November 5, 201015 yr I like trivial tidbits, I don't know why. I especially like knowing the origin of phrases and sayings that we use everyday but have no idea where we got them. You know, stuff like... get a leg up bury the hatchet hanky panky square deal dead as a door nail on the wagon over a barrel Where did these things come from? What others do you use? Anybody else like this stuff?
November 5, 201015 yr Author I always used the saying "His name is Mudd" but never knew where it came from. Today I found out that it originated just after Lincoln's assasination. Dr. Samuel A. Mudd treated the leg of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. His actions produced the expression "his name is Mudd," signifying utter disgrace.
November 5, 201015 yr Many years ago a man conned his way into being a member of the orchestra of the emperor of China, even though the man couldn’t play a single note. Whenever the group practiced or performed, this man would hold his flute against his lips and simply pretend to play it. As a member of the orchestra he received a salary and enjoyed a comfortable living. Then one day the emperor requested a solo from each musician. The man was terrified, so he pretended to be sick, but the emperor was not fooled. And on the day of his solo performance, the impostor took poison and killed himself. The explanation of his suicide led to a phrase that later found its way into the English language. He couldn’t “face the music.”
November 5, 201015 yr "Under the weather" is an old sailor's phrase. When sailors weren't feeling well or were seasick, they were sent under the deck and away from the weather - thus "under the weather".
November 5, 201015 yr "Brand Spanking New" - Originates from doctors spanking a new born baby to make it cry to start breathing following delivery. "Armed To The Teeth" - Pirates only had single shot black powder guns and cutlasses. They wanted to carry as many of these weapons at once to keep up the fight, so often times they carried a knife in their mouth in order to have yet another weapon. "Back Handed Compliment" - In old English, your off-hand was called your "back hand", much like with an off-handed tennis stroke. Since the majority of people are right handed, this often implied left handed. Furthermore, the Latin word for left is sinestra, which is also the root of the word "sinister". Thus, sinister and "back-handed" were linked, and "back-handed compliment" came to mean a sinister or less than kind compliment. "Botched Up" - Botch is a mis-spelling and mis-pronunciation of the word "bouch". Sir Thomas Bouch designed a bridge that was built at the Tay estuary at Dundee in Scotland. At nearly two-miles long, it was the longest bridge in the world when completed in 1878. A year and a half after opening, the bridge collapsed in a storm, sinking a 6-carriage train into the estuary and killing all 75 passengers. Bouch's name and reputation were linked to the structural failure, and the term "Botched Up" came about.
November 5, 201015 yr It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World. One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year. Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year. The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language. TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard. The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night. Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale. More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes. Edited November 6, 201015 yr by Birdsfan
November 5, 201015 yr ACHILLES HEEL In Greek mythology Thetis dipped her son in the mythical River Styx. Anyone who was immersed in the river became invulnerable. However Thetis held Achilles by his heel. Since her hand covered this part of his body the water did not touch it and so it remained vulnerable. Achilles was eventually killed when an arrow hit his heel. BIG WIG In the 18th century when many men wore wigs, the most important men wore the biggest wigs. Hence today important people are called big wigs. BITES THE DUST This phrase comes from a translation of the epic Ancient Greek poem the Iliad about the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. It was poetic way of describing the death of a warrior.
November 5, 201015 yr If you keep a Goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn white. A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
November 5, 201015 yr I always used the saying "His name is Mudd" but never knew where it came from. Today I found out that it originated just after Lincoln's assasination. Dr. Samuel A. Mudd treated the leg of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. His actions produced the expression "his name is Mudd," signifying utter disgrace. Did you watch National Treasure 2 today? lol. I think they discuss that in there.
November 5, 201015 yr Author No I read that one online, my homepage actually has a "useless info" section where I get a daily dose of this kind of stuff.
November 5, 201015 yr "Screw you and the horse you rode in on." Attributed to the first person that Paul Revere woke up on his famous ride. If you took all the people who fell asleep in church on Sunday morning and laid them end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable.
November 5, 201015 yr 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 What are the only two days of the year on which no professional sports (Big 4 - MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL) are played? The day before and the day after the MLB All-Star Game. The average lifespan of a major league baseball is 7 pitches. MLB goes through about 900,000 balls per season at a cost of about $5.5 million. The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight. "In God We Trust" was not adopted as the national slogan until 1956.
November 5, 201015 yr No I read that one online, my homepage actually has a "useless info" section where I get a daily dose of this kind of stuff. There's an ap for that. I have it on my phone. :lol:
November 5, 201015 yr There are 318,979,564,000 combinations of the first four moves in a game of chess. Diet Coke was invented in 1982. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest. The expression "on the dole" originates from Great Britain, where unemployment benefits have been known as the "dole" since at least 1919.
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