Anyone got any ideas on a few sayings and there meanings. 1- Pull the other leg. 2- Freeze the balls off a brass monkey. 3-A blind man on a galloping horse could see that. 4-break a leg. 5- first things first. 6-Sailing close to the wind. anyone any ideas or strange sayings.:heyhey:

My mom always use to say when it was clouding over...

Getting dark over Bills mothers ??????

there was no Bill, no mother ?

I watched an interesting programme a few months ago, a guy was walking around a ship yard, and explaining how many of the sayings we use today came from the Docks/Navy etc.

You could try looking up dockyard quotations or somthing?

"where do they come from?"

I ask that question everytime & I just found some answers...
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sayings.htm

enjoy!

Brooksy, there's a book you might find interesting called Dictionary of Curious Phrases (http://www.studentbookworld.com/BookDetail/0004720601.html) I have a copy of it, and just had a look for it, but I can't find it. It's an interesting read though.

EDIT: Good link MsN! :thumbsup:

Thanks Kristian ill take a look .:thumbsup:

Balls off a brass monkey - naval saying. A brass monkey was a stand for cannon balls. Whn it got cold, the story goes, it contrcted and a ball might fall off. Hence, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'.

My mum had the 'black over Bill's Mothers' thing as well.

She also had :

'I'll go to our house and Sally Martin's'.

I'll go to the foot of our stairs

I wish I'd have asked her more of these while she was alive.

Joe

Just got a pm of someone on the saying "pull the other leg". apparentley in the middle ages when folk were given a death sentence ie by hanging this was done from a tree. to stop the person suffering family were told to apply there weight to the persons legs thus quickening death. bit grim but apparenley true ?.:confused: :confused:

I remember saying to my kids ' Wassup Cat got your tongue??'

they asked what I meant....and more importantly where did that saying come from...?? Kids huh...:confused:

I spent an hour googling for a result and discoverd 'liars and gossips' in the 'olden days' had their tongues cut out on the Kings orders and their tongues were then fed to the Kings Cats... :gag:

Originally posted by poppins
My mom always use to say when it was clouding over...

Getting dark over Bills mothers ??????

there was no Bill, no mother ?

The Radio 4 programme Home Truths (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/) has been have a discussion about this phrase. The theory is that Bill is William of Orange and that getting dark over Bill's mother means that it looks dark to the east (ie Holland). This is however currently disputed on their webpage.

as a kid playin dead to get a day off school, which never worked. mi mam always said whats up then?? got :
i-can-fluke-us, (icanflukeus) (as one word), and i can remember one day at middle school after being off school ill, on return to school my teacher ask my mam whats been up with me, so she told her, icanflukeus, my teacher came back to me during the school day with the school nurse , asking what id had, as she had never heard of it!:hihi: :hihi: thinking it was something catching:hihi: :hihi:
parents who needs them???

A simple search on Google will find the origins of all these sayings:

eg. Break A Leg:
Superstition against wishing an actor Good Luck! has led to the adoption of this phrase in its place. Popular etymology derives the phrase from the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth, the actor turned assassin, leapt to the stage of Ford's Theater after the murder, breaking his leg in the process. The logical connection with good luck is none too clear, but such is folklore.

When you are found out to be pulling someone's leg, you may be asked to pull the other one because 'it has bells on'.

Anyone?

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
When you are found out to be pulling someone's leg, you may be asked to pull the other one because 'it has bells on'.

Anyone?
Because it has bells on. It really does. Go on, try it.

Look for a Brewers Dictionary of Fact and Fable, find hundreds of explanations in there