In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs" therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."

As incredible as it sounds, men and women took baths only twice a year! (May and October).Women kept their hair covered, while men shaved! their heads(because of lice and bugs) and wore wigs. Wealthy men could afford good wigs made from wool. The wigs couldn't be washed so to clean them, they could carve out a loaf of bread, put the wig in the shell and bake it for 30 minutes. The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term "big wig." Today we often use the term "here comes the Big Wig" because someone appears to be or is powerful and wealthy.

In the late 1700s many houses consisted of a large room with only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board was folded down from the wall and used for dining. The "head of the household" always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the floor. Once in a while an invited guest would be offered to sit in this chair during a meal (who was almost always a man). To sit in the chair meant you were important and in charge. Sitting in the chair, one was called the "chair man." Today in business we use the expression/title "Chairman..or Chairman of the Board."

Needless to say, personal hygiene left much room for improvement. As a result, many women and men had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman's face she was told "mind your own bee's wax." Should the woman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term "crack a smile." Also, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt and therefore the expression "losing face."

Ladies wore corsets which would lace up in the front. A tightly tied lace was worn by a proper and dignified lady as in "straight laced."

Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards but only applicable to the "ace of spades." To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren't "playing with a full deck."

Early politicians required feedback from the public to determine what was considered important to the people. Since there were no telephones, TV's or radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local taverns, pubs and bars who were told to "go sip some ale" and listen to people's conversations and political concerns. Many assistants were dispatched at different times. "You go sip here" and "You go sip there." The two words "go sip" were eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and thus, we have the term "gossip."

At local taverns, pubs and bars, people drank from pint and quart sized containers. A bar maid's job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in "pints" and who was drinking in "quarts." Hence the term "minding your "'P's and Q's."

I love learning about the origin of idioms. "Sleep tight" comes from the fact that in the old days, beds had mattresses that sat on ropes, which were tied to the frames. Every night, people would tighten the ropes of the bed so that the mattress was evenly balanced and not sagging, ensuring that one got a good night's rest. Thus sleep tight came to be associated with having a good night's sleep.

A number of very common idioms originated from the process of milling and grinding flour, such as "Rule of Thumb" and "Nose to the Grindstone."

Xenono and Murasaki, what are your sources for this information. I always wondered about the expression "whole 9 yards", it never made sence to me since it takes 10 yards for a first down in American football. I heard it has something to do with a bolt of cloth. I love to learn about idioms. Mexicans have a whole slew of them too. So what is a "whole slew?"

I learned sleep tight on a tour of an historic house that had a bed with ropes. I once took a tour of a mill, and that's where I learned the terms associated with the milling process. Some other terms I learned the origin of that day include "run of the mill", "same old grind", "fair to midling" and "millstone around the neck."

I've seen books cover this stuff as well.

In Roman times soldiers were often paid with salt. From that we eventually got the expression of someone not being worth their salt.

There is a trivia paper I read at my local pizza place. That way I can feel as if I am not just there to stuff my face on their buffet but am also learning something of our language.

Three Sheets to the Wind

The phrase dates to 1821. The sheet is a reference to a rope on a sailboat. To have a sheet loose in the wind is bad seamanship, to have three loose means you are not capable of controlling the boat. Occasionally you will see one sheet to the wind meaning half-drunk.

http://www.wordorigins.org/

have fun

The idiom whose origin I've always wondered about... "one fell swoop".

From Shakespeare's Macbeth.

MACDUFF: [on hearing that his family and servants have all been killed]
He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

The kite referred to is a hunting bird, like the Red Kite, which was common in England in Tudor times. The 'fell swoop' (or stoop as is now said) is the rapid descent made by the bird when capturing prey.

http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/meanings/50500.html

Man, I'm tellin' ya, there's NOTHING that Club Hombre members don't know...or can't look up.

Thanks!

A number of very common idioms originated from the process of milling and grinding flour, such as "Rule of Thumb" and "Nose to the Grindstone."

Murasaki, I believe that you are mistaken, and so your comments "rubbed me the wrong way." Specifically, I believe that you are mistaken about "rule of thumb."

My feminazi ex-girlfriend from the early '90s used to go ape shit whenever she heard that term. Why?

The tale most commonly connected with this phrase is that the original rule of thumb appeared in English Common Law. The law said that a man could not beat his wife with a stick that was thicker than his thumb. Beating her with smaller sticks was permitted, and in some regions encouraged, to keep the woman in her place.

So whenever my (crazy, paranoid) feminazi girlfriend heard that phrase, she believed the other person was being sexist. May I add that a good rule of thumb is to not date feminazis.

The origins of this phrase are challenged slightly at http://www.wordorigins.org/, but nowhere is the phrase linked to milling.

Bull, I am not mistaken. That is what the ranger told us who led the tour of the mill. There may very well be more than one origin for that phrase, but in milling lingo, there was a "rule of thumb" as they used the thumb for some type of measurement during the grinding process.

From the Word Detective site:

"In this case, the issue is moot, because the "sexist origin" of this phrase is almost certainly pure invention. "Rule of thumb" probably came from the use of the thumb as a convenient measuring tool, the distance to the first knuckle usually being about one inch. Even "The Bias-Free Word Finder," the bible of the Politically Correct Language Guardians among us, considers the wife-beating theory implausible and notes that it first surfaced in a 1986 letter to the editor in "Ms." magazine. So I guess the first "rule of thumb" in these cases is "Check your sources, lest they be hokum."

Several sites debunked the wife-beating origin and believe it had an origin related to measurement. It appears your ex-GF was going apeshit over a hoax. Good thing you got rid of her dude!

Hmm Mura and bullw. I question if that wife beating stuff is true or is it joke turned into legend. My ex GF said rule of thumb came from ancient times when a husband's dick is shorter than his thumb when flaccid a woman has the right to screw around.

Thank goodness it's not the rule of the middle finger.

-DJ