ar-tard.. what does it mean and where did it come from?
138938
It's not ar-tard, but R-tard and it's just short for retard.  It was (I think) made popular by use in movies and shows.
1135690
They didn't want to swear a long time ago so they used other words here is part of a site that may help....\n\nThe explanation of "Sam Hill" is actually pretty simple -- it's an early 19th century American euphemism for "hell" used as an oath. Perhaps due to our Puritan ancestry, Americans have always been especially creative when it comes to inventing linguistic detours around oaths and blasphemies. "Heck," "drat," "darn," "gosh," "jiminy," "gee-whiz" and "goldarn," for example, all started out as euphemisms for exclamations of surprise or rage no newspaper would print and no proper dinner table conversation would tolerate. To digress a bit, I have always wondered whether Walt Disney knew, when he christened his little cartoon creation "Jiminy Cricket," that the name was a rather transparent euphemism for the blasphemous oath "Jesus Christ." \n\nBecause the euphemism "Sam Hill" is also a perfectly good real name, many people assume that the phrase must have originally referred to a real person. A reader wrote me several years ago, wondering if he might have uncovered the "original" Sam Hill in the person of Samuel Hill (1857--1931), a lawyer, financier and railroad magnate known in the Northwest U.S. as "the Father of Good Roads." After doing a little checking, however, I can say with certainty that while Mr. Hill may have been famous for many things, he was not the source of this phrase. In fact, "What in the Sam Hill" was in widespread use by 1839, quite a few years before this particular Sam Hill was born.\n\n\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
224747
Because of its source:\n\nMiddle English abbreviaten, from Late Latin abbrevire, abbrevit-  : ad-, ad- + brevire, to shorten (from brevis, short. See mregh-u- in Indo-European Roots).
446304
I found this on line,\n\n"Devious Derivations: Popular Misconceptions -- and More than 1,000 True Origins of Common Words and Phrases" by Hugh Rawson (toExcel, Iuniverse.com, 1994, 2000). This reference has some new information on the origins listed here (new information in parenthesis), new origins and what could be the actual origin. \n\n: : 1. Orrin Kendall biscuits, which soldiers ate during the Civil War. \n: : 2. Short for Aux Cayes, a Haitian port that American sailors praised for its rum. \n: : 3. Old Keokuk, a Native American tribal chief who was said to have signed treaties with his initials. \n: : 4. OK stands for "all correct" or the illiterate phrase "Orl Korrect." \n: : 5. U.S. President Martin Van Buren's nickname "Old Kinderhook" -- OK for short. He was a native of Kinderhook, N.Y.\n: : 6. Choctaw word "okeh," (or "hoke") meaning "indeed" (or "It is so.")\n: : 7. Scottish "auch aye", meaning "ah yes." (Or "och aye," meaning "okay.")\n: : 8. From the French maritime phrase "au quai" meaning "at dock", and therefore at last safe from the ravages of the open sea.\n: : 9. '0 killed' - the report of the night's death toll during the First World War. \n: : 10. All clear after the shoot-out at O.K. Corral. \n: : 11. Instruments calibrated at an Observatory at Kew had, affixed to them, a stamp, or impression, to authenticate that calibration. This stamp was O K - Observatory Kew. \n\n: : New origins from Mr. Rawson's book:\n: : 12. The abbreviation is for Oberst Kommandant, German for "Colonel in Command," used by either -- take your pick -- a General Schliessen or Baron von Steuben when initialing letters and orders during the American Revolution.\n: : 13. It comes from the name of a freight agent, Obadiah Kelly, whose initials were widely disseminated on bills of lading.\n: : 14. The abbreviation is for Open Key, popularized by telegraphers in the 1860s.\n: : 15. It comes from the names of Lords Onslow and Kilbracken, who initialed bills after they were read and approved in England's House of Lords. \n: : 16. From a misreading of "Order Recorded" on official documents.\n: : 17. Or from Finnish "oikea," correct.\n: : 18. From the Greek "olla," all, plus "Kalla," good.\n\n: : Professor Allen Walker Read of Columbia University, "finally unveiled its (O.K.'s) origins in a series of magisterial articles in 'American Speech' in 1963 and 1964.What Professor Read discovered was that the abbreviation arose in a humorous manner at a time when Americans were indulging in a great deal of wordplay, including abbreviations, acronyms, puns and intentional mispronunciations and misspellings. The earliest example of O.K. that he unearthed (and it is so far still the oldest known specimen) is from the Boston 'Morning Post' of March 23, 1839. It appears in connection with a note by the paper's editor, Charles Gordon Greene, about a visit to New York of some members of the local Anti-Bell-Ringing Society. (The A.B.R.S., as it was usually known, was itself something of a joke, having been formed the previous year to oppose -- its name to the contrary -- an ordinance of the Boston Common Council against ringing dinner bells.) In an aside, Mr. Greene suggested that if the Bostonians were to return home via Providence, they might be greeted by one of his rivals, the editor of that city's 'Journal,' who 'would have the 'contribution box,' et ceteras, o.k. -- all correct -- and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.'.Thus, it appears that O.K. was invented, possibly by Greene, as an abbreviation of the jocular 'Oll' or perhaps 'Orl korrect,' meaning "All right.' This explanation would seem farfetched, except for Read's finding that it dovetai
157629
Freedom \nThis comes from German (literal, modern-day translation, "Freiheit"), but is actually closer in derivation to the German word "Friede", which means "peace" and is a word of pre-Christian, Germanic origin (originally "Frith"). The archaic term was used to signify the period following the termination of a bloodfeud between two Germanic clans when the softer, feminine qualities of the god "Freda" or "Frita" held sway. To achieve such a peace, some consideration had to given up on the part of the clan whose member had committed the most recent wrong against another clan, such as a certain quantity of meat or animal hides. What was given up was called "Bot" (delivered good) or "Botschaft" (literally delivered shank (of meat), but currently is the modern German word for "message"). It is interesting to note that this is from where we get the English term "boat" (Apparently, as time went on, the term was used less to describe what was being delivered and more to describe the deliverer or means of delivery--Hence, the modern German words "Bote" (messenger) and "Boot" (boat--which can be visualized as a means of delivering something or someone)).
71911
It is a phrase I first read in Bill Mauldin's books. He was the most famous cartoonist in WWII and his books will give you a wonderful "grunt-level" picture of the war in Europe. The term is a combination of "garrison" and "paratrooper".\n\nThe cartoon, as I recall, had three soldiers. In the back was an unshaven soldier sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe, getting drunk. \n\nIn the foregraound was a neat, shaven soldier in a tie and a dirty, unkempt combat infantryman, obviously just back from the front lines. The neat one was explaining to the combat one, "We call them garret troopers; they're stationed too far forward to wear a tie and too far back to get shot."
809846
Blast from the past- it means up to mischief or " no good"  I do not know where it came from but it has been around since at least the 30-40's  \n\nI just googled shenanigans and it is from the 1920's and there actually was a play named that.  Try Wikipedia- but I am right about the meaning.
953818
It started with people who didn't like to be blasphemous by saying "For Christ's sake . . ." or "For God's sake . . .", so they would say anything else that started with the same first two syllables and that would give the idea without actually saying it.  So we get "For cry . . . ing out loud" and "for go . . . sh sakes".  Etymologists and dictionaries call this a "minced oath".
1010213
The origin of the word comes from the Sanskrit word avatara which means "descent of a god to earth.  It says that it is also someone who embodies an idea or concept.  I'm not sure that such a person would know that they are an avatar, so they probably wouldn't take offense.
21646
BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE -- From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" (1996): "Between a rock and a hard place. Forced to choose between two unpleasant options. The expression originated in the early twentieth century in the United States. It usually follows 'to be caught'." \n\nThe "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997) says "the expression was probably born in Arizona during a financial panic early in this century."
379591
It's a joke word invented by the 18th c. English poet  William Shenstone, to poke fun at people who use long pompous Latinate words.  That it means (as Jennie says) valuing as worthless redoubles the irony.
816142
I think ^ means someone is going to get violated. But it was funny, some people just have no sense of humor. Libs are calling us cry babies, sore losers etc, but when you try to make yourself feel better with a bit of humor they don't like that either. Libs need to grow up!
578919
Everyone is wrong except the guy who said it was from Anglo-Saxon.  "F..k" has a long pedigree in the Germanic languages.  It was found in Proto-Germanic about 2500 years ago as the verb *fukan 'have intercourse'.  This was not vulgar at that time and was a euphemism for some older word.  Ultimately, it comes from Proto-Indo-European *pug- "to strike", from which we get the borrowed Latin form pugilism 'boxing'.
887881
In the Early  Days in England Stoned  initially referred to someone who was so Drunk that they were laying on the ground like a stone and couldn't move.  They would say the person was "Stone Drunk" (still Used in many British countries) Later on "Stoned" it was used to refer to anyone that was high/drunk, or "out of it".
36410
Police / Con jargon.  Who knows which came from which.  Later slang brought into common usage through fictional writing (crime novels).\nSure, everyone seems to know that it means a false or trumped-up charge.\nUsed as an adjective, the word Bum means Inferior or Worthless (probably from German Bummler, meaning loafer).  The word Bummer is from the same root.\nRap is slang for punishment, as in Beat the Rap: slang for to escape punishment or be acquitted of a charge and Take the Rap, slang for to accept punishment or take the blame for an offense or error.  Rap is from the Middle English rappen, meaning punishment.
1136480
It is used now in many places. In songs and everywhere. I think that this line came from a "tall dark handsome stranger".\n"tall dark handsome stranger" came from language\nlanguage came from man\nman came from God\nSo ultimately God made this line = "tall dark handsome stranger".
84649
Well, it's not very nice, it is a very crude and impolite term for a homosexual. (mind you I don't agree with that life style) it's just me, but the saying is disgusting. :D\n\nOkay I am chuckling and turning red, but it's still disgusting :S