![]() ![]() In the play, the birds decide to build a utopian city called Cloud cuckoo land. This phrase comes from a play called The Birds by the Greek dramatist Aristophanes (c.448-385 BC). It probably comes from an actual story about a cock and a bull that is now lost. This phrase was first recorded in the 17th century. If people were extremely happy and wanted to celebrate they took out the cock and put it on the hoop on the top of the barrel to let the drink flow out freely. You removed the shive to let the liquid flow out and replaced it to stop the flow. A shive was a wooden tube at the bottom of a barrel and a spile was a wooden bung. This phrase comes from a primitive tap called a spile and shive. Taking coals to Newcastle was obviously a pointless exercise. Coal was transported by ship from Newcastle to London by sea. When pulleys or blocks on a sailing ship were pulled so tightly together that they could not be moved any closer together they were said to be chock-a-block.īefore railways were invented goods were often transported by water. This word is derived from the old word Chapman which meant a merchant or trader. When the Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem one of them stood outside the walls and asked if they hoped for help from Egypt. They were ‘born with a silver spoon in their mouth’. However, a child born in a rich family did not have to wait. Once when a child was christened it was traditional for the godparents to give a silver spoon as a gift (if they could afford it!). It is a corruption of the old word bot, which meant profit or advantage. However, it has nothing to do with the boots you wear on your feet. If you get something to boot it means you get it extra. So blue-blooded came to mean upper class.īoth these nicknames for policemen come from Sir Robert Peel who founded the first modern police force in 1829. (Of course, all blood is red but it sometimes looks blue when running through veins). As they had pale skin the ‘blue’ blood running through their veins was more visible. The upper class in Spain had paler skin than most of the population as their ancestors had not intermarried with the Arabs. For centuries the Arabs occupied Spain but they were gradually forced out during the Middle Ages. In Matthew 15:14 Jesus criticized the Pharisees, the religious authorities of his day, saying ‘they are blind leaders of the blind’. If you let out the cable to the bitter end there was nothing else you could do, you had reached the end of your resources. The last piece of cable was called the bitter end. ‘Talk about the biter being bitten’ was originally a phrase about a con man being beaten at his own game.Īnchor cable was wrapped around posts called bitts. In the 17th century, a biter was a con man. A soldier about to undergo an operation was given a bullet to bite. It comes from the days before anesthetics. This old saying means to grin and bear a painful situation. Hence today important people are called big wigs. In the 18th century when many men wore wigs, the most important men wore the biggest wigs. Anyone ‘beyond the pale’ was seen as savage and dangerous. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the English king ruled Dublin, and the surrounding area was known as the pale. Originally a pale was an area under the authority of a certain official. So if you made a beeline for something you went straight for it. In the past, people believed that bees flew in a straight line to their hive. In other words, you are in a precarious situation. If you are on your beam-ends your ship is leaning at a dangerous angle. On a ship, the beams are horizontal timbers that stretch across the ship and support the decks. ‘I won’t beat about the bush’ came to mean ‘I will go straight to the point without any delay’. When hunting birds some people would beat about the bush to drive them out into the open. Some added a loaf to a batch of a dozen to be above suspicion. This old saying is said to come from the days when bakers were severely punished for baking underweight loaves. In Psalm 17:8 the writer asks God ‘keep me as the apple of your eye’.Ī baker’s dozen means thirteen. In Genesis, Cain murdered his brother Abel. Like many old sayings in the English language, this one comes from the Bible. Achilles was eventually killed when Paris of Troy fired an arrow at him and it hit his heel. Since her hand covered this part of his body the water did not touch it and so it remained vulnerable. However, Thetis held Achilles by his heel. Anyone who was immersed in the river became invulnerable. In Greek mythology, Thetis dipped her son Achilles in the mythical River Styx. Sometimes we can only give the most likely explanation. However, sometimes it is impossible to say for certain how an old saying originated. Below is a list of old sayings and where they came from. ![]()
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