Forums: Origins of words or phrases

Many phrases come from real life. Such be the case with "Piss Poor" At one time in the past they used urine to tan animal skins, so families used to pee in a pot and when it was full they sold it to a tannery. If you had to do this to put food on your table you were "Piss Poor" But it was worse if you couldn't even afford a pot in which case you "Didn't have a pot to piss in"
What is one you know of?

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Kimihro

I still want to know the origin of "putting on the dog." :I

You don't want to know unless you are into bestiality.

90 to 100% of these cute stories are spurious.
As are 75% of internet statistics.

Makes as much sense as any other explanations. You got any better?

M-J-Gagne

The word Saunter, to walk about in an idle manner, comes from the French Sans-Terre (without earth). It was used to describe those who would make pilgrimages to the holy land during the crusades.

3wyl

A dead ringer is because people used to be buried alive. They'd break their graves and would walk around amongst the living, but people thought that that person was dead. Eventually, a system was put in place that those buried would have a ring, hence dead ringer.

Or, at least, that's what my English teacher said once.

Yes, grave sites were getting hard to find so they dug up the coffins and sent the bones to a bone house and reused the coffins. But they noticed scratch marks inside the lids and thought they were burying people alive so they ran a string up though the ground to a bell. There was a watchman in the cemetary who could hear the ringing and realize they had a "dead ringer" lol

3wyl

That sounds about right.

Vanhir

You know... I didn't know that.

Now you do. do you have a pot?

Vanhir

I have several pots to piss in. Especially when I'm pissed. Someone once stole one of my pots though, they were taking the piss. I was pretty pissed off about it.
SO MUCH USE FOR PISS IN OUR LANGUAGE.

When I was little we used a pot to piss in on long car trips. But that was because there were 4 of us kids and would have had to stop every 5 miles for one of us to go.

Vanhir