ORIGIN OF THE PHRASES

ORIGIN OF THE PHRASES

1. Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
2. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children-last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
3. 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 dogs, 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."
4. There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
5. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor."
6. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold."
7. In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite awhile. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
8. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."
9. Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
10. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."
11. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."
12. 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."
13. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight".
14. It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in- law with All the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month we know today as the honeymoon.
15. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."
16. Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the Rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase Inspired by this practice.
17. In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language. 
18. A very colorful phrase, one needs to be careful when using "balls to the wall".   Although its real origin is very benign, most people assume it is a reference to testicles. 
19. In fact it is from fighter planes. The "balls" are knobs atop the plane's throttle control.  Pushing the throttle all the way forward, to the wall of the cockpit, is to apply full throttle.
20. Alternatively, early railroad locomotives were powered by steam engines. Those engines typically had a mechanical governor.  These governors consisted of two weighted steel balls mounted at the ends of two arms, jointed and attached to the end of a vertical shaft that was connected to the interior of the engine.  The entire assembly is encased in a housing. The shafts and the weighted balls rotate at a rate driven by the engine speed.   As engine speed increases, the assembly rotates at a faster speed and centrifugal force causes the weighted balls to hinge upward on the arms. At maximum engine speed - controlled by these governors - centrifugal force causes the two weighted balls to rotate with their connecting shafts parallel to the ground and thereby nearly touching the sides - the walls - of their metal housing. So, an engineer driving his steam locomotive at full throttle was going "balls to the wall".   The expression came to be used commonly to describe something going full speed.
21. Before airplanes had sophisticated instruments and flight control systems, and even today, planes are piloted by feel.   Pilots can feel the reactions of the plane in response to their actions at the controls. Being the largest point of contact between pilot and plane, most of the feel or feedback comes through the seat of the pants. If you are "flying by the seat of your pants" your are responding to the feedback received. This expression comes out of the US Air Force test pilot program of the late 1940's.
22. "Pushing the envelope" originally meant flying an aircraft at, or even beyond, its known or recommended limits. The envelope refers to a plane's performance capabilities.  The limits of the planes ability to fly at speeds and altitudes and under certain stresses define what is known as its performance envelope.  It's an "envelope" in the sense that it contains the ranges of the plane's abilities. A safe bet is that many who pushed the envelope crashed. The expression was popularized by Tom Wolfe in his book "The right stuff" (1979) and later the movie of the same name.
23. During World War One airplanes were still a novelty and untested in war.  A "wing and a prayer" was first uttered when an American flyer came in with a badly damaged wing. His fellow pilots and mechanics were amazed he didn't crash.  He replied he was praying all the way in.  Another pilot chimed in that "a wing and a prayer brought you back."

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