The idiom: Chip on your shoulder means being angry about something that happened in the past. A ‘chip’ can be defined as a piece of timber, or wood. Depending on the amount and size, timber can be quite heavy, and oftentimes people carry heavy things on their shoulders. The phrase appears to have originated with a 19th […]
The phrase to WEAR YOUR HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE means you are displaying your emotions to everyone. This phrase could have derived from the custom at middle ages jousting matches. Knights are said to have worn the colours of the lady they were supporting, in cloths or ribbons tied to their arms. However, it was […]
Did you know that…. In olden days, proof of ownership of large animals that roamed freely in the woods was difficult made. The farmers slit or notched their animals ears to identify them. Thus the meaning of the term “Earmarked” WHERE DO I START? Hints and Tips for Beginning Genealogists with On-line resources
Mad as a hatter is not from Alice in Wonderland like I once thought. Mad as a Hatter comes from the fact that in the 18th and 19th centuries hat makers treated hats with mercury which became a hazardous occupation. This was known to have affected the nervous systems of hatters, causing them to tremble […]
Face the music means to accept the unpleasant consequences of one’s actions. The source of the phrase is not clear. Some believe that ‘face the music’ originated from the tradition of disgraced officers being ‘drummed out’ of their regiment. A second popular theory is that it was actors who ‘faced the music’, that is, faced […]
Today the phrase, Good as Gold, usually refers to a person or child being well-behaved and obedient. The phrase comes from the time when banknotes were first introduced they weren’t considered to be money in the sense we now think of them, but were promissory notes or IOUs. Gold or silver was real money as it had intrinsic […]
DYK: Did you know? Around 1542, when the phrase first appeared, “to go to pot” was to be cut up like chunks of meat destined for the stew pot. When farm animals outlived their usefulness such as a hen that no longer laid eggs would literally go to pot. It was cooked and eaten. Such […]
The phrase, ‘Plain sailing’ is used to describe a process or activity that goes well and is easy and uncomplicated. Actually it is another nautical phrase and derives from 17-18th century, originally ‘plane sailing’, the term for a quick method of navigating short distances, when positions and distances could be plotted as if on a flat plane […]
Many old sayings are also horse racing term. The phrase ‘START FROM SCRATCH” comes from the days when a line was scratched in the ground for a race. The racers would start from the scratch. WHERE DO I START? Hints and Tips for Beginning Genealogists with On-line resources
In olden times, people were very superstitious. They believed that all good in a man was on his right side and all bad was on his left. If you got out of bed on the left side, evil forces would follow you all day long. Most innkeepers had the left sides of the bed against […]
