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

LighterGuy · 29-06-2011 10:04PM #1

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 · 29-06-2011 10:11PM

"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 · 29-06-2011 10:17PM

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.

29-06-2011 10:18PM

LighterGuy wrote: »

"Give a wide birth"

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

LighterGuy · 29-06-2011 10:20PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:32PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:35PM

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

Gillington · 29-06-2011 10:37PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:40PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:40PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:43PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:44PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:45PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:49PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:53PM

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 · 29-06-2011 10:54PM

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 · 29-06-2011 11:06PM

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 · 29-06-2011 11:13PM

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 · 29-06-2011 11:31PM

LighterGuy wrote: »

"Spelling Nazi"

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

jaykhunter · 29-06-2011 11:32PM

Gillington wrote: »

DUTCH COURAGE

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

Logical Fallacy · 30-06-2011 12:24AM

"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-- · 30-06-2011 09:34AM

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-- · 30-06-2011 09:41AM

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 · 30-06-2011 11:36AM

--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 · 30-06-2011 11:44AM

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 · 30-06-2011 11:44AM

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 · 30-06-2011 11:47AM

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 · 30-06-2011 11:54AM

'Ride me sideways that was another one'

Winty · 30-06-2011 12:00PM

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 · 30-06-2011 12:04PM

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 · 30-06-2011 12:06PM

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.

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

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