went on to be said to be people near and far as an insult whenever they were thought to be not of clear thinking and throughout time. Indeed, this is also the origins of: "You're talking out your bottom".

Many years later in Dundalk, Ireland: Andrea Corr was attending her local library and read this is an old book and it dawned on her that this must be why Dublin peasants use similar variations of this saying . The following year she suggested to Alan Parker (the director of her first picture) that she be allowed to use this Dublin parlance when conversing with Colm Meaney (in his role as her father in the picture) who, as required by the script, was speaking to her in a suitably nonsensically fashion. Infamously he agreed and so: "Go and shiite" was uttered for the first time on the silver screen. Even today, it is still as popular as then and if you are ever to walk the winding streets of the Emerald Isle's fair city (where Oscar Wilde himself used to tread) you too may hear the words: "Go and shite" echoing throughout the slums of Dublin City, Ireland.

Jagera

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

I'd suggest people check up on Snopes before posting a dubious phrase origin

I agree. I don't believe the origin of that word either in case you thought otherwise.

mikemac

It was the Irish who inventing boycotting!
Well not invented but the term comes from Mayo

Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott (March 12, 1832 – June 19, 1897) was a British land agent whose ostracism by his local community in Ireland as part of a campaign for agrarian tenants' rights in 1880 gave the English language the verb to boycott, meaning "to ostracise".

In 1880, as part of its campaign for the "Three Fs" (fair rent, fixity of tenure and free sale), the Irish Land League under Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt withdrew the local labour required to save the harvest on Lord Erne's estate. When Boycott tried to undermine the campaign, the League launched a campaign of isolation against him in the local community. Neighbours would not talk to him. Shops would not serve him. Local labourers refused to tend his house, and the postman refused to deliver his mail.

RichieC

Sling your hook

It's from the great ninja pirate war of 1633. The Pirates when fleeing would sling their hooks over the edge of the ninja airships and repel back to their corsairs.

firefly08

The brass monkey one is bullsh1t. The expression used to refer to various parts of a monkey: ears, nose etc.

Apparently 'OK' is an acronym for "Oll Korrect" which was just a deliberate, tongue-in-cheek misspelling used by American newspapers in the 19th century.

"By hook or by crook" is thought to refer to Hook Head and the village of Crook.

Can anyone shed any light on the etymology of "banjaxed" ?

orourkeda

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

"as mad as a hatter"

I was under the impression that "mad as a hatter" derived from the character from Alices Adventures in wonderland (Lewis Carroll's novel) because of his eccentricities

orourkeda

No Room To Swing A Cat - The cat referred to is not feline as such, it was a whip used by the British Navy as a means of discipline or punishment back in the day (17th Century)

Liam Byrne

LighterGuy wrote: »

"Give a wide birth"

At least 2 feet apart ?

Mr Benevolent

Common misconceptions

orourkeda

Confab wrote: »

Common misconceptions

Don't rely on wikipedia as a basis for any argument

Twee.

orourkeda wrote: »

I was under the impression that "mad as a hatter" derived from the character from Alices Adventures in wonderland (Lewis Carroll's novel) because of his eccentricities

Who mad because he was a hatter and they were exposed to mercury leading to the "madness"...

Liam Byrne

OutlawPete wrote: »

Well, you learn something knew everyday:

If you knew it, why did you need to learn it ?

nice_very

firefly08 wrote: »

"By hook or by crook" is thought to refer to Hook Head and the village of Crook. ?

what I learned, was that it was said by cromwell, on entering Waterford Harbour via the Suir, that hi intention was to take the city "By Hook (Co.Wexford) or By Crook (Co. Waterford) meaning launching an atttack from one side of the river or the other

orourkeda

Twee. wrote: »

Who mad because he was a hatter and they were exposed to mercury leading to the "madness"...

Alices adventures in mercuryland

dxhound2005

orourkeda wrote: »

Back to Square one - This phrase is believed to have originated from early football commentaries on BBC radio in the 1920's (or thereabouts). Certain sections on the field were given numbers. Defence 1 and 2 midfield 3 and 4 and so on It is believed that an attack that broke down and was cleared back upfield was referred to as back to square one.

"It is believed" is a bit vague. Have you any sources who believe it?

Solnskaya

real origins of F.uck - in India during the British empire, soldiers were forbidden from consorting sexually with the "natives". If caught, they were brought up for court martial, and they were charged with the offence of "Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", so, the reason they were before the court was "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", handily abbreviated in Military notes as "on a charge of F.U.C.K", or, because he "f.ucked her". Thats the real origin. Yup.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Explanations for words such as F U C K (Fornicating Under Consent of the King) and G O L F (Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden) are also rubbish as acronyms only came into wide use in the last hundred years.

I'd suggest people check up on Snopes before posting a dubious phrase origin

SOS doesn't stand for 'Save Our Souls' either.

uch

ORIGINAL PHRASE,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, feck off

mikedone

Solnskaya wrote: »

real origins of F.uck - in India during the British empire, soldiers were forbidden from consorting sexually with the "natives". If caught, they were brought up for court martial, and they were charged with the offence of "Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", so, the reason they were before the court was "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", handily abbreviated in Military notes as "on a charge of F.U.C.K", or, because he "f.ucked her". Thats the real origin. Yup.

According to the OED 2nd edition it appeared in 1503, in the form fukkit ; earliest appearance of current spelling is 1535 -- "Bischops ... may **** thair fill and be vnmaryit" (Sir David Lyndesay, "Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits")
The etymology suggested is that it has a Norwegian or Swedish origin meaning to push or strike