Sayings most people don't know the origins of.

49willys

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2008
Location
Boone
"Quit yanking my chain"

From underground mining, they had a "honey wagon" on rails, miners would carry a small section of chain to chalk the wheels, it was dark, the joke was to yank the chain and give it a good shove while someone was doing their business! That would be a hell of a ride flying down a pitch black tunnel with your pants down!
 
One of my senior accountant managers is one of those ‘i am woman, hear me roar’ types. She uses ‘rule of thumb’ all the time. A couple weeks back I finally told her where that saying derived from. She’s tried hard to quit using it, but old habits die hard, and everyone gets a chuckle when she lets it fly.
 
“Raining cats & dogs”

Long ago when old homes would have a thatch roof, the animals (mainly cats & dogs) would climb up on the roof for the warmth rising from inside the house. When it would rain hard it would get real slick and they’d slide off the roof. And that’s why they used to say it’s “raining cats and dogs”
 
"good Lord willing the creek don't rise" -some important representative down south, referencing either a literal creek or the Creek Indians.

"Pig in a poke" - back in England/Europe, meat was scarce, buy a piglet in a bag, commonly actually a cat/dog, hence the term "let cat out of the bag"

All I remember at the moment.

Happy? Title only said phrases with unknown or lesser known origin, not that explanation required.
 
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a_kelley said:
"good Lord willing the creek don't rise"
"Pig in a poke"

All I remember at the moment.
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Are we just posting quotes, or we gonna post the origin too? Y’all making me google too much, I wanna read it all in one spot :D
 
I was about 8 yrs old when I yelled/called a kid down the street an idjit after he crashed his bike into mine and bent the spokes. His mom was on the porch and scolded me for saying it. I don't remember where I heard it, maybe the Little Rascals?
 
""balls to the wall". I use this one a lot and no, it is not one of the recent videos on xnxx.com. it dates back to World War II, and refers to fighter jet controls which had ball knobs mounted on them and the position all the way pushed to the wall was wide open.
 
CasterTroy said:
Wife beating?
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yep. the rule was you couldnt beat youre wife with a cane/stick if it was bigger than your thumb. smaller youre good


edit. guess cbjeeper beat me to it while i explained it to my wife.she didnt know either.
 
Can't do too much damage with that now can you? Perhaps it should have been the rule of wrist?[/QUOTE]

May be right . a guy at work showed me a video of a woman with a louisville slugger. Didnt look like she was hurt.
 
thought switches were bad til mom figured out what you could do with a 4ft section of the red plastic hotwheels track. My brother spent the next month slipping a peice at a time in the trash. lol. threw away his own racetrack just to keep it outa her hands
 
rockcity said:
You can do a lot of damage with a thumb sized switch. Ask any boy from the 80s how bad even a little switch hurts. :lol:
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Cut my finger with a knife cutting my own switch once. Mom patched me up and STILL beat my ass with the switch I cut
Still have that scar
 
I remember hearing my dad saying "tighter than dicks hat band" when I was kid. He had a lot of sayings I'm sure he learned in the Marines. About every sat/sunday morning he would wake my brother and I , who shared a bedroom when we were kids @ 6am w loud clapping, shaking/kicking the beds and yelling "Outta that rack! " " drop your cocks and grab your socks"! if you took too long he'd grab the mattress and dump you on the floor.

I just remembered another from the old man, "Your ass is grass and I AM the lawnmower" That phrase often came after he gave us chores before leaving the house, a threat that we'd get physically punished if we did not finish a job like stacking huge piles of firewood, weed the garden,clean our room,mow the grass etc.
 
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CasterTroy said:
Cut my finger with a knife cutting my own switch once. Mom patched me up and STILL beat my ass with the switch I cut
Still have that scar
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Always grab a bigger stock with leaves. Wind slowed via resistance.
 
XJsavage said:
""balls to the wall". I use this one a lot and no, it is not one of the recent videos on xnxx.com. it dates back to World War II, and refers to fighter jet controls which had ball knobs mounted on them and the position all the way pushed to the wall was wide open.
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I heard something totally different about “balls to the wall”. Same era, but related to the throttles on Navy vessels. 3 balls that rotate on a pendulum type setup. The farther you opened the throttles, these balls would begin to spin and extend out, almost make contact with the wall. Balls to the wall meant wide open throttle.
 
BigSouth said:
I heard something totally different about “balls to the wall”. Same era, but related to the throttles on Navy vessels. 3 balls that rotate on a pendulum type setup. The farther you opened the throttles, these balls would begin to spin and extend out, almost make contact with the wall. Balls to the wall meant wide open throttle.
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You might be right. I'll have to ask my stepdad (retired historian/writer), that man is a walking encyclopedia!
 
Dirty sanchez

Toss salad


A couple of phrases some fun lovin hippies and Southern Living Mag came up with back in the 60s. :D
 
BigSouth said:
I heard something totally different about “balls to the wall”. Same era, but related to the throttles on Navy vessels. 3 balls that rotate on a pendulum type setup. The farther you opened the throttles, these balls would begin to spin and extend out, almost make contact with the wall. Balls to the wall meant wide open throttle.
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Sounds like a centrifugal governor.
 
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