I rattle off phrases all of the time without knowing where they really come from. Lots of times you can decipher their origins pretty easily – muffin top, for example, doesn’t take a whole lot of brain power to figure out. But I could have never guessed the origins of some of these phrases, which I now know thanks to Barbara Ann Kipfer’s Phraseology book. I’ve written about this book before – it’s endlessly fascinating.
1. “At the drop of a hat” comes from the days of gunfights on the frontier, when the drop of a hat was the signal for the shootout to begin.
2. “Beat the tar out of” is thought to have come from sheep farmers, who would slather tar on a sheep’s cut when it got nicked from shearing. Later, they would have to beat the tar out.
3. “Buckle down to work” originally meant a knight buckling down all of his armor before a battle.
4. “As fit as a fiddle” used to be “as fit as a fiddler,” because a fiddler jumped and danced around so much while playing, he had to be in good shape.
5. “To skin a cat” doesn’t actually mean a feline. It means a catfish – the skins of catfish are notoriously tough and hard to remove for cooking.
6. I always thought “start from scratch” referred to baking, but I suppose even the baking reference had to come from somewhere. It came from handicapping competitors during races: a line is scratched in the dirt; the person who starts there gets no special advantage.
7. “Under the weather” is a sea-faring term which means you’re at sea when the weather changes for the worse.
8. “Paddywagon” is really a not-very P.C. term – it refers to the old stereotype that Irish people (“Paddy” being a common Irish name/nickname) tend to get arrested the most because of their hot tempers.
9. “Kick the bucket” comes from slaughterhouses, where, after slaughter, hogs would be hung up by a pulley with a weight called a bucket. I wonder if this goes back even further – perhaps a bucket was actually used for the weight once upon a time.
10. “Eating humble pie” came from “umble pie,” a meat dish made of entrails and other animal leftovers. Women and children, AKA “umbles,” had to eat these parts because all of the best cuts of meat went to the man of the house.
If there’s a particular phrase that has you stymied, let me know in the comments – I’ll try to find its origins (whether it’s in Phraseology or not) and feature it in a future post. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try!
Comments (53)
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i think i read before that rule of thumb came from the rule that you weren’t able to beat your wife with a switch wider than your thumb…
posted by theYerg on 1-8-2009 at 4:00 pm
My personal favoite is “batwings”, in the vein of the muffin top, albeit it is a strictly male term. Makes me giggle everytime I hear it.
posted by qt314159265 on 1-8-2009 at 4:14 pm
I think you’re thinking of Boondock Saints where you heard the switch rule of thumb comment.
posted by Garrett on 1-8-2009 at 4:18 pm
“How do you like them apples?”
posted by LCT on 1-8-2009 at 4:32 pm
How do you like them apples?
posted by LCT on 1-8-2009 at 4:35 pm
Speaking of “rules of thumb”, I think one rule of thumb is that when you read about the origins of various phrases, 9 out of 10 times it’s false.
posted by Craig on 1-8-2009 at 4:40 pm
Beat around the Bush
Don’t beat a dead horse
posted by NateJ on 1-8-2009 at 4:46 pm
kick the bucket
= tie rope around neck other end attatched somewhere while standing on bucket, then kick bucket
posted by hj on 1-8-2009 at 4:52 pm
Cat got your tongue?
posted by J on 1-8-2009 at 4:54 pm
I had actually heard that the term Paddywagon comes from the fact that there were a disproportionate number of Irish cops on the East Coast — it was one of the few places they could get hired during heavy immigration. I don’t have a source on that but I’ll be looking it up shortly.
posted by Taylor on 1-8-2009 at 4:56 pm
“Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”
posted by Megan on 1-8-2009 at 5:00 pm
‘Sick as a Dog’
‘Flies like a lead balloon’
‘Caddywhumpous’ – as used by my Irish Grandfather
‘Stark Raving Mad’
‘Raining Cats and Dogs’
‘Don’t look a gift-horse in the Mouth’
Oh… and Catfish aren’t THAT hard to skin. Turn ‘em on their back, nail their head to a board, and start from the belly. I asked my granddad and thats what he told me. HAHA
posted by Kate on 1-8-2009 at 5:00 pm
green thumb
posted by Ellie on 1-8-2009 at 5:03 pm
“Still Waters Run Deep”
posted by Crystal on 1-8-2009 at 5:31 pm
i never hear of batwings referred to that…i always thought it was when a guy had a sticky sack…and when he spread his legs open, it would stick to his thighs…thus forming batwings
posted by andy on 1-8-2009 at 5:58 pm
Well, thanks for that mental picture, Andy. Kate, I always thought that the gift horse phrase is a reference to the Trojan horse that is spoken of in the Aeneid.
posted by Orange on 1-8-2009 at 6:27 pm
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Sitting in class and the professor just used it. I get what it means, but not the origin.
posted by Dane on 1-8-2009 at 6:32 pm
The gift horse is not from the Trojan War–the moral of that tale is *always* look a gift horse in the mouth. Not looking one in the mouth is from horse traders checking the teeth of horses to see how healthy they were before purchase. Checking a gift horse’s teeth was disrespectful…
posted by TJ Hooker on 1-8-2009 at 7:30 pm
OKEY DOKEY?????
posted by Rick on 1-8-2009 at 8:49 pm
“Crazier than a shit house rat.”
Am I the only one who still uses that?
posted by Cassie on 1-8-2009 at 10:42 pm
Thank you so much for posting this Stacy! I always loved learning how the meanings of phrases have changed.
I never understood “shit-eating grin.” Not exactly an everyday phrase, and maybe I’m the only one who’s ever heard it…
posted by Jess on 1-8-2009 at 10:58 pm
23 skedoo. something about the cops chasing all the pervs off the corner of 23rd and 5th/broadway, ie the flatiron building, where the wind gusts are plenty and the sighting of a gal’s ankles were sure to provide a gent quite a sight and many an hours hand play. hey oh!
posted by kitty litter on 1-8-2009 at 11:02 pm
I think some of these are fairly obvious. Stark raving mad? You ever hear a crazy person rant? The English refer to a crazy person as “mad”.
Dane, the bird and hand is worth 2 in the bush I think is a hunting reference, kinda like the big fish that got away.
Dead birds, like pheasant, go limp once their shot, and you typically pick them up by the neck or the legs in your fist, thus having one in the hand, is worth any number that you saw (and let get away) in the bush.
posted by jonny on 1-8-2009 at 11:04 pm
Down Pat?
posted by Tina on 1-8-2009 at 11:33 pm
The under the weather one is incorrect, its actually means going to the lowest part in the centre of a boat while its in rough sea because thats the part that moves the least and so you will not feel as seasick.
posted by Scudd on 1-9-2009 at 1:22 am
#10 eating humble pie is wrong. The ‘umbles’ are deer entrails, they were a serious delicacy that commoners couldn’t afford. To ‘eat umble pie’ was to have pretensions of belonging to the rich classes. Scholars “corrected” it to humble pie, and then “corrected” the meaning.
posted by Colin on 1-9-2009 at 3:05 am
I heard once that “Raining Cats and Dogs” had something to do with cats sleeping in thatched roofs.
posted by Rissa on 1-9-2009 at 9:27 am
I like “going the whole nine yards” -
I believe it comes from machine gunners in airplanes way back when used to have 9 yards of ammo in their ammo cans, so to go the whole nine yards was to fire all of your ammo
posted by brad on 1-9-2009 at 9:45 am
I actually heard a different one about ‘kicking the bucket’ from a tour guide at Fort Ticonderoga (I believe) – troops would ‘do their business’ into buckets, and the phrase ostensibly stemmed from an unfortunate individual who literally ‘kicked the bucket’
posted by Phil on 1-9-2009 at 10:29 am
These are some good ones! Can you please answer some of Kate´s?
Sick as a dog?
Raining cats and dogs?
posted by GTT on 1-9-2009 at 11:18 am
Indian Summer is similar to Paddy Wagon. It is a racial slur with the same derivation as Indian Giver.
Raining cats and dogs refers to a rain that would wash the dead animals out of the alleys in Middle Age European cities.
posted by Ralph Beatty on 1-9-2009 at 12:10 pm
What about the term “@ss over tea kettle” … my husband is from NZ and didn’t believe that it was an actual term. Maybe it’s an American thing (or if some of you think I’m crazy, maybe it’s just a New England thing…). I’ve always wondered though…
posted by Sue F. on 1-9-2009 at 12:29 pm
Ralph Beatty, from what I understand Indian Summer was named so, because it was a warm spot in the fall that Indians would use to prepare for the winter as told in an essay dating from the 1700′s. It is also recognized in Europe as St. Martin’s summmer, I think there is even somewhere in France that has a festival dedicated to the weather phenomenon.
And the term Indian Giver, was given by unknowing colonists who were unaware that when given a gift by a Native American, it was customery for the reciever to give another gift that was more elaborate than they themselves recieved. But according to historical documentation, a gift would never have been taken back, just an offense would have been taken by the Indians. (Still a derogatory tone to the phrase, however.)
posted by J-me on 1-9-2009 at 12:52 pm
When I was in England they explained that “raining cats and dogs” was that when they had thatched roofs the cats and dogs used to borrow into them to keep warm. When they had a hard rain, the cats and dogs would fall out, just like the rain.
posted by Cheryl on 1-9-2009 at 1:55 pm
You don’t “look a gift horse in the mouth” because you don’t want to question the value of a gift. It is, after all, a gift … and any value it might bring with it is more than you had before the gift was made.
The key word here is ‘gift’. If you were buying a horse, you would DEFINITELY look in its mouth.
posted by Bill in Detroit on 1-9-2009 at 11:49 pm
How about: Make like a tree and get out of here.
:-)
posted by Jason on 1-10-2009 at 8:27 pm
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” is definitely a hunting reference. If you have one bird already, but you get greedy and try to catch two that are in the bush, you’ll have to drop the one in your hand, and run the chance of all three getting away. Might as well keep the one you have and count yourself lucky.
Bill in Detroit is correct about not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
posted by tomiddes on 1-11-2009 at 4:24 pm
How about, “Colder than the balls on a brass monkey.”
Some people think it rude but it is nothing of the sort. Brass monkey was a name for a brass rack used to store cannon balls on sailing ships and without a doubt those cannon balls could become very cold to handle.
posted by RecycleBill on 1-12-2009 at 9:44 pm
“How about: Make like a tree and get out of here.”
Jason, I think the correct phrase is “Make like a tree and leave” alluding to the homonyms “LEAVE” which can both mean:
1. to put forth leaves; leaf
2. to go out of or away from, as a place
posted by darrhel on 1-17-2009 at 8:59 am
“Happy as a clam in a bucket of beer” – seems self-explanatory, eh??
“The whole nine yards” – is actually from the length of fighter plane’s machine gun belts from WWII – and when you really blasted something, you gave them, “the whole nine yards”
“Mind your P’s and Q’s” – I guess because in lower case printing, the vertical portion is just reversed?
“Raining cats and dogs” ???
“Dumb as a box of rocks” – self-explanatory, and quite amusing as it rhymes.
posted by Mike on 1-20-2009 at 2:09 pm
Mind your p’s and q’s orignally referred to “pints” and “quarts” — people tend to act rude when drunk.
posted by Potar on 1-20-2009 at 5:10 pm
“@ss over tea kettle†Is a polite variation to the British phrase ‘Arse over tit’ which simply means if one fell arse over tit they would be describing a fall where the person did or almost cartwheeled… i.e. “I slipped on the ice and nearly went arse over tit”
posted by Rikster on 1-23-2009 at 10:37 am
The final one (humble pie). Is MOSTLY correct. It’s not that the choice cuts of meat went to the man of the house.
It’s that, during the middle ages, the best cuts of meat went to the Lords in the given area.
It was the peasents/serfs that got the ‘umbles’ and were forced to make due with whatever they were left with.
posted by MergedLoki on 1-26-2009 at 3:47 am
Re comment posted by ‘theYerg on 1-8-2009 at 4:00 pm’
My understanding after exhaustive research, is that because the letters ‘D’ and ‘S’ are adjacent to each other on a standard keyboard and in turn this sequence followed natural evolution of the English language… It follows that the word ‘wider’ was mistakenly entered into the then law books instead of the word ‘wiser’… Ergo ‘You weren’t able to beat your wife with a switch ‘wiser’ than your thumb’…
posted by The Master on 1-28-2009 at 7:50 am
hey, can u please explain ‘ready like freddy’ and it’s origin…thank u.
posted by Maureen from Trinidad on 2-2-2009 at 9:07 pm
“Indian Giver” is not a racial slur, as it refers to the immigrants who promised land to the Native Americans, and then took it away.
posted by Logan on 2-7-2009 at 6:16 am
“Dumb as a bag of Logans”
…of course it’s a racial slur – and an ironic one at that. Since we (us crackers) took everything they had and gave them almost nothing in return.
…except the parts of the country we didn’t want anyway.
posted by Frank Drakman on 6-23-2010 at 8:28 pm
raining cats and dogs came from the middle ages where poor homes were lower to the ground and made with mud and straw roofs. Animals like cats and mice, and yes sometimes the odd dog nestled in the straw to keep warm and to hide from the elements, but when it would rain, the straw would weaken and force the animals to fall through.
posted by Leslie on 9-18-2010 at 8:07 pm
I’ve always wondered where the phrase, “hold their own” came from. e.g. “He can really hold his own”… Is it referring to weight? His own WHAT?
posted by Carsty on 9-29-2010 at 6:36 pm
My wife said to me, “yes I love you, warts and all.” She says it was an old phrase, I had my doubts, your thoughts?
posted by Lloyd on 10-3-2010 at 7:26 am
Oh, darrhel, you would make Biff Tannen weep.
posted by Amanda on 11-9-2010 at 12:18 pm
These are all wrong. Someone just randomly made them up.
posted by Scarlet Ibis on 11-15-2010 at 10:08 pm
“Under the weather” is a nautical term. Sailors sleep in the Fo’castle. The “weather deck” forms the roof of the fo’castle and overhangs the main deck to keep it dry. If a sailor was sick they hung his hammock under this overhang so nobody else would get sick. So “where’s the sick guy?” Ans- Under the weather[deck].
posted by Paul on 1-3-2012 at 9:46 pm