Common Sayings

Hello!

I have had a suggestion for a blog post from my grandfather and I thought that it was a really good idea. He suggested that I write about common sayings and where they came from. I hope you enjoy this post!

'Bite the bullet', 'Blood is thicker than water', 'Break the ice', 'Butter someone up', 'Cat got your tongue', 'A penny for your thoughts', 'Barking up the wrong tree', 'Beat round the bush', 'Bite off more than you can chew', 'Burn the midnight oil', 'Cost an arm and a leg', 'Curiosity killed the cat', 'Every cloud has a silver lining', 'Feeling a bit under the weather', 'Hit the nail on the head', 'Kill two birds with one stone', 'Once in a blue moon', 'Speak of the devil'.

Above are all the common sayings that I could think of and I am going to talk about the first 10 of them, commenting on the history and the uses of the sayings.

Bite the Bullet is used when someone decides to do something difficult or unpleasant that they have been putting off or hesitating over. It is believed that this saying comes from the practise of having a patient clench a bullet in their teeth as a way to cope with th

e pain of a surgical procedure.

Blood is thicker than water means family relationships and loyalties are the strongest and most important ones. Some claim the original meaning of the expression was that the ties between people who had made a blood covenant were stronger than ties that were formed by "the water of the womb".

Break the ice means to remove the tension between people at a first meeting. This expression goes back to the 17th century and some claim it was first written in a poem by Samuel Butler in 1678. Here's a line from the poem:

"To give himself a first audience, After he had a while look'd wise, At last broken silence, and the ice."

Butter someone up means to treat someone especially nicely in hopes of receiving special favours. The saying comes from the ancient Indian custom of throwing butterballs of ghee (clarified butter commonly used in Indian cooking) at the statues of the gods to seek favour.

Cat got your tongue is a question addressed to someone who is silent and there doesn't appear to be an explanation. This expression wasn't found in print until 1881, in the USA illustrated paper Ballou's Monthly Magazine, Volume 53: 'Has the cat got your tongue, as the children say?'

A penny for your thoughts basically means 'what are you thinking?' The saying is from1522 when the British penny was worth a significant sum. Sir Thomas More wrote (in 'Four Last Things'): 'It often happeth, that the very face sheweth the mind walking a pilgrimage, in such wise that other folk sodainly say to them a peny for your thought.'

Barking up the wrong tree means to peruse the wrong course of action. For example in a murder mystery if the detective is trying to accuse the wrong person, one could say 'That detective is barking up the wrong tree.' This phrase comes from the mistake a dog might make by chasing prey up a tree when the prey has leapt to a different tree. 

Beat round the bush means to avoid coming to the point in a conversation. This saying comes from when people went bird hunting. Some people would beat the bushes whilst others hunted the nests in the trees. So the people that beat round the bushes avoid going for the real hunting spot in the trees. This is a metaphor for avoiding a topic in conversation.

Bite off more than you can chew means to try and do too much and more than you are capable of. Some people believe that this originated at the time when many people chewed tobacco. When they were offered tobacco, some people would take a big bite of the tobacco, much bigger than they could chew! Others believe that the phrase was created by people watching children stuffing their mouths full of food and not being able to swallow!

I hope that you enjoyed that post about common sayings. It was really interesting finding out about the different meanings and the history of the expressions.

Bye!