Reader Opinions
Bruce King – (tick off) May 25, 2023
Any connection to a bomb ticking?
Anonymous – (hit the sack) May 18, 2023
I think that if someone looks tired or sick you could say, “Hit the sack/hay.”
Regan Walker – (taken aback) May 16, 2023
The expression may be older. Originally ‘aback’ was two words: ‘a’ and ‘back’, but these became merged into a single word in the 15th century. A use of “taken aback” was recorded in the London Gazette in 1697.
Robert Bushee – (a lot on my plate) May 15, 2023
1920s and later, 1959 in the movie Houseboat killing.
Spencer Pitts – (keep your chin up) May 14, 2023
Lmao, when hanging prisoners the hangman would say to sacred or crying (often always men) keep your chin up, as a small measure of advice to face their sentence like a man, but also when being hung by the neck, if one holds their neck straight and high The chances of a good cleannbreak are highly likely causing instant death rather than slow strangulation.
Htet Aung – (better off) May 13, 2023
The lady is better off without taking her son everywhere because her son is so naughty so that people don’t dislike coming her son except her mother.
John – (a stitch in time saves nine) May 4, 2023
A pregnancy lasts about 9 months and a stitch often concludes a surgical procedure so this proverb could refer to abortion which wasn’t illegal until the 1800s.
Steven Tindall – (Great Scott) April 30, 2023
It wasn’t Dr Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), but, rather, Dr Watson (Nigel Bruce), who first used this phrase. It’s not in the original Sherlock Holmes stories, but, rather, the Basil Rathbone Holmes films that used the phrase. Only later on in Back to the Future did Mr Lloyd popularize the phrase.
Peter – (God helps those who help themselves) April 30, 2023
We need to delete this terminology from our language as it is not Biblical.
John The Writer – (pros and cons) April 25, 2023
This is helpful but I’m confused about which rule to apply when I’m deciding between “to” and “of”. Pros and cons of something OR pros and cons to something…
Can anyone offer a memorable rule?
