Knock on wood: '...Some attribute it to the old game known as 'touching wood' or 'wood tag,' in which a player who succeeds in touching wood is safe from capture. Others hold that this game and 'knocking on wood' had a common origin in primitive tree worship, when trees were believed to harbor protective spirits. To rap on a tree -- the dwelling place of a friendly spirit -- was to call up the spirit of the tree to protect one against impending misfortune. Later, people would place the hand on a wooden statue of a deity for the same purpose...still others believe the superstition is of Christian origin and that it is in some way associated with the wooden cross upon which Jesus was crucified..." : The usage with which I am familiar is not that one knocks on wood in hopes of good fortune. One knocks on wood when one makes a verbal statement about something good, such as "No one in our family has had the flu this year, knock on wood." This would be accompanied by rapping on any available wood. The reason for rapping on wood is to make noise. One does this to keep the devil from hearing that things are going well. If the devil hears things are going well, he will make an intervention to affect change.
My ten fav's: 1. He's a little green behind the ears 2. She opened a Pandora's box of worms 3. Beat the life out of a dead horse to death 4. Burning the midnight oil at both ends 5. It's not rocket surgery... 6. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if it was staring him in the face 7. You gotta grab the bull by the horns and run with it 8. I literally laughed to death 9. Wake up and smell the roses 10. Zip your lips and throw away the key No particular order. I have more...
ok what does "never the twain shall meet" mean. and where did "things that make you go hmmmm" come from. i think i've typed that on here but not sure if i've ever said it.
Some of my favorites from my East Texas College days: It's raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock. He's dumber than an ice cube She's so skinny, she has to run around in the shower just to get wet. That dog won't hunt. busier than a one armed paper hanger. slicker than owl **** on a doorknob. I'm so hungy I could eat froze dog. Rode hard, and put up wet. It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick Mosquitoes big enough to stand flat footed and screw a turkey. Ran like a scalded dog That boy's about a half bubble off plumb Dumb as a stump treated like a red-headed step child She's so ugly she could cook naked at deer camp and nobody would notice That girl is so ugly, looks like her face caught on fire and someone put it out with an icepick!
Never the Twain shalle meet: Meaning Twain means two or couple. Origin From the Old English twegen, meaning two.
here's the source of "time flies." "...While we dawdle, our lives pass swiftly. The proverb has been traced back in English to 1386 in Chaucer's 'Prologue to the Clerk's Tale.' The earliest American appearance in print is 1710 in 'Mayflower Descendant.' The idea was first expressed by Virgil (70-19 B.C.), who wrote in the 'Aeneid': Fugit inreparabile tempus' (Time is flying never to return)..." From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" by Gregory Y. Titelman.
TO THROW IT DOWN or THROW DOWN THE GAUNTLET – “The English language contains two wholly different words spelled and pronounced gauntlet. The gauntlet in this expression means glove derives from the medieval French gauntlet, ‘a little glove.’ Knights of the age of chivalry, though not as noble as they seem in romances, did play by certain rules. When one knight wanted to cross swords with another, he issued a challenge by throwing down his mailed glove, or gauntlet, and his challenge was accepted if the other knight picked up the metal-plated leather glove. This custom gave us the expression ‘to throw down the gauntlet,’ ‘to make a serious challenge.” The other meaning of “gauntlet,” as in “run the gauntlet,” is derived from “the Swedish word gattloppe, from ‘gat,’ ‘a narrow path,’ and ‘loppe, ‘run’…” “Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins” by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997)
wet or green behind the ears: If someone is wet behind the ears they are regarded as being inexperienced and new to a task. The saying is many hundred of years old and comes from the fact that many animals, when they are new born, have a small depression behind the ears. The young themselves are wet at birth and this depression is the last thing to dry out. By the time it does, the animal is a little older and possibly wiser.
It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick: Eric Partridge, "A Dictionary of Catch Phrases American and British," mentions ". . . poke in the eye . . ." as an Australian item in a group of similar phrases of which he says most seem to have originated late in the 19th century. This group includes "better than a kick in the ass with a frozen boot" (Canadian) and "better than a slap across the belly with a wet fish" (US).
Couldn't find a piece of ass with a road map: The current slang meaning of "piece" in "piece of ass" may be related to the Semitic word peh-sof PoS which means "female pudenda". I suspect the Hebrew name for the Red Sea is a euphemistic reversal of this PoS: (yam) SooF = Reed (Sea).
here are a few... I won't stick it in I can't feel anything with this thing on I love you so much too We've got to do this again sometimes AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHH whew, how was it for you? Can you find the orgins for these, PSJ? PS you think I could start a 'favorite sex cliche' thread and not get banned?
