In the 17th century, a biter was a con man. A soldier about to undergo an operation was given a bullet to bite. It comes from the days before anesthetics.
This old saying means to grin and bear a painful situation. Hence today important people are called big wigs. In the 18th century when many men wore wigs, the most important men wore the biggest wigs. Anyone ‘beyond the pale’ was seen as savage and dangerous. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the English king ruled Dublin, and the surrounding area was known as the pale. Originally a pale was an area under the authority of a certain official. So if you made a beeline for something you went straight for it. In the past, people believed that bees flew in a straight line to their hive. In other words, you are in a precarious situation. If you are on your beam-ends your ship is leaning at a dangerous angle. On a ship, the beams are horizontal timbers that stretch across the ship and support the decks. ‘I won’t beat about the bush’ came to mean ‘I will go straight to the point without any delay’. When hunting birds some people would beat about the bush to drive them out into the open.
Some added a loaf to a batch of a dozen to be above suspicion. This old saying is said to come from the days when bakers were severely punished for baking underweight loaves. In Psalm 17:8 the writer asks God ‘keep me as the apple of your eye’.Ī baker’s dozen means thirteen. In Genesis, Cain murdered his brother Abel. Like many old sayings in the English language, this one comes from the Bible. Achilles was eventually killed when Paris of Troy fired an arrow at him and it hit his heel.
Since her hand covered this part of his body the water did not touch it and so it remained vulnerable. However, Thetis held Achilles by his heel. Anyone who was immersed in the river became invulnerable. In Greek mythology, Thetis dipped her son Achilles in the mythical River Styx.
Sometimes we can only give the most likely explanation. However, sometimes it is impossible to say for certain how an old saying originated. Below is a list of old sayings and where they came from.
0 kommentar(er)
