Tell me a phrase and where it originated from.?

Question

Ex. It's all fun and games until someone loses and eye.
Ex. She wears her heart on her sleeve.

Answer 1

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive.

So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the"graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

Answer 2

Kick the bucket

Meaning

To die.

Origin

We all know what a bucket is - and so this phrase appears rather odd. Why should kicking one be associated with dying?

The link between buckets and death was made by at least 1785, when the phrase was defined in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

"To kick the bucket, to die."

One theory as to why, albeit with little evidence to support it, is that the phrase originates from the notion that people hanged themselves by standing on a bucket with a noose around their neck and then kicking the bucket away. There are no citations that relate the phrase to suicide and, in any case, why a bucket? Whenever I've needed something to stand on I can't recall ever opting for a bucket. This theory doesn't stand up any better than the supposed buckets did.

The mist begins to clear with the fact that in 16th century England bucket had an additional meaning (and in some parts it still has), i.e. a beam or yoke used to hang or carry items. The term may have been introduced into English from the French trébuchet - meaning a balance, or buque - meaning a yoke. That meaning of bucket was referred to in Peter Levins' Manipulus vocabulorum. A dictionarie of English and Latine wordes, 1570:

"A Bucket, beame, tollo."

and was used by Shakespeare in Henry IV Part II, 1597:

"Swifter then he that gibbets on the Brewers Bucket." [to gibbet meant to hang]

The wooden frame that was used to hang animals up by their feet for slaughter was called a bucket. Not unnaturally they were likely to struggle or to spasm after death and hence 'kick the bucket'.

See other phrases and sayings from Shakespeare.

Answer 3

Tell me a phrase and where it originated from.?

Ex. It's all fun and games until someone loses and eye.
Ex. She wears her heart on her sleeve.
I wear my heart around me, the body is having pain because of straining (tension that's harmful to the maintaining of the structure that's effective )
http://humanisjustlikepc.unlimitedboard.com

Answer 4

The phrase "dead as a door nail" originates in colonial New England, where nails were imported from England, and were expensive. Timber was cheap. When people moved, they would burn their house to recover the nails. Doors were made of 2 layers of boards nailed together, with the nail points bent over on the inside, so the nails wouldn't loosen. When the house was burned, the points of the bent nails would break off from the heat, so they were too short to be recycled.

Answer 5

In the 1500's houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying " It's raining cats and dogs. "
Also this is where four posted beds come from so the animals wouldnt land in the bed.

Answer 6

During the 18th century, the parts of a musket (the firing mechanism or lock, the shoulder piece, and the tube down which the musket-ball travelled) were sold separately, and then assembled by the purchaser. Around the time of the American Revolution, it became possible to buy a musket fully assembled, so you bought it 'lock, stock, and barrel'.

Answer 7

The word quiz was introduced as a bet. A men bet another man to introduce a new word into the English language. He wrote the word quiz all over the place, so it was a test to try and figure out what it ment.

Answer 8

Women would spread bees' wax over their face and skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman's face she was told "mind your own beeswax". Should the woman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term "crack a smile". Also, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt and therefore the expression "losing face"

Answer 9

You've heard the phrase "worth his salt?" It comes from Roman times, when the Centurions were paid with salt instead of coin. The Roman word for salt is "salarium." That is also, by the way, where we get our word for "salary."

Answer 10

He likes to jockey sausages - Yorkshire