"Piss poor" and other weird sayings...

[Rassah]

We have some weird saying out there, that generally we don't even think of where they came from. These were kinda... weird to find out.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"


But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low

Nowadays you can't even survive on piss alone Anyone has any others?

 

[GarthTheWereWolf]

Eat humble pie

During the Middle Ages, the lord of a manor would hold a feast after hunting. He would receive the finest cut of meat at the feast, but those of a lower standing were served a pie filled with the entrails and innards, known as “umbles.” Therefore, receiving “umble pie” was considered humiliating because it informed others in attendance of the guest’s lower status.

 

[WolfNightV4X1]

"Cat got your tongue" and "frog in your throat"

...the origins of which I must look up. Can't think of any I do already know the origin of, so it's nice to learn new things

Some have suggested that ancient kings would punish those who displeased them by cutting out their tongues and feeding them to their pet cats. This grisly idea persists in the theory that the phrase came from a time of witch-hunting – where fear and hysteria abounded. Witches, as the stories go, could steal a person’s speech – sometimes by removing the tongue and feeding it to their ‘familiar’, or pet.

Or was it nothing to do with actual cats? Did it emerge on tall ships when sailors would fall silent at the threat of a whipping with a cat o’nine tails?

...and turns out "frog in your throat has no origin besides a hoarse voice sounding like that of a creaking frog, popularized by a book and then gaining widespread attention

 

[GarthTheWereWolf]

Rule of thumb

An antiquated law dictating that it is permissible for a man to beat his wife with a stick so long as the stick is no wider around than his thumb.

 

[WolfNightV4X1]

Rule of thumb

An antiquated law dictating that it is permissible for a man to beat his wife with a stick so long as the stick is no wider around than his thumb.

That one I have heard before

 

[GarthTheWereWolf]

Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed

The left side of the body or anything having to do with the left was often considered sinister. To ward off evil, innkeepers made sure the left side of the bed was pushed against a wall, so guests had no other option but to get up on the right side of the bed.

 

[Unsilenced]

Waking Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed

The left side of the body or anything having to do with the left was often considered sinister. To ward off evil, innkeepers made sure the left side of the bed was pushed against a wall, so guests had no other option but to get up on the right side of the bed.

Hold up. Right from where the person is sleeping or someone at the foot of the bed?

 

[Torrijos-sama]

"Shittin' in tall cotton."

Not only do cotton fields provide plenty of privacy, but an ample supply of material to wipe with.

So, "shitting in tall cotton" means that you're in a pretty good situation.

 

[DevilishlyHandsome49]

"Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" ...I still have no idea what the fuck that means

 

[Azure]

ive always been a fan of "your mom"

like

"your mom goes to college"

or

"your mom sucks cocks in hell"

 

[MissFleece]

"Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" ...I still have no idea what the fuck that means

It means something that you have already achieved is worth more than would you COULD achieve. One bird already caught is worth two you could potentially catch.

I like ones you can squish together to mean something else: I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

Meaning when I get to that I'll probably fuck it up.

 

[ArielMT]

"Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" ...I still have no idea what the fuck that means

It means something that you have already achieved is worth more than would you COULD achieve. One bird already caught is worth two you could potentially catch.

Here's a more in-depth explanation: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-bird-in-the-hand.html

 

[Conker]

Always liked "Screwed the pooch"

According to reddit:

The term was first documented in the early "Mercury" days of the US space program. It came there from a Yale graduate named John Rawlings who helped design the astronauts' space suits. The phrase is actually derived from an earlier, more vulgar and direct term which was slang for doing something very much the wrong way, as in "you are fucking the dog!" At Yale a friend of Rawlings', the radio DJ Jack May (a.k.a. "Candied Yam Jackson") amended this term to "screwing the pooch" which was simultaneously less vulgar and more pleasing to the ear.
The term, however, did not enter the popular lexicon until Tom Wolfe used it in his book about the space program, The Right Stuff, where it was used to describe a supposed mistake by astronaut Gus Grissom.
The phrase's origins come from an old joke. There are various versions, but a drunk man ends up shooting the wife and screwing the pooch (instead of the other way around)

 

[MalletFace]

Happy as a dead hog in the sunshine.

A dead hog's skin will tighten in heat, making the thing look like it has a smile. Oddly grotesque descriptor of somebody's joy, but I love to hear it.

 

[Rassah]

"Shittin' in tall cotton."

Not only do cotton fields provide plenty of privacy, but an ample supply of material to wipe with.

So, "shitting in tall cotton" means that you're in a pretty good situation.

Omgomgomg, I am sooo looking forward to being a situation where I can say that

 

[Deleted member 82554]

My mum always used to say "hard cheese" :I

 

[Esper Husky]

I literally just heard "rob Peter to pay Paul" today. I didn't even fully understand what it meant [at first].

The origin comes from the Peter tax and the Paul tax:

The expression refers to times before the Reformation when Church taxes had to be paid to St. Paul's church in London and to St. Peter's church in Rome; originally it referred to neglecting the Peter tax in order to have money to pay the Paul tax.
​

The Peter tax referred to the tax that people had to pay to fund the building of St. Peter's Church, while the Paul tax referred to the tax that the people had to pay to fund the building of St. Paul's Cathedral.
When the idiom says "rob", it takes that if you don't pay a tax, you are robbing a person (pope, in this case) of what that person rightfully deserves.
Thus, the saying means, not paying the Peter tax in order to pay the Paul tax.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39542/what-is-the-origin-of-robbing-peter-to-pay-paul

 

[Erzyal]

Having your work cut out for you was something that stemmed from tailoring. It would seem that it would make things easier to have someone cut out patterns for the tailor but it actually just made their lives more difficult because its so much quicker to cut out a suit than to tailor it. This would cause the pile of materials to build up and make it hard for the tailor to keep pace.

Source:Uncle Johns perpetually pleasing bathroom reader
:3

 

[LizardKing]

Speaking of piss

"Take the piss" may be a reference to a related (and dated) idiomatic expression, piss-proud, which is a vulgar pun referring to the morning erections which happen when a man awakens at the end of a dream cycle (each about 90 minutes in length throughout the night) or may be caused by a full bladder pressing upon nerves that help affect erection. This could be considered a 'false' erection, as its origin is physiological not sexual, so in a metaphoric sense, then, someone who is "piss-proud" would suffer from false pride, and taking the piss out of them refers to deflating this false pride, through disparagement or mockery.

 

[Sar]

"It's not rocket science"

 

[ArielMT]

"It's not rocket science"

Rocketry is a science that had to be learned the hard way, the hard, crashey, explodey way especially by its pioneer Robert Goddard, and it still has some rough edges to work out.

 

[Fay V]

"Hoisted on his own petard" I had to look this one up. Seems it comes from Shakespeare. Specifically a petard is a metal bell thing that holds explosives, so the phrase means that you've been blown up by something of your own creation.
So a petard is a bomb.

"Have your cake and eat it too"
This one confused my grad dept for a bit. Since it means you can't have two things that you want. To us the expression made no sense "why can't I gain a cake, and then eat that cake. If I have a cake I should be able to eat it"

Well the answer is there's an implied series of events when there shouldn't be. A more accurate way to say it is "you can't eat your cake and have it too". So you can't have 2 things you want that contradict because you can't eat a cake, and still be in possession of the cake.

 

[Unsilenced]

"Hoisted on his own petard" I had to look this one up. Seems it comes from Shakespeare. Specifically a petard is a metal bell thing that holds explosives, so the phrase means that you've been blown up by something of your own creation.
So a petard is a bomb.

I always thought it was underwear, like someone being run up a flagpole by the seat of their pants, though that's more "something of yours used against you" than "using something against yourself."

It makes a lot more sense now except for the hoist part. I'm not sure what you do to yourself with a grenade that would be called hoisting.

Unless you're rocket jumping or something.

 

[Azure]

I always thought it was underwear, like someone being run up a flagpole by the seat of their pants, though that's more "something of yours used against you" than "using something against yourself."

It makes a lot more sense now except for the hoist part. I'm not sure what you do to yourself with a grenade that would be called hoisting.

Unless you're rocket jumping or something.

a petard is sort of like a big bomb on a stick used to blow up obstacles in a siege like gates or other such obstructions. they would approach the obstacle, usually under cover of either night or some sort of man made concealment to protect them from arrows and such, and "hoist" that big bastard on up to whatever it is they wanted to blow up. just envision that scene in saving private ryan where they blow the razor wire on the beach up with that silly bomb thing. but medieval style

EDIT- a bangalore is what the modern day version is called and very clearly it is a thing that must be hoisted

 

[LizardKing]

"Have your cake and eat it too"
This one confused my grad dept for a bit. Since it means you can't have two things that you want. To us the expression made no sense "why can't I gain a cake, and then eat that cake. If I have a cake I should be able to eat it"

Well the answer is there's an implied series of events when there shouldn't be. A more accurate way to say it is "you can't eat your cake and have it too". So you can't have 2 things you want that contradict because you can't eat a cake, and still be in possession of the cake.

The original was actually eat your cake and have it. Fun fact: The obscurity of this was what helped capture the Unabomber, as he used that phrasing repeatedly in his manifesto, which was spotted by a relative who knew of his fondness for saying the expression "correctly".