Sayings

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conyoviejo
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Sayings

Post by conyoviejo » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:39 pm

I wonder how many of these are true..

1. In the 1400s a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.
Hence we have 'the rule of thumb.'

2. Many years ago in Scotland , a new game was invented. It was ruled 'Gentlemen Only...
Ladies Forbidden'... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

3. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
Spades - King David,
Hearts - Charlemagne,
Clubs -Alexander the Great,
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

4. 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.'

5. 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, which we know today as the honeymoon.

6. 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 your pints and quarts, and settle down.'
It's where we get the phrase 'mind your P's and Q's'

7. 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.

8. In 1696, William III of England introduced a property tax that required those living in houses with more than six windows to pay a levy. In order to avoid the tax, house owners would brick up all windows except six. (The Window Tax lasted until 1851, and older houses with bricked-up windows are still a common sight in the U.K.) As the bricked-up windows prevented some rooms from receiving any sunlight, the tax was referred to as “daylight robbery”!

👍😎

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Re: Sayings

Post by Bosscat » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:43 pm

You been watching Suzie Dent on Countdown with her "origins of words" section 😂

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Re: Sayings

Post by FactualFrank » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:46 pm

That's not sayings it's 'facts'.

King of Hearts has changed as one of them used to be known as the Suicide King. Read up on it.

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Re: Sayings

Post by bfcjg » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:48 pm

FactualFrank wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:46 pm
That's not sayings it's 'facts'.

King of Hearts has changed as one of them used to be known as the Suicide King. Read up on it.
Is that the Porter chap ?

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Re: Sayings

Post by claptrappers_union » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:49 pm

The first two are not true.

Rule of thumb comes from brewers testing the temperature of batches with their thumb.

Golf is an old Scottish word meaning swing or cuff. Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden is just an old joke.

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Re: Sayings

Post by Fenwick » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:57 pm

After the Black Death had greatly reduced the population, the king urged the people to boost numbers. Hence fornicating under command of the king. No idea if this is true.

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Re: Sayings

Post by FactualFrank » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:04 pm

bfcjg wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:48 pm
Is that the Porter chap ?
King of Hearts. He kills himself down to the cards, but it's down to a lot of poor copying with card companies. The thinking started in the 1400s I think. It's interesting though. I remember reading about it when I was about 12.

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Re: Sayings

Post by Bosscat » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:10 pm

The playing card the 9 of Diamonds is known as "The curse of Scotland"

Here are several explanations...

Curse of Scotland
The nine of diamonds playing card is often referred to as the "Curse of Scotland" There are a number of reasons given for this connection:

1. It was the playing card used by Sir John Dalrymple, the Earl of Stair, to cryptically authorise the Glencoe Massacre. Certainly there is a resemblance between the nine of diamonds and his coat of arms.

2. The Duke of Cumberland is supposed to have scribbled the order for "no quarter" to be given after the Battle of Culloden on a nine of diamonds playing card..

3. It has also been suggested that it is a misreading of the "Corse of Scotland" ie the "Cross of Scotland" or St Andrew's Saltire. There is a resemblance between the pattern of the nine of diamonds and the Saltire.

4. Nine diamonds were at one time stolen from the crown of Scotland and a tax was levied on the Scottish people to pay for them - the tax got the nickname "The Curse of Scotland".
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Re: Sayings

Post by FactualFrank » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:12 pm

Can we continue this thread for like ever.

Already learned a few things.
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Re: Sayings

Post by Bosscat » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:17 pm

In 1698, Tsar Peter I—known as Peter the Great—established a beard tax. He wasn’t the only ruler in history to do this.

England’s Henry VIII did the same...
A beard tax was introduced in Britain in 1535 during the reign of Henry VIII. The amount collected by the monarch increased with the beard grower’s standing in society – making facial hair a status symbol. The tax was dropped, then later reintroduced by Henry’s daughter Queen Elizabeth I, who felt that any beard with more than two weeks’ worth of growth should be taxed.
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Re: Sayings

Post by HahaYeah » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:18 pm

In the days of thatched roofs, animals would climb up onto the thatch to chill out for a bit,if it rained though it could likely lead to them slipping off the roof, hence - raining cats and dogs :geek:

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Re: Sayings

Post by Vino blanco » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:28 pm

No. 1 No
No. 2. No
No. 3 No
No.4. Yes
No. 5 No
No. 6. Origin obscure
No. 7 No
No. 8 Yes.

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Re: Sayings

Post by Vino blanco » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:40 pm

There is no contemporary documentation regarding either Henry or Elizabeth introducing a beard tax, neither is there any mention in the National Archives that such a tax was instituted.

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Re: Sayings

Post by HahaYeah » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:45 pm

In the old days, people used lead pots pans plates for food etc and could possibly die of lead poisoning,only sometimes they weren't dead - just unconscious! :shock:

People in graveyards could hear noises coming from the graves,so they used to fit ropes from the coffins to a bell in case a 'corpse' would wake up and be saved by someone paid to watch over the graveyard, hence - the graveyard shift :geek:

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Re: Sayings

Post by Vino blanco » Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:47 pm

The expression "raining cats and dogs" is of uncertain origin. The above mentioned origin is not correct, the general explanation is that after heavy rain caused flooding dead cats and dogs would be found in the streets, fields etc, but again, there is no certain origin.

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Re: Sayings

Post by Volvoclaret » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:05 pm

I always thought 'rule of thumb' was more to do with the average thumb is approx 1 inch long and without a fixed measuring stick you could use your thumb as a measure.

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Re: Sayings

Post by Vino blanco » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:06 pm

The fitting of bells and other safety devices to coffins/graves did occur as early as the 1700s, however the use of the term "graveyard shift" is as late as the 1890s becoming of more common use at the beginning of the 20th century. It is thought simply to refer to people working in the early hours of the morning when the working atmosphere was perhaps indeed eery and quiet.

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Re: Sayings

Post by Vino blanco » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:11 pm

You are right Volvo, it is assumed it is the use of the thumb as a measure (similar to an inch) or for testing the temperature of a liquid. Origin uncertain.

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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:18 pm

Vino blanco wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:06 pm
The fitting of bells and other safety devices to coffins/graves did occur as early as the 1700s, however the use of the term "graveyard shift" is as late as the 1890s becoming of more common use at the beginning of the 20th century. It is thought simply to refer to people working in the early hours of the morning when the working atmosphere was perhaps indeed eery and quiet.
From the back of my mind I seem to recall that wealthy Victorians would hire gravediggers to protect their loved ones from the likes of Burke and Hare and the like claiming corpses for medical experiments
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Re: Sayings

Post by Bosscat » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:19 pm

Volvoclaret wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:05 pm
I always thought 'rule of thumb' was more to do with the average thumb is approx 1 inch long and without a fixed measuring stick you could use your thumb as a measure.
I prefer the OP's rule ... I never beat the wife with a stick thicker than my Thumb 🙂
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Re: Sayings

Post by kentonclaret » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:24 pm

In 1837, the Marquis of Waterford-a known lush and mischief maker-led a group of friends on a night of drinking through the English town of Melton Mowbray. The bender culminated in vandalism after Waterford and his fellow revellers knocked over flowerpots, pulled knockers off doors and broke the windows of some of the town's buildings. To top it all off, the mob literally painted a tollgate, the doors of several homes and a swan statue with red paint. The marquis and his pranksters later compensated Melton for the damages, but their drunken escapade is the likely reason that 'PAINT THE TOWN RED" became shorthand for a wild night out.
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elwaclaret
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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:26 pm

Freeze the balls of a brass monkey.. is one of hundreds that hail from Naval terminology. The brass monkey was a store that held the cannon ballsnext to the gun ready for firing; being fittings of brass they contracted in cold weather spilling the cannonballs onto the deck...
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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:32 pm

Side-burn

US civil war Union General Burnside had impressive moss chops... leading one wit to say... are you sure it’s Burnside, not Side-burn?

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Re: Sayings

Post by huw.Y.WattfromWare » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:30 pm

Volvoclaret wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:05 pm
I always thought 'rule of thumb' was more to do with the average thumb is approx 1 inch long and without a fixed measuring stick you could use your thumb as a measure.
That is a very short thumb! Try from the knuckle to the tip, that should be about an inch.

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Re: Sayings

Post by KateR » Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:53 pm

when people used to get married around the time of the Honeymoon as above, the hut/home was laid with new straw/thresh, when the groom would carry the bride in people would say carry her over the thresh hold. which was the new thresh at the door.
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Re: Sayings

Post by KateR » Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:02 am

clutching at straws, a drowning man clutching at a straw from the middle ages:

A straw was chosen as the height of futility as a means of rescue. Being, as it was, a flimsy and virtually valueless waste product, it was often used as a synonym for the most unimportant and trifling of objects.

'Don't give/care a straw' was an indication of indifference, a 'man of straw' was an insubstantial adversary, and to 'condemn someone to straw' was to declare them ready for the madhouse.

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Re: Sayings

Post by Cirrus_Minor » Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:55 am

I was always told that No. 6 was from printers who had to set the different letters in blocks that were mirrored to produce the print for newspapers, etc. But p's and q's are already mirrored so are the basis for mistakes in the resulting print. Hence mind your p's and q's.
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Re: Sayings

Post by Volvoclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 2:55 pm

[
That is a very short thumb! Try from the knuckle to the tip, that should be about an inch.
[/quote]

So thats why the wife disbelieves my claim to 12 inches :lol:

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Re: Sayings

Post by Volvoclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:05 pm

Its just a flash in the pan comes from 17th C when flintlock guns were used. If the priming gunpowder in the priming pan failed to ignite the main charge the gun didnt fire and there was just a flash in the pan.
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Re: Sayings

Post by Mayoclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:09 pm

We are probably all familiar with the term and meaning of "Taking coals to Newcastle" but I always kind of liked liked the German equivalent which is "Wasser zum See tragen"......translates as "Carrying water to the sea".

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Re: Sayings

Post by KateR » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:13 pm

A bad penny always turns up:
This proverb has lived long in the language. It derives from the notion that some coins were 'bad', that is, they were debased or counterfeit.The 'clipping' of coins was rife in the Middle Ages, long before standardisation of the coinage was reliably enforced.

It was the sense that, if you clip or pass on a bad penny, it won't be long before it comes back to you in your change.

Our present day expression of that would be 'what goes around comes around'.
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Re: Sayings

Post by FactualFrank » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:13 pm

How about when people say there's an elephant in the room.

In 1814, Ivan Krylov (1769–1844), poet and fabulist, wrote a fable entitled "The Inquisitive Man", which tells of a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant. The phrase became proverbial.[5] Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel Demons wrote, "Belinsky was just like Krylov's Inquisitive Man, who didn't notice the elephant in the museum...."[6]

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first recorded use of the phrase, as a simile, in The New York Times on June 20, 1959: "Financing schools has become a problem about equal to having an elephant in the living room. It's so big you just can't ignore it."[7] According to the website the Phrase Finder, the first known use in print is from 1952.[8]

This idiomatic expression may have been in general use much earlier than 1959. For example, the phrase appears 44 years earlier in the pages of the British Journal of Education in 1915. The sentence was presented as a trivial illustration of a question British schoolboys would be able to answer, e.g., "Is there an elephant in the class-room?"[9]

The first widely disseminated conceptual reference was a story written by Mark Twain in 1882, "The Stolen White Elephant", which recounts the inept, far-ranging activities of detectives trying to find an elephant that was right on the spot after all. This story, combined with Dostoyevsky's white bear, may have been on Charles Edward Clark's mind when he wrote in United States v. Antonelli Fireworks (1946)[10] and again in United States v. Leviton (1951)[11] of "the Mark Twain story of the little boy who was told to stand in a corner and not to think of a white elephant."

A slightly different version of the phrase was used before this, with George Berkeley talking of whether or not there is "an invisible elephant in the room" in his debates with scientists.[12]

The phrase may also be a response to philosopher Alfred North Whitehead's 1929 description[13] of the validity of immediate experience: "Sometimes we see an elephant, and sometimes we do not. The result is that an elephant, when present, is noticed."

Source: Wikipedia.

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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:41 pm

Volvoclaret wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:05 pm
Its just a flash in the pan comes from 17th C when flintlock guns were used. If the priming gunpowder in the priming pan failed to ignite the main charge the gun didnt fire and there was just a flash in the pan.
Also from the flintlock.... lock stock and barrel the three parts of the flintlock.

While ‘a forlorn hope’ was a skirmish line sent in advance of the main army to harass the enemy, but with no chance of resisting any retaliation by the enemy.

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Re: Sayings

Post by conyoviejo » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:45 pm

Another nail in the coffin


Old wooden coffins were nailed down before burial. So the "last nail" is a negative -- the thing that finishes you off. "He got drunk at the office Christmas party. That was the last nail in his coffin."

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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:52 pm

KateR wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:13 pm
A bad penny always turns up:
This proverb has lived long in the language. It derives from the notion that some coins were 'bad', that is, they were debased or counterfeit.The 'clipping' of coins was rife in the Middle Ages, long before standardisation of the coinage was reliably enforced.

It was the sense that, if you clip or pass on a bad penny, it won't be long before it comes back to you in your change.

Our present day expression of that would be 'what goes around comes around'.
Coins were originally only the value of the weight of the coin. Hack silver was melted down precious metal... such as Lindisfarne gold and silver for example which was melted brown into bars and a weight could be ‘hacked off’ as payment.

King James decided hacking his currency was such a problem that he had anyone hacking his coins executed... (It was effecting his reputation as his name was on it) and formal mints created in Wales, Scotland and the Tower of London. Mixing alloys into coins also led to beheading...
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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:59 pm

conyoviejo wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 3:45 pm
Another nail in the coffin


Old wooden coffins were nailed down before burial. So the "last nail" is a negative -- the thing that finishes you off. "He got drunk at the office Christmas party. That was the last nail in his coffin."
The ‘final nail’ was driven in at an angel to secure the lid... all previous nails were hammered in straight so the lid could still easily be removed. The final nail prevented the lids removal

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Re: Sayings

Post by AfloatinClaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:12 pm

Bosscat wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:19 pm
I prefer the OP's rule ... I never beat the wife with a stick thicker than my Thumb 🙂
You've gone up in my estimation, as I have a great deal of respect for those men who beat their wives; I've never managed to garner that amount of courage.
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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:19 pm

Sent to Coventry....

During the English Civil War Coventry was the major Parliamentarian prison camp. If you were sent to Coventry you were captured and no longer available for King Charles’s army.

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Re: Sayings

Post by conyoviejo » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:43 pm

Doesn't the Word "posh" come from "port out, starboard home"?

We do not know the precise origin of the adjective posh, meaning "elegant, fashionable," but nearly everyone else seems to. Every year we get dozens of letters informing us that posh comes from the first letters of the phrase "port out, starboard home," which designated the most desirable accommodations on a steamship voyage from England to India and back.
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Re: Sayings

Post by RMutt » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:48 pm

Being ‘nutmegged’ apparently comes from having fallen for the trick of buying fake wooden nutmegs along with genuine ones. Nutmegs were so expensive that unscrupulous merchants would mix fake with real. It became a phrase for having one done over you and then eventually for being made a fool of on the football pitch.
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Re: Sayings

Post by Volvoclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:59 pm

Let the cat out of the bag was the cat o nine tails which was kept in a bag and only brought out prior to a sailor receiving a lashing. Also out on the lash comes from sailors saving up their rum ration and getting drunk, the punishment being the lash.
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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:02 pm

RMutt wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:48 pm
Being ‘nutmegged’ apparently comes from having fallen for the trick of buying fake wooden nutmegs along with genuine ones. Nutmegs were so expensive that unscrupulous merchants would mix fake with real. It became a phrase for having one done over you and then eventually for being made a fool of on the football pitch.
Lot to answer for has Nutmeg.... was worth more than gold in weight. Nutmeg was THE major reason for the spice wars... where Britain defeated the Dutch and Portuguese to claim their plantations.... and first adopt their practices.... Britain’s first introduction to the profit in slavery.
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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:05 pm

Volvoclaret wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:59 pm
Let the cat out of the bag was the cat o nine tails which was kept in a bag and only brought out prior to a sailor receiving a lashing. Also out on the lash comes from sailors saving up their rum ration and getting drunk, the punishment being the lash.
Also responsible for “no room to swing a cat”... there was no room to swing the cat below decks.

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Re: Sayings

Post by RMutt » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:16 pm

elwaclaret wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:02 pm
Lot to answer for has Nutmeg.... was worth more than gold in weight. Nutmeg was THE major reason for the spice wars... where Britain defeated the Dutch and Portuguese to claim their plantations.... and first adopt their practices.... Britain’s first introduction to the profit in slavery.
Also hallucinogenic if taken in enough quantity.
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Re: Sayings

Post by Volvoclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:16 pm

Sailor at the bow of the ship dropping overboard a length of knotted rope with a lead weight to measure depth of water was seen as a cushy job usually done by someone excused duties through illness, hence swinging the lead.
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Re: Sayings

Post by elwaclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:27 pm

Back to cards.... two pairs (black) aces and eights are known as the dead mans hand...

These were the cards Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot in the back.

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Re: Sayings

Post by yTib » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:29 pm

elwaclaret wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:02 pm
Lot to answer for has Nutmeg.... was worth more than gold in weight. Nutmeg was THE major reason for the spice wars... where Britain defeated the Dutch and Portuguese to claim their plantations.... and first adopt their practices.... Britain’s first introduction to the profit in slavery.
true. apparently at the height of the spice wars a small bag of nutmegs could buy you a modestly sized london townhouse. crazy.

JohnMac
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Re: Sayings

Post by JohnMac » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:30 pm

Fenwick wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:57 pm
After the Black Death had greatly reduced the population, the king urged the people to boost numbers. Hence fornicating under command of the king. No idea if this is true.
Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge is what I was told by a policeman.

Again that could just be their rumour mill.

Vino blanco
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Re: Sayings

Post by Vino blanco » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:31 pm

I think that swinging the lead comes more from the sailor not allowing the lead weight to sink to the bottom and then hauling it back up, which was hard work. He would in fact only swing the lead and not release it fully to the sea bottom because it was easier, hence swinging the lead..

kentonclaret
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Re: Sayings

Post by kentonclaret » Wed Sep 02, 2020 5:33 pm

"Bring Home the Bacon"

This phrase is often attributed to the story of Dunmow Flitch. In 1104, a couple in Great Dunmow, Essex, impressed the Prior of Little Dunmow with their love and devotion so much that he awarded them a flitch (a side) of bacon.

"Hair of the dog that bit you"

This term for a hangover cure is another medieval saying, originating from the belief that once bitten by a rabid dog, the victim would be cured by applying the same dog's hair to the wound. The first use of it being applied to drinking was in John Heywood's 1546 tome.

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