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Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Feb 2, 2011 23:30:22 GMT -5
"The whole nine yards"
Comes from Scottish kilts. An old-style kilt was nothing more than a wool blanket, hand-pleated and belted on the wearer each morning (it takes just a couple of minutes with practice). The more money the man had, the more cloth he could afford. Four yards is about the minimum for an averaged sized man. Kilts were outlawed after the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, and then again allowed in 1825 to be worn again by Scottish regiments of the British Army. The new military kilts were made to the length of what a wealthy man would have worn before, nine yards of worsted wool.
Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Feb 2, 2011 23:36:01 GMT -5
<<"It's raining cats & dogs".>>
Also from Scotland. The typical Scottish crofter hut was a single-roomed house with a heavy, low hanging thatch roof. Dogs and cats were generally not allowed inside the house, and in rain (happens a lot in Scotland), they would crawl up in between the thatch layers for shelter. If the rain was particularly heavy, it would drive them out, literally "raining dogs and cats".
Perhaps surprisingly, there have been expressions starting right as ... since medieval times, always in the sense of something being satisfactory, safe, secure or comfortable. An early example, quoted as a proverb as long ago as 1546, is right as a line. In that, right might have had a literal sense of straightness, something desirable in a line, but it also clearly has a figurative sense of being correct or acceptable. There’s an even older example, from the Romance of the Rose of 1400: “right as an adamant”, where an adamant was a lodestone or magnet.
Lots of others have followed in the centuries since. ...
Right as rain is a latecomer to this illustrious collection of curious similes. It may have first appeared at the very end of the nineteenth century, but the first example I can find is from Max Beerbohm’s book Yet Again of 1909: “He looked, as himself would undoubtedly have said, ‘fit as a fiddle,’ or ‘right as rain.’ His cheeks were rosy, his eyes sparkling”. Since then it has almost completely taken over from the others.
It makes no more sense than the variants it has usurped and is clearly just a play on words (though perhaps there’s a lurking idea that rain often comes straight down, in a right line, to use the old sense). But the alliteration was undoubtedly why it was created and has helped its survival. As right as ninepence has had a good run, too, but that has vanished even in Britain since we decimalised the coinage and since ninepence stopped being worth very much.
Post by Peace Of Mind on Feb 2, 2011 23:48:17 GMT -5
I found this:
Not long ago, when the majority of people in the U.S. and Europe still lived in contact with nature. Only a couple of generations ago, most agriculture depended on rain, since irrigation was not so prevalent. The life of everyone in society (or in the nearby village or town or city) depended on the success of the local crops, which in turn depended on spring and summer rains. Rain was essential to survival. No crops equaled famine. "Right as rain" just means needed, appropriate, essential, or hoped-for.
And this:
"'Right as rain' migh be expressed as "straight as rain", or "straight as rain falls" or "to move in a straight line." The metaphor plays on a resonance between geometric straightness and correctness of judgment."
Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Feb 3, 2011 0:06:56 GMT -5
<<I heard that the whole nine yards referred to the inside of a cement mixture.>>
I've never heard that explanation before. The only other one I have heard is that it applied to Allied fighter aircraft of WWII, referring to the length of the ammunition belts for their machine guns. Since the expression predates WWII, I always doubted it.
Post by Peace Of Mind on Feb 3, 2011 0:14:09 GMT -5
Here is what I found: Kangaroo Court is a mock court: an unofficial or mock court set up spontaneously for the purpose of delivering a judgment arrived at in advance, usually one in which a disloyal associate's fate is decided.
Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Feb 3, 2011 0:16:34 GMT -5
<<Here is what I found: Kangaroo Court is a mock court: an unofficial or mock court set up spontaneously for the purpose of delivering a judgment arrived at in advance, usually one in which a disloyal associate's fate is decided.>>
I know the meaning of the expression, I just don't know where it originated. I would presume it's an Aussie phrase.
Post by Peace Of Mind on Feb 3, 2011 0:21:45 GMT -5
This is just a theory:
The natural inclination to want to base the phrase in Australia has led to suggestions that the vacant stares of kangaroos when meeting humans for the first time were mimicked by jury members in court. There's no documentary evidence to support this, or any other Australian derivation, and it seems highly speculative.
The claim jumping derivation though has the feel of a 'trying to hard' explanation that is the stamp of folk etymology. The supposed wordplay of linking kangaroos and jumping is appealing but isn't really necessary to explain this phrase. Kangaroo courts courts were also called 'mustang courts' in the USA (see above). Allusions to the unsophisticated natures of wild animals are frequent in the metaphorical coinage of phrases that apply to things that are considered inferior or ersatz. We have dog Latin, dog's breakfast, horse-faced and many others. It seems probable that the reference to mustangs (half-wild horses) and kangaroos came about by that same route.
Post by servant_of_dog on Feb 3, 2011 0:39:36 GMT -5
The concept of kangaroo court dates to the early nineteenth century. Scholars trace its origin to the historical practice of itinerant judges on the The concept of kangaroo court dates to the early nineteenth century. Scholars trace its origin to the historical practice of itinerant judges on the U.S. frontier. These roving judges were paid on the basis of how many trials they conducted, and in some instances their salary depended on the fines from the defendants they convicted. The term kangaroo court comes from the image of these judges hopping from place to place, guided less by concern for justice than by the desire to wrap up as many trials as the day allowed.
On a somewhat related note, our household has modified the expression "the cat's pajamas" to the more accurate, "the cat's ass." Truly, the cat thinks more highly of his own butt than anything else on earth. *shrug*
British playwright, John(?) Dennis. Wrote a play that had a thunderstorm in it. Apparently he developed a new way to make the sound of thunder. Play bombed. Later, he went to see a version of Macbeth where they used his method for thunder. Supposed to have said something like (very loose recollection here) "they will not watch my play, but they will take my thunder" before storming out in protest.
Freeze the balls off a brass monkey- when they stacked cannon balls in a pyramid shape on a brass plate, sort of like a muffin pan, the cold would cause the metals to contract at different rates and would upset the pile causing the cannon balls to fall.
Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Feb 3, 2011 21:33:36 GMT -5
"Going to Hell in a HandBasket"
A hand basket is a thing from old China. Aristocratic girl babies had their feet bound near birth so that their feet wouldn't grow. This meant they also couldn't walk much, so they had to be carried about in hand held baskets carried by servants.
The expression means heading toward ruin in comfort.
Post by Mad Dawg Wiccan on Feb 3, 2011 21:36:13 GMT -5
<<best thing since sliced bread>>
Loaves of bread from the bakery used to come whole, it was up to the buyer to slice it up. Uniform slice thickness was quite the innovation for the time.