Where does the phrase "b-line" come from?  Example: When he was ready to leave, he took a b-line for the door.
351294
From the behavior of bees. When a bee finds nectar it returns to the hive and displays to the other bees the direction of the find. The other bees then 'make a beeline' for it.
741742
I think it's a euphemism for "jacksh-t"\nSo now the question is, where did THAT phrase come from?
1170816
This originated in the early 1980s. It is generally regarded as an American expression. This item from the New York newspaper the Syracuse Herald-American, Feb. 1982, which is the earliest version in print that I can find, puts that in some doubt. It's in a piece by Jerry Buck, writing out of Los Angeles, about actress Lauren Tewes
813692
It means to leave without saying goodbye, or to take advantage of an invitation (a party, a meal etc) and then dash off the minute the goodies are over. Imagine inviting someone to a fancy restaurant and they eat a hearty meal and then the minute they finish their dessert it's "Oh is that the time, I've got to run" before the check comes...no conversation, no nothing.\nThe Spanish call this "taking English leave" and I think in French they say something similar.
878520
It is from the French, "Respondez s'il vous plait."\nPlease respond.
298467
It is a form of illegal strike.\n\nPhrasal Verbs: \nwalk out\n1. To go on strike.\n2. To leave suddenly, often as a signal of disapproval
868294
I think it was coined by Martin Lawrence, the same man who gave us "You go, Girl!"\n\nCave\n\np.s.---Just found this:\n\n"In the case of "don't go there," the earliest citation for the phrase in print in the Oxford English Dictionary comes from an interview with comedian Martin Lawrence in Entertainment Weekly back in February 1994. At the time the star of the highly-rated Fox sitcom "Martin," Lawrence took the opportunity to complain, oddly enough, that his material was being stolen by other Fox shows: \n\n"Something ain't right," Lawrence says, removing his sunglasses. ... "We started using the expressions 'You go, girl!' and 'Don't go there!' and no one in television was doing that. No one. Now a lot of Fox shows are using the same stuff and the same premises."
466819
Hi\nNo doubt more than one reader has wondered exactly how goodbye is derived from the phrase “God be with you.” To understand this, it is helpful to see earlier forms of the expression, such as God be wy you, god b'w'y, godbwye, god buy' ye, and good-b'wy. The first word of the expression is now good and not God, for good replaced God by analogy with such expressions as good day, perhaps after people no longer had a clear idea of the original sense of the expression. A letter of 1573 written by Gabriel Harvey contains the first recorded use of goodbye: “To requite your gallonde [gallon] of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howdyes,” recalling another contraction that is still used.\nregards\nrca
668567
In American English, "get out of here" has at least two different possible meanings.\n\nThe first is literal, and means "leave this place."\n\nThe second is metaphoric, and is used to express astonishment, surprise, or disbelief, usually at the statement another person has made.\n\nExample:\n"I won first prize in the spelling bee."\n\n"Get out of here!  No way!"
785422
It's probably from Aesop's Fables. That's where most quotes like that come from.
844063
Sorry , I cannot find where those lines come from. I have spent the last 20 minutes looking for you to no avail.\nIt might be from the book "I know why the caged bird sings", I am not sure.
77225
[A] At least two. However, the more one investigates, the further away a simple answer seems to get.\nThe phrase Katy bar the door! (also as Katy bar the gate!; sometimes written as Katie) is a very American exclamation, more common in the South than elsewhere, meaning that disaster impends—“watch out”, “get ready for trouble” or “a desperate situation is at hand”.\nWhere it comes from is uncertain. Jonathan Lighter, in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, finds a first example from 1902. I’ve done slightly better than that, having found the phrase in a poem called “When Lide Married Him” by James Whitcomb Riley, which was published in a collection called Armazindy in 1894. A young lady marries a known drunkard against family advice and forcibly reforms him. One stanza ends with the line: “When Lide married him, it wuz ‘Katy, bar the door!’ ”, suggesting trouble ensued.\nIt seems clear, though, that this isn’t where the phrase came from. The one useful comment I can find in print is in William and Mary Morris’s book The Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, based on a comment from Nancy Britt of Arkansas. She suggested it came from a traditional ballad. The one she is presumably referring to is medieval Scots, usually entitled Get Up and Bar the Door, which is still widely known and sung. But no version I’ve found mentions Katy anywhere.\nThe wife wants her husband to bar the door because the wind blows in and disturbs her at her cooking. The husband doesn’t want to be bothered to get up and do it. They agree after an argument that the first person who speaks will be the loser and will have to bar the door. Neither speaks, and neither bars the door. At night, robbers enter through the open door and eat the food the wife has prepared. Neither husband nor wife says anything because of their agreement and their stubborn refusal to be the first to give way. However, when the robbers propose to cut off the husband’s beard and kiss the wife (I assume these are euphemisms), the husband rises up in a rage and shouts at the thieves, at which the wife rejoices:\nThen up and started our goodwife,\nGied three skips on the floor:\n“Goodman, you've spoken the foremost word,\nGet up and bar the door.” Though the ballad is actually a wry look at marital obstinacy and its consequences, the most direct lesson is that not barring the door has led them to trouble. Barring the door with the intruders inside wasn’t such a smart move, either. So it is possible that the injunction, “bar the door!”, was adapted from it to suggest there is unpleasantness ahead.\nHowever, many subscribers have pointed to a quite different story, also from Scotland, involving one Catherine Douglas. King James I of Scotland, a cultured and firm ruler, was seen by some of his countrymen as a tyrant. Under attack by his enemies while staying at the Dominican chapter house in Perth on 20 February 1437, he was holed up in a room whose door had the usual metal staples for a wooden bar, but whose bar had been taken away. The legend has it that Catherine Douglas, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, tried heroically to save James I by barring the door with her naked arm. Her attempt failed, her arm being broken in the process, and the King was murdered, but she was thereafter known as Catherine Barlass.\nDante Gabriel Rossetti wrote a poem about her in 1881, entitled The King’s Tragedy, of which one stanza is:\nLike iron felt my arm, as through\nThe staple I made it pass:—\nAlack! it was flesh and bone—no more!\n’Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,\nBut I fell back Kate Barlass. This is as circumstantial a basis for the expression Katie bar the door as the one above, but it is much stronger in its romantic associations and therefore rather more probable a source.\nHowever, the nearest that Rossetti comes to the conventional expression in the poem is “Catherine, keep the door!”. In its
855558
Here is a possible answer:\nhttp://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/6/messages/952.html
321200
its a phrase but not always meaningless,ive used this on many occassion--for instance at a party, and you suddenly head for the nearest tree---would you rather i said i gotta take a piss??
93126
See the sources for idiom answers.  \nSuprisingly "..bedbugs bite", was not in the second or third.  \n\nUse freedictionary for slang like "Dude" ..Used to express approval, satisfaction, or congratulations."\n\nHope this helps.
237927
well in this day and age fuck off can be the same as shut up.i don't know what context it was used in, but let him no u wont stand for that, give him one more chance then u must leave if he does or he will walk all over you.
56943
Nickisbox answer is as correct as makes no difference. In fact it means 'socially correct behaviour'. Mind your manners; Mind your behaviour, etc.\n\nI've added this edit (26.01.06) because Puppyfred and MacMomma have referred to origins of the expressions and all of you might be interested in the following: \n\nThe phrase dates to the late 18th century. The pecise origin is not known, but several competing hypotheses seem to be the most likely.\n\n    * The first is that it derives from the phrase p and q which was an abbreviation for prime quality. This English dialectical term dates to the 17th century. So to mind your p's and q's would mean to be exacting in detail and ensure high quality.\n\n    * The second is that it refers to difficulty children had in learning to distinguish between the letters p and q, being mirror images of one another. To learn one's p's and q's is a phrase meaning to learn one's letters is first recorded around 1830--somewhat later but not impossible as the origin. Often this explanation is identified with printers and distinguish between a p and a q in type, but the early use exclusively deals with children, not printing.\n\n    * The third, first suggested by Farmer and Henley at the turn of the 20th century, is that the phrase comes from the practice of maintaining a tally in pubs and taverns. Marks under column P, for pint, or Q, for quart, would be made on a blackboard. To tell a bartender to mind his Ps and Qs would be to tell him to mind his own business and get back to work.\n\n    * Another commonly suggested explanation is that it is a variation on mind your pleases and thank yous, a plea for gentility and manners. There is no evidence to support this, nor does the please and thank you phrase appear anywhere except in explanations of the Ps and Qs origin.\n\n    * The last is from the world of printing. Typesetters had to be skilled in reading letters backward, as the blocks of type would have mirror images of the letters. The lower-case letters p and q were particularly difficult to distinguish because they are mirrors of one another and located in bins next to one another. Typesetters had to be particularly careful not to confuse the two.\n\nAny could be correct except perhaps the fourth which  has no foundation and seems false. I would go for the first as being the most plausible. \n\nThe third is interesting because the blackboard was normally made of slate (and still is in most English pubs although today used for other purposes) and leads to the origin of two other expressions: 'Put it on the slate' and 'Wipe the slate clean'. Workers used to be paid on Friday and by Monday had very little money left. So if they wanted to drink during the week they would ask the landlord to 'put it on the slate'. The landlord would put the customers initials on the board and by the side of it the number of drinks that had to be paid for. The following Friday the customer would pay his bill and the landlord would 'wipe the slate clean'. So, to put something on the slate means to get credit; to wipe the slate clean means to clear ones debts.