I've been on a kick recently to examine the words and phrases that we use all the time without even thinking about it. Feel free to comment in with your favorites, but here are a few of mine:
1. Under the weather = Everyone knows that it means to be sick, but it came into use when sailors would be sick. They would go below deck and be "under" the weather.
2. Mind your P's and Q's = People say it when they want others to mind their own business, but most people don't know that it comes from the pubs when drinkers would get out of hand. The bartender would tell people to mind their Pints and Quarts...
3. On a kick...
4. Boil it down...
5. Up to par...
6. people use "literally" when they really mean "figuratively"...but you never hear anyone say, "i figuratively spent an hour on hold!"
On another note, I was thinking the other day about what "a ton" is. When I was a kid, I used to think of "a ton" as the biggest measurement known to man. I guess I was really suprised to find out that "a ton of people" (..."wow...there's a ton of people here!") is only 8-12 normal sized adults. whoda thunk...
i'll be adding more later, as we continue to use idioms in sentences "all the time"...
Thursday, February 16, 2006
words and phrases
Posted by alightonahill at 11:20 AM
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18 comments:
you can't literally sit on hold. hold is not a physical object to sit upon. you could literally sit while on hold, but to sit on hold is a figure of speech.
i think you guys need girlfriends...
and what i was really getting at is that i've never met anyone that has actually been on hold for an hour...10 minutes maybe
or..."i've been sitting at this traffic light for...literally an hour"
that's not what they mean. they mean figuratively.
my word is correct. except for you travis, because you are the only person i know that spends a literal hour on hold.
This is a salvation by survey world we live in. Oops, that sentence ended in a preposition. Actually, it didn't end "in" a preposition, rather "with" a preposition. But here is a proposition: maybe all this jargon of not speaking literally is good; if we always meant in literal terms what we said, language would be wood....en.
thanks allison for rubbing it in.
Hey Providence friends...
I'm a buddy of Megilligan's from Akron...you guys are lucky to have him...he's a tremendous talent, and a good guy...take care of him!
Actually, I think the Ps and Qs saying comes from Mark Twain during the years that he worked as a copy press for a newspaper. He coined the term when he had to meticulously set each case letter to the printing press and constantly mixed up the p and the q- which was easy to do since all the letters were backwards.
Take care, and say hi to Brian for me when you see him on Sunday!
I too share this interest in the origins of words and phrases. I bought a book (260+ pages) called Why Do We Say It? that has an A-Z listing of common and not-so-common ones. Some assorted entries: A-1, crocodile tears, dead as a doornail, gypsy, love (as used in tennis), on the carpet ("called on the carpet"),and many more. I recommend it. Got it on the bargain table at Barnes and Noble.
hey rob,
thanks for joining the conversation. it's been great getting to work with brian - you guys must have had it going at the chapel...
i will remind you that this is my blog:) which means i'm right about the p's and q's thing. plus i checked on the internet and it agreed with me. and we all know that the internet doesn't lie. especially google.
Well it might be your blog, but we can still try to hijack it...I've seen both explanations for the p's and q's, although I'm not sure the typesetting one was attributable to Twain.
Mike, we all know that truth is relative. BOTH P's & Q's explanations are correct.
good call chris
Both stories probably have some merit to them...here's the link to my source. I've bought a number of programs from this guy over the years that I've used in the classroom- my favorite, being his program on Mark Twain in which he tells the story of Twain's days working in a printing press. Of course Twain didn't lead an exemplary life as a youngster, so who knows...he probably heard this saying in a pub somewhere!
http://www.authorsink.com/A20Twain.asp
...and yes, I believe everything I read on the Internet...especially Google stuff!
Have a good service tomorrow down there in Raleigh! (It's freezing up here...around 15 degrees!)
So why is it that your parents have managed to add me to their links list, but you still haven't?! Punk!
that's because i edited their link list for them and put you in there. don't call my brother a punk! :-P
thanks tom :)
you mess with me, you mess with the family...
Sorry, Kate. I taught them to watch out for each other!
Can someone fix Chris' link? It doesn't link to his blog.
19 comments has to be a record.
the link to chris's blog should work...it works when i click it...
i know 20 comments is incredible, and i'm sure you're holding out for more, but this blog is starting to be have the pungent odor of favoritehood...
(and it's not like the favoritehood blog "owners" don't have some great news to blog about either!)
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