Origins of sayings .

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hope my examples are used in the states but if not you’ll get my meaning (I hope).

I love finding out the origins of sayings . A lot of them come from the days of sail .
I’ll start with

    • On the Fiddle * – On old sailing ships the plates where square with a small rim around the edge called a Fiddle . So if you took more than your allotted ration the food came over the edge and onto the rim . You where On the fiddle

  2. *Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey * –Again from sailing ships . Cannon balls where stacked on a box(?) called a Brass Monkey and when it got very cold the balls expanded and the stack of balls would come apart and the balls would fall off .

Anybody got anymore ?

2

Damn, and I always thought Brass Monkey was an aphrodisiac!
:smiley:
Oh, BTW:

Brass Monkey
Ingredients: 1/2 oz Rum 1/2 oz Vodka 4 oz Orange juice

Mixing instructions: Basically, toss the Rum & Vodka together and stir gently. Next, pour in the orange juice . Shake well. Pour over ice.

3

Sounds good , I think I’ll raise one tomorrow night at the small dopers get together/piss-up in Dublin .

Toasting you Demo naturally . :smiley:

4

Try this: http://www.bibliomania.com/ The links near the top to Brewer’s Phrase and Fable and the Reader’s Handbook are pretty good. There’s a lot of this type of stuff over in the General Questions forum, too.

5

Woo hoo! You guys better take good notes. I never get mentioned at those damn meetings!

:smiley:
(Then again, that might be a good thing…)

6

This has been pretty much discredited. First of all, the phrase dates from 1920, by which time cannon balls were obsolete. (Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang). Second, brass contracts when cold.

The etymology is believed to be pretty straightforward, an elaboration of “Cold enough to freeze your balls off.” (Most likely, someone spoke the previous phrase, and the repost was “Hell, it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”).

Some actual nautical etymologies:

Lower the boom. The boom is the wooden spar that’s horizontal to the mast and which holds the sail. When you lower the sail, the boom comes down with it – and will conk you on the head if you’re not careful.

Try another tack. When you sail in the general direction of the wind, you have to tack – sail at a slight angle from the wind. If the tack isn’t taking you where you want to go, you have to try another tack.

The devil to pay. The original of the phrase is “The devil to paye and no pitch hot.” The devil is a seam in the ship; pitch is used to caulk it to keep it from leaking. “To Paye” meant to caulk. If you had the devil to paye and no pitch hot, the boat was leaking badly and you didn’t have anything to fix it. (Note: seems a bit on the fanciful side, but Brewer quotes it.)

Three sheets to the wind A “sheet” is the rope (though the only rope on a boat is the one that rings the bell) that is used to control the sails. If let go of the sheet, it’s “in the wind,” an undesirable state. “A sheet in the wind” was used to mean “drunk” and “Three sheets to the wind” meant very drunk.