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View Full Version : Origins of Sayings Quiz



Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 08:56 PM
Without using the almighty Google, do you know the original meaning behind them?

Feel free to add your own :)


piss poor

don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

it's raining cats and dogs

dirt poor

thresh hold

bring home the bacon

chew the fat

upper crust

holding a wake

graveyard shift

saved by the bell

dead ringer

Goofy
08-18-2011, 09:06 PM
Piss poor - when someone missed the toilet and pissed on the floor? :-k

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 09:18 PM
Piss poor - when someone missed the toilet and pissed on the floor? :-k

nope :lol:

Teh One Who Knocks
08-18-2011, 09:20 PM
dirt poor has been shortened from 'dirt floor poor'....it originated back when people were so poor that all they afford was a dwelling with a dirt floor

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 09:43 PM
dirt poor has been shortened from 'dirt floor poor'....it originated back when people were so poor that all they afford was a dwelling with a dirt floor


:) And we have a winner!!!!!!

Step up here son and claim your prize.

Teh One Who Knocks
08-18-2011, 09:55 PM
Is it money? :-k

Teh One Who Knocks
08-18-2011, 09:56 PM
I'm sure I've heard the origins of some of those other saying before, but the only one I knew 100% was the 'dirt (floor) poor' one

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 09:59 PM
Is it money? :-k

Yes, we've placed it in a handy carrying case below :face:



:beatdown:

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 10:00 PM
"giving someone the whole nine yards"

is a cool one...

Teh One Who Knocks
08-18-2011, 10:02 PM
Yes, we've placed it in a handy carrying case below :face:



:beatdown:

If you have to hide it, I don't want it :hand:


"giving someone the whole nine yards"

is a cool one...

I know that one too :)


Wasn't on the list tho :sad2:

Muddy
08-18-2011, 10:03 PM
Cool thread...

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 10:05 PM
tanks Muddy...let's add some more as we come across them :thumbsup:


and Lank? You can explain off-list items too :face:

Pony
08-18-2011, 10:59 PM
Thresh hold was a board on the floor in the doorway to hold the straw on the floor in?

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 11:05 PM
Thresh hold was a board on the floor in the doorway to hold the straw on the floor in?

Yes indeed sir we have another winner! :cheerlead:

Apparently people with stone floors would use straw to cover snow and wetness within the dwelling and keep adding to it.This was called 'thresh'.
When the door was opened, the straw would go outside so a wooden block was used at the door to keep the straw in.

Southern Belle
08-18-2011, 11:12 PM
I just got an email recently with all of those in it. What is most interesting to me is that the sayings originated from the settlers who came here from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland. And that we still use them!
Same thing with the nursery rhymes we learned when growing up.

Pony
08-18-2011, 11:15 PM
I think I might know a few more of them but I'll let someone else take a guess.

Southern Belle
08-18-2011, 11:15 PM
Raining cats and dogs has something to do with the thatch roofs where animals would hide and when it rained they'd be washed off the roof. Or something like that 8-[

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 11:20 PM
Raining cats and dogs has something to do with the thatch roofs where animals would hide and when it rained they'd be washed off the roof. Or something like that 8-[


Prize for the pretty lady with a tequila drink in her hand! Correct, animals lived in the thatched roofs, both wanted and unwanted.Mice and other rodents primarily and then the family pets would migrate up there.If it rained too hard the animals would literally fall from the roof :dance:

Hal-9000
08-18-2011, 11:22 PM
I just got an email recently with all of those in it. What is most interesting to me is that the sayings originated from the settlers who came here from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland. And that we still use them!
Same thing with the nursery rhymes we learned when growing up.


Shush you!!!!! :x


:lol:

Southern Belle
08-18-2011, 11:24 PM
I'm not going to "let the cat out of the bag".:nana:

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 12:15 AM
I'm not going to "let the cat out of the bag".:nana:

:lol:


Do you know where that one came from...hmm?

Southern Belle
08-19-2011, 12:23 AM
Nope

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 12:26 AM
pig n a poke...hmmm?

Teh One Who Knocks
08-19-2011, 12:26 AM
Shush you!!!!! :x


:lol:

She should be "read the riot act"

;)

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 12:28 AM
She should be "read the riot act"

;)

:confused: I don't know that one

Teh One Who Knocks
08-19-2011, 12:31 AM
:shakehead:



Read the riot act

Meaning

Reprimand rowdy characters and warn them to stop behaving badly.

Origin

Since the early 19th century we have used 'read the riot act' as a figurative phrase to describe attempts to calm groups of rowdies - along the same lines as 'you noisy louts, don't you know there are people here trying to sleep?'. It wasn't always so. Had we been 'reading the riot act' in 1715 we would have noticed capital letters. At that date there was a real Riot Act and it used to be read in public.

In English law the control of unruly citizens has usually been the responsibility of local magistrates. Any group of twelve or more that the authorities didn't like the look of could be deemed a 'riotous and tumultuous assembly' and arrested if they didn't disperse within an hour of the Riot Act being read to them by a magistrate. This seems a little harsh, but in 18th century England the government was fearful of Jacobite mobs who threatened to rise up and overthrow the Hanoverian George I. The fear was well-founded, as supporters of the deposed Stuarts did actually invade in 1715 and again in 1745. The 'Riot Act' was passed by the British government in 1714 and came into force in 1715. The Riot Act, which was more formally called 'An act for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters' actually contained this warning:


"Our sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King."

read the riot actThe punishments for ignoring the Act were severe - penal servitude for not less than three years, or imprisonment with hard labour for up to two years.

After the Hanoverians were established in power the Riot Act began to fade into disuse. It was read to a group of demonstrating mill workers at Manchester Town Hall in 1842, but was used with decreasing frequency and had become a rarity by the 20th century. Surprisingly, the Act remained on the UK statute books into modern times and wasn't formally repealed until 1973. It was eventually superseded by the 1986 Public Order Act.

The first record of the figurative use of the phrase is in William Bradford's Letters, December 1819:

"She has just run out to read the riot act in the Nursery."

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 12:33 AM
timely considering what's happening in the UK :thumbsup:

intrestink tidbit - "Surprisingly, the Act remained on the UK statute books into modern times and wasn't formally repealed until 1973. It was eventually superseded by the 1986 Public Order Act."

MrsM
08-19-2011, 01:14 PM
Throw the baby out with the bath water - when it was bath time - it was always the father and mother that washed first then the oldest kids and usually the smallest kids/babies last. By that time the water was so dirty that you could throw the baby out with the dirty bath water.... or something like that

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 03:54 PM
Throw the baby out with the bath water - when it was bath time - it was always the father and mother that washed first then the oldest kids and usually the smallest kids/babies last. By that time the water was so dirty that you could throw the baby out with the dirty bath water.... or something like that

Right you are MrsM.....Guests, then the eldest male, then the farm animals, then the women, then the children.

as it should be :lol:


yecchhhh

Pony
08-19-2011, 10:21 PM
holding a wake

saved by the bell

dead ringer

Are these three related? I think they all have a similar answer.

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 10:24 PM
holding a wake

saved by the bell

dead ringer

Are these three related? I think they all have a similar answer.


maybeeeee :rolleyes:

Pony
08-19-2011, 10:31 PM
maybeeeee :rolleyes:

OK, here goes....

Doctors falsely pronounced people dead in the old days, a "wake" was held to give the "dead" a chance to wake up.

They also used to bury the "dead" with a string in the coffin tied to a bell. If the person woke up he could ring the bell and get "saved by the bell".

Dead ringer would be someone that resembled one who recently died. (ringer because of the bell) <-guess

Pony
08-19-2011, 10:33 PM
And Graveyard shift was someone who sat up all night in the cemetery either looking for grave robbers or listening for the bell.

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 10:39 PM
Dingdingding PLUS half a ding (clever I am...)

Graveyard shift was indeed created to listen for the bells attached to strings fastened on the corpse's fingers in case they awoke in the coffin.

Saved by the bell and dead ringer are pretty much the same thing...guy wakes up in the coffin, saved by the bell or guy wakes up in the coffin and is a dead ringer.

Having a wake is related to the above definitions.They used to drink out of lead mugs and the lead would leech into the beverage causing people to drop and be declared dead.I guess (according to the email and one webpage I visited) 1 out of every 25 buried corpses were not dead in England and they found scratch marks inside of the coffins :lol:

You got everything but the dead ringer, well done matey :thumbsup:

Pony
08-19-2011, 10:42 PM
Pretty close for useless trivia I read somewhere years ago...

Amazing that I remember that stuff but I can't remember peoples names or what I had for lunch yesterday.

JoeyB
08-19-2011, 10:45 PM
I can't remember peoples names or what I had for lunch yesterday.

You had a big bowl of Robert with your friend Macaroni. Might have been the other way around.

Hal-9000
08-19-2011, 11:01 PM
Pretty close for useless trivia I read somewhere years ago...

Amazing that I remember that stuff but I can't remember peoples names or what I had for lunch yesterday.

I got the same email as Belle and then hit the net for confirmation of the ones I posted.Some pretty neat stuff for expressions we use everyday

Southern Belle
08-20-2011, 12:19 AM
Get thrown in the Clinker (go to prison). There was a prison in London named Clink. I have a picture of the sign somewhere.

Southern Belle
08-20-2011, 12:20 AM
Again, I have to say that it amazes me that these sayings have been passed along for such a long time.

Southern Belle
08-20-2011, 12:29 AM
Belive it or not, when I was in high school I took advanced English Literature. One of our test scores was learning and reciting in front of the class the prelude to Canterbury Tales.
At that time, I thought it was some kind of insane punishment from the literature teacher, but now I know that it's just a part of history that we shouldn't let die.
I admire the Welsh for keeping their old language alive.

Prelude to Canterbury Tales in Olde English

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
1
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
2
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
3
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
4
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
5
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
6
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
7
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
8
And smale foweles maken melodye,
9
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
10
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
11
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
12
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
13
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
14
And specially from every shires ende
15
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
16
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
17
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
18

Hal-9000
08-20-2011, 12:45 AM
good gravy it's like Smoothbob on ecstasy



:lol:

Southern Belle
08-20-2011, 01:04 AM
:lol: It's just olde English
I love to interpret Smooth's posts.

Southern Belle
08-20-2011, 01:05 AM
good gravy it's like Smoothbob on ecstasy



:lol:
Y'all didn't have to learn it in Canadia?

Hal-9000
08-20-2011, 07:00 PM
Y'all didn't have to learn it in Canadia?

Not at all.We were too busy throwing U's into colour and neighbour and spelling center likes this...centre

Teh One Who Knocks
12-26-2017, 02:03 PM
"Throwing good money after bad" - the decision we had to make between getting the old furnace fixed or just buying a new one.

Hal-9000
12-27-2017, 04:18 AM
:-k

Sorry to hear Lance

and

Good thread, that hal dude was a clever poster :tup:

Teh One Who Knocks
12-27-2017, 11:34 AM
Piss Poor

and

Didn’t have a pot to piss in

Hal-9000
12-27-2017, 04:24 PM
Did you know that during Jack the Ripper times (1870-90's) in Whitechapel, they would not rent rooms, but sections of rooms.

People were so poor they would pay the owner a couple of pence for an area roughly 2 feet x 6 feet in a main room, where up to 10 other people would be existing/sleeping.

The first Air BnB's :thumbsup:

Teh One Who Knocks
12-27-2017, 04:31 PM
Did you know that during Jack the Ripper times (1870-90's) in Whitechapel, they would not rent rooms, but sections of rooms.

People were so poor they would pay the owner a couple of pence for an area roughly 2 feet x 6 feet in a main room, where up to 10 other people would be existing/sleeping.

The first Air BnB's :thumbsup:

That's not a saying :slap:

Hal-9000
12-27-2017, 04:34 PM
It was relative to your sayings above and a tangential piece of information I thought people would fight interesting.

And you hit me :(

Try and guess the origin of this saying: Fuck off :lol: