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.

Some of them have, at one time or
another, been shrouded in controversy concerning their origin.

I don't guarantee that any of them are based in fact.

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 cat's tongue?", because it is based on
the simple assumption that cats are
incredibly quiet.

Funnybone:

There's 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

It's a cinch:

This expression which means, it's 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 man's 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 don't have
something more useful to do even a child can cut bait for the others.

It's 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 don't 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.

You'd have all the A's in one bin,
all the B's in another bin, etc. so you had 26 bins + punctuation.

There were 2 cases of bins of letters, one case contained Capitals, the other didn't. 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.

------------------
Pinhead,Pindead,PinM&M, PinMoney, Pinocchio Pincushion, Pinwheel, Pinochle

[This message has been edited by Pinhead (edited 05-11-2000).]