Reader Opinions
James Horsley – (take the bull by the horns) December 10, 2024
“undoubtedly originated in America” – not so sure there is no doubt, the Spanish have been bull fighting since around 711 AD (long before the “wild west” of America) and this is also a Spanish idiom (“coger el toro por los cuernos”) and it would make natural sense to have had a bull-fighting connotation – so which came first? My money is not on America.
Chris – (ward off) December 9, 2024
A ward was a magical talisman, icon or symbol used for protection, so when you warded something off you were stopping it coming near. As stated by Cindy, aside from the feminist root, the example sentences are very flawed.
Ward is protection, hence we have a wardrobe – a place to protect clothes.
Chris – (under the weather) November 30, 2024
Originally, sailors used the phrase “under the weather bow,” referring to the side of the ship that would get the brunt of the wind during storms. To avoid getting seasick when the waves got rough, they’d bunker down in their cabins—literally under that bad weather—to let the storm pass.
Anonymous – (on the other hand) November 17, 2024
Years late I will reply. Your sentence would just be “Bob was shy and Sam was outgoing.” Using the phrase, it would be more like: “Maybe Sam talked too much. On the other hand, he was friendly and outgoing.” The phrase talks about one thing from two different angles.
Chris – (touch off) November 15, 2024
A lot older than America; this comes from the Middle Ages and the use of petards to blow castle walls and gates; the handler would roll the barrel of explosive to the position, light the touch paper, and run (hoping not to get hoisted on it). So he “touched it off” and ran.
Chris – (turn over a new leaf) November 15, 2024
Leaf is still commonly used to refer to pages of a book or newspaper. Hence you have the phrase “leafing through a book/magazine” etc.
I believe this comes from the military, such as the navy, who would start the log each day on a new, clean sheet of paper. The first entry transcribed from the slate of the night before would require a new page. A new dawn, a new day, a new page.
Chris – (scapegoat) November 12, 2024
It was actually from the Jewish religion who, as Adam said, would “load the sins of the community” onto a goat. I don’t know about the ribbons, but the idea was everybody put their hands on it to give it their sins, and then it was released into the desert to die, taking away the sins; the foretelling of Christ.
Chris – (son of a gun) November 12, 2024
Good grief: again claiming an idiom as American. This phrase originated in the British Merchant navy, which – to keep the crew inline and also add rewards – the ship would host several “ladies of the night” (because your filters won’t allow the Pros word). Obviously, these ladies would suffer the mishap of becoming pregnant, and the only interior place they had space to deliver the baby was on the floor beside the cannons. As the father could have been any of dozens of sailors, the captain would enter in the log “Son of a gun” (or daughter, but it is the former that became a popular exclamation.
Daud – (within earshot) November 7, 2024
The earliest known use of the noun earshot is in the early 1600s. OED’s earliest evidence for earshot is from 1607, in the writing of Francis Beaumont, playwright. earshot is formed within English, by compounding. Etymons:
Chris – (rule of thumb) October 27, 2024
A rule of thumb originated with carpenters and joiners; oftentimes you would not have a ruler on you, and you wanted to have a piece of an approximate length, so you would literally use your thumb to measure off the inches (a thumb being close to 1 inch). then take the timber to where it was needed and cut it to the exact size. So a rule of thumb was something that was close to accurate, and we use it in a similar way these days “As a rule of thumb, adverbs end in ly” – true a lot of the time but not 100%
