Reader Opinions
Don T. Thompson – (whole nine yards) March 31, 2023
A large sailing vessel has three masts with three sails (yards) on each mast. The whole nine yards meaning a fully rigged ship.
Pramod Kumar Varshney – (make no bones about) March 24, 2023
to discuss something instead of keeping quiet.
one non-sequitor – (home is where the heart is) March 24, 2023
@simon_sidewalk, if you’re indeed homeless then your home is where your heart and so when life presents you with lemons, take them as melons.
Giant Baba – (straight shooter) March 21, 2023
It is a carny term which originally referred to a gun in a carnival target shooting game that did not have its sights misaligned.
Iain Oliver – (dot the i’s and cross the t’s) March 19, 2023
It is used in Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens, which was published in 1839.
Anonymous – (last laugh) March 18, 2023
My husband and I have the last laugh over my evil brother-in-law, who wanted me and my husband out of my father-in-law‘s mother daughter house when he passed away. He threatened to get an attorney to have us evicted. We ended up buying a home in Florida and soon after that my brother-in-law was arrested eight times, yes, eight times over the course of a few months. He’s going through a divorce. He cannot see his children and this is the greatest satisfaction. He actually wanted my husband to bail him out of jail! We had the last laugh!!
Banana – (son of a gun) March 17, 2023
Marty, in that case (and in many cases) it was presumably used as a more family friendly replacement for “son of a b***h”, lol
Anonymous – (larger than life) March 7, 2023
It was used at least once earlier to refer to Apollo’s lute in the early 1800s
Henry Einhorn – (make ends meet) March 5, 2023
I have been wondering for quite awhile, what exactly was meant by making “ends meet”. The best I found, which I’d like to share, is that first of all, it implies that it is the bare minimum. So when you aren’t making ends meet, you are making less than bare minimum…not enough. The term comes from the stocking up of food and supplies before the winter. Having just enough would be to run out right as winter ends. End of food and supplies meets end of winter. This also applies to a long journey (especially at sea) and to not run out before the trip is completed. “At the very least, we have to make ends meet”.
I hope this helps make more sense of the term. It did for me.
Julia – (go down in flames) February 28, 2023
Which country/countries this idiom came from?
