Dillon

Now, Now everyone. The majority of them were accurate. When we play horseshoes, occasionally someone will get a "Dead ringer"... Challenge that...by the way, thanks for posting those old cliches.

FrankR Loc: NYC

Interesting stuff, except for the tomato part. If you start by saying it’s about life in the 1500s and then say tomatoes were considered poisonous for the the next 400 years or so, that would get us to the 1900s. We all know tomatoes have been eaten and enjoyed since well before that time.

MrMophoto Loc: Rhode Island "The biggest little"

A few more interesting derivations; When hand set type (individual letters set one at a time)was the only way to print a page, the block of type was locked into a frame called a chase. The locking mechanisms are called Quoins, hence the term "to quoin a phrase", meaning to lock it into type. Some people say it is actually coin as in to strike or make a coin. In either case, quoin, is a good scrabble word.
The cases that each type face or font were kept in are called a California job case, often the capital letters were place above the small letters in the rack, hence the phrase "upper and lower case" letters
Also those individual letters were reversed since they printed directly on a page. Lower case Ps and Qs were particularly problematic since reversed they looked like the other - "Watch your ps and qs" I've also heard that phrase derives from English pubs where the barkeep would charge people by the size of the glasses they drank, either pints or quarts.
Lastly, before mass production of nails, they were made by a blacksmith one at a time. They would start with a long thin round piece of metal rod usually iron and place it in the blacksmiths forge. When the end would be hot enough to work he could take it out and make a single nail. The common practice was to have a number of these rods heating up at one time so that the blacksmith could make one nail then place it back in the forge (the fire) to heat up to temp. The concept was to have a number of them heating up while he made each nail. If he had too many in the forge at one time the ends would just melt off loosing valuable metal. He had "Too many irons in the fire"

nobody13579

Any port in a storm..

khalidikram

William Shakespeare's father was a glover. He had to soak the leather in urine in order to soften it to make gloves.

JADAV

Where have I assumed that all of you have only American experience? The problem with the list of historical "facts" is that there are some correct items that are well accepted but there are plenty of others that are not. For example many parts of Northern England and Scotland enjoy "Wakes Week" holidays. The meaning of the word "wake" meaning a religious celebration or feast hence burials were followed by a "wake" to celebrate the life of the deceased. To address the idea of “Taphophobia”, the fear of being buried alive arose in the 19th century and was widespread both across Europe and North America. The term and holding of wakes after funerals was a a well established practice in the Middle Ages. I might postulate that the phrase "when hell freezes over" arose when Americans started to have their dead bodies cryogenically preserved in order to have chance of a second life but that would be untrue wouldn't it? The question I am asking myself is how you will accept a list of half truths without even conducting a check on them? I have already found separate independent rejections of some of the items within 15 minutes. Far from only living only in the present I have a long standing interest in our history and find it fascinating so that I am prepared to expend some effort to investigate. It doesn't serve our history well to simply share a list from Facebook. Please accept that there is "fake history" as well as "fake news". I hope that you also accept that this isn't a personal attack but my attempt to reveal that history is more interesting on a deeper level. Best wishes.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Crawl back into your hole.
You posted just to be hateful and try to show ignorance.
This was to be a fun post and your constant hate is not needed.

MrMophoto Loc: Rhode Island "The biggest little"

You must be a lot of fun at funerals (and Wakes). As the expression goes; (military) history is written by the victorious, which indicates there are many sides to every story. The derivation of words and phrases is a case in point. Language is a very fluid thing, it changes over time as does the meanings of certain words and phrases. The study or hobby of derivations is NOT an exact science, they're amusing, interesting and at times insightful studies into the development of a culture. Does it matter whether the expression the graveyard shift came from a person sitting all night in the graveyard waiting for a dead ringer or just the night shift that felt like you were working in a graveyard? I would say not. Personally, I find these anecdotes intellectually amusing, nothing more.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Mark

jrsulf

Who cares!

ILFarmer

I grew up in a family of 10 and on Saturday night we all took baths, one at a time in the same water. I always wanted to be either first or last. In the Army, we took#split baths