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Friday, March 29, 2013

A miss is as good as a mile




Our American version is: 'close but no cigar.'

Monday, March 25, 2013

A Woman's Place Is In the Home


"Let women stay at home and hold their peace."

Friday, March 22, 2013

Raining cats and dogs

The phrase isn't related to the well-known antipathy between dogs and cats.  Nor is the phrase in any sense literal, i.e. it doesn't record an incident where cats and dogs fell from the sky.


"It shall raine... Dogs and Polecats".


The first appearance of the currently used version is in Jonathan Swift’s A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversationin 1738:



Monday, March 18, 2013

"warms the cockles of my heart"

What are the "cockles of your heart" and why do they need warming?

The meaning can be interpreted as the "cockles of the heart" are warmed by an emotional experience that exposes the tender and warm side of the human experience, thus opening of the "heart".

The expression turns up first in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the earliest form of the idiom was 'rejoice the cockles of one’s heart'. 

Some say cockles is a medical term. Cockles are a type of bivalve mollusc. They are frequently heart-shaped (their formal zoological genus was at one time Cardium, of the heart) with ribbed shells.The heart is composed of various parts that work in unison to pump blood throughout the body. One of the parts of the heart is called a ventricle. Anyway, the Latin tem for the heart's ventricles is "cochleae cordis". Could "cockle" be a corruption of the medieval Latin word for heart - cochleae cordis?

The cockles of your heart are its ventricles and thus by extension, the innermost depths of one’s heart or emotions. The word comes from the Latin phrase cochleae cordis, meaning ‘ventricles of the heart.’ —Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins

My thanks to for their forum on this topic that helped to clear up some of the confusion.

Friday, March 15, 2013

"at my wits' end"

'To be at wits' end' is, literally, to run out of ideas. To be very worried or upset because you have tried every possible way to solve a problem but cannot do it. Completely puzzled, perplexed, not knowing what to do. I've tried every possible source without success, now I'm at my wit's end.

Note that the apostrophe is placed after the s of wits (meaning abilities), not after wit (one's humor or intelligence).

The phrase comes from the Bible, Psalms 107:27 (King James Version): "They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end." The original Hebrew of the Bible says, "חָ֝כְמָתָ֗ם תִּתְבַּלָּֽע׃ " which is transliterated as "chachematam titballa." This is translated as "their wits' end."

The phrase has also been used when a diagnosis for an illness cannot seem to be found for a person.'

It's most frequent use seems to be by parents.  Mothers and fathers have said "I am at my wits' end" when it comes to thinking of things to keep children busy.

Monday, March 11, 2013

What will it take?


The tale is often repeated that portrait painters used to charge more for larger paintings and that a head and shoulders painting was the cheapest option, followed in price by one which included arms and finally the top of the range 'legs and all' portrait. Actually, that's not a fact. There's no evidence to suggest painters charged by limb count.

The phrase, 'An arm and a leg,' is much more recent then that. The earliest citation found is from The Long Beach Independent, December 1949:
A more likely explanation is that the expression derived from two earlier phrases: 'I would give my right arm for...' and '[Even] if it takes a leg', which were both coined in the 19th century. The earliest example found of the former in print is from an 1849 edition of Sharpe's London Journal:
Others have suggested it derives naturally from a 19th century expression "if it takes a leg" and the other earlier expression "I'd give my right arm."

Following is a humorous source of this phrase which I can't authenticate:

Adam told god he was lonely, so god said I will create a perfect companion for you who will always look after you, do all the house work, cook all the food, carry your children, look after you when you are sick, love and cherish you always. When you have an argument your companion will always be the first to say sorry because you were right. 
That sounds to good to be true said Adam, how much will this cost me god. 
And god said an arm and a leg. 
so Adam said what can I get for a rib? 
And the rest is History. 

Friday, March 8, 2013

Am I Boring You?










Monday, March 4, 2013

come a cropper




A man on horseback, drunk with gin and flip,
Bawling out - Yoix - and cracking of his whip,
The startish beast took fright, and flop
The mad-brain'd rider tumbled, neck and crop!



Friday, March 1, 2013

'down to brass tacks'



          governed by selfishness."




