Where does the saying "knock on wood" come from?
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To touch wood or knock on wood is a superstition action to ward off any evil consequences or bad luck, perhaps because of some recent action you’ve taken or untimely boasting about your good fortune (“I’ve never been in danger of drowning, touch wood”); it can also be a charm to bring good luck.\nThe origin is unknown, though some writers have pointed to pre-Christian rituals involving the spirits of sacred trees such as the oak, ash, holly or hawthorn. There is, I’m told, an old Irish belief that you should knock on wood to let the little people know that you are thanking them for a bit of good luck. There’s also a belief that the knocking sound prevents the Devil from hearing your unwise comments. Others have sought a meaning in which the wood symbolises the timber of the cross, but this may be a Christianisation of an older ritual. It wasn’t always wood that was lucky: in older days, iron was also thought to have magical properties, and to touch iron was an equivalent preventative against ill-fortune.\nThe phrase itself is relatively modern, as the oldest citation for the British version of the phrase, touch wood, that I can find dates only from 1899. The American equivalent knock on wood is roughly contemporary, with my first example from 1905.
940577
The origin of the phrase "clean as a whistle" is?\n\n: CLEAN AS A WHISTLE - "One possibility is that the old simile describes the whistling sound of a sword as it swishes through the air to decapitate someone, and an early 19th century quotation does suggest this connection: 'A first rate shot.(his) head taken off as clean as a whistle.' The expression is proverbial, at least since the 18th century, when Robert Burns used a variation on it. More likely the basic idea suggests the clear, pure sound a whistle makes, or the slippery smooth surface of a willow stick debarked to make a whistle. But there is also a chance that the phrase may have originally been 'as clean as a whittle,' referring to a piece of smooth wood after it is whittled.'" (From the "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997.) \n\n: Another source states: "Robert Burns, in his poem, 'Earnest Cry,' used 'toom' ('empty') rather than 'clean' - 'Paint Scotland greetan owre her thrissle; Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whissle' - and other writers have had the whistle clear, dry, pure or other adjective. The basic intent, however, is to indicate that, for a sweet, pure sound from a whistle or reed, the tube must be clean and dry." (From "Heavens to Betsy & Other Curious Sayings" by Charles Earle Funk, Harper & Row, New York, 1955.) \n\n: And a third: ".As every old-timer can tell you, a good whistle made from a reed or a piece of wood emits a clear tone - but it is easily damaged. Even small particles of debris, or a few drops of moisture will change the sound of a handmade instrument. In order to emit the pure notes intended by its maker, a whistle has to be absolutely clean. Anything or anyone as clean as a brand-new whistle or as clear as its sound is bound to be good. All of which means that an organization or person called as 'clean as a whistle' has been judged to be guiltless or flawless." (From "Why You Say It" by Webb Garrison, Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1992.) \n\nAlternatively the origin may be the clean appearance of a just carved wooden whistle. Personally, I think it may well relate to locomotives where the brass, especially the whistle was always bright and gleaming.
131918
The phrase means to die.  It comes from the following:  The wooden frame that slaughtered animals were hung from is known as a bucket. The death spasms of the animals caused them to kick the bucket. \n\nI refer to the site below for all of my phrase origin needs.
953155
It's from an old Nursery Rhyme\n\nLittle Jack Horner\nSat in a corner\nEating his Christmas pie\nHe put in his thumb\nAnd pulled out a plum\nAnd said" What a good boy am I!"\n\nNow, having said that I couldn't begin to tell you if it has any underlying meaning!\n\nHere's a link to a theory on the "back story"\nhttp://www.rooneydesign.com/JackHorner.html\n\nAnd here's yet another link:\n\nhttp://www.rhymes.org.uk/little_jack_horner.htm\n\nAnd finally dear old wikipedia has a bunch of alternative rhymes that are quite amusing:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Jack_Horner
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Spelling it "tickety-boo" I found:\n\n"But some find a link with the British Army in India, suggesting it comes from the Hindi phrase tikai babu, which is translated as “it’s all right, sir”."
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Where did u hear this from? (place, person)
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The phrase in this form started out in the 1950s as an offshoot of "excuse my French."  This is a result of racial stereotyping - Anglo-Saxons of the late 19th century blamed the French for anything remotely dirty.  The belief started in the mid 19th century and held that was France sex-obsessed and pornographic.
467168
This mainly British colloquial expression is recorded only from the 1960s, but is certainly older. Its origin is uncertain. Some argue it may be from cods, an old term for the testicles that derives from the Anglo-Saxon sense of cod, a bag. It is also suggested that wallop may be connected with the dialect term meaning to chatter or scold (not with the word meaning a heavy blow).\nOne explanation has it that it refers to the late Hiram Codd, who—despite his archetypally American first name—was British, born in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in 1838. He spent his life working in the soft drinks business. In the 1870s, he designed and patented a method of sealing a glass bottle by means of a ball in its neck, which the pressure of the gas in the fizzy drink forced against a rubber washer. Making the bottle was a technical challenge, since the ball necessarily had to be larger than the diameter of the neck. It was only in 1876, when he teamed up with a Yorkshire glass blower named Ben Rylands, that the answer was found. The Codd bottle was an immediate success; surviving examples are now highly collectable. You opened them by pushing the ball into the neck, and openers in the shape of short, thin cylinders were supplied for the purpose. One unexpected problem was that children smashed the bottles to use the glass balls as marbles.\nThe suggestion is that drinkers who preferred their tipple to have alcohol in it were dismissive of Mr Codd’s soft drinks. As beer was often called wallop, they referred sneeringly to the fizzy drink as Codd’s wallop, and the resulting word later spread its meaning to refer to anything considered to be rubbish.\nThis story reeks of the approach to word history called folk etymology. As one writer has put it, it seems rather too neat an explanation to be true. But nobody’s come up with anything better.
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Sorry you've had such rubbish answers. \n\nI'm usually quite good at this sort of thing, but I'm afraid I can't find any info on the origins of this phrase.\n\nI hope someone more knowledgeable answers you soon!
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
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The story -- often repeated in print & orally -- is this:\n>\n>    The phrase "Rule of Thumb" comes from English Common\n>    Law which deemed it a man's right to beat his wife\n>    with a stick no thicker than the diameter of his thumb.\n>\n>For the last 6 or 7 years I have been looking for **RELIABLE** confirmation\n>of this, and/or the earliest legal reference to this "Common Law."  I have\n>found MANY sources that *claim* that it stems from English Common Law, but\n>searches of legal decisions (by friends who are lawyers or legal researchers)\n>and/or of Blackstone, etc. never turn up any actual reference to a legal\n>decision citing this "common law" or even any reference to it.  I'm beginning\n>to wonder if this is another Academic Myth.\n>\n>Please reply privately, and I will summarize for the list if there is interest.\n>------------------------\n>Ruth Ginzberg <rginzberg  AT  eagle.wesleyan.edu>\n>Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA\n \nThe only place I know to look for answers to such questions is the OED.\nIt won't state straight out that such-and-such is the case, but if you know\nhow to read the OED you can often figure out likelihoods.\n \nThe whip thing is a bit of modern folklore.  It is typical of such back-formed\nexplanations well-known to linguists and folklorists.  (The folk etymology\nof 'asparagus' as 'sparrow-grass' and the plague interpretation of 'Ring\nAround the Rosie' are two others.)\n \nThe real explanation of 'rule-of-thumb' is that is derives from wood\nworkers (or other constructors) who knew their trade so well they rarely\nor never fell back on the use of such things as rulers.  Instead they'd\nmeasure things by, for example, the length of their thumb;  they measured,\nnot by a rule(r) of wood, but by rule of thumb.  The term was already in\nmetaphorical use by the late 17th century.\n \nI'd like to see the accumulated references to the wife-beating explanation.\n I wonder for instance just when that back-formed 'origin' came into being?
148291
The origin of this phrase lies in the fact that the Queen spends so much time going around to grand openings of new buildings and sites that she smells nothing but fresh paint.  Another way I've heard it used is to say that "The Queen thinks that all toilets (bathrooms) smell like fresh paint."  It could be used as a way of showing how out of touch the royals are with reality, or as an analogy of how someone may have misinterpreted a situation by reading his or her limited experience into a much more complicated issue.  Hope this helps!
501053
Homeslice : Buddy, Bestfriend\n\nThe history behind the intrepid word goes as follows;\nLumberjacks in the 1850s were wondering around the west, immensely bored, and found some indians'(not the "thank you come again" kind, but the "wo! wo!" kind.) homes. So they began cuttin' them up! and everytime they would, they would say! "HOMESLICE!" instead of "TIMBER!!!"\n\nAs for Gravy check this out and choose the meaning that fits most\nhttp://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gravy
81047
My dad always referenced it as "come see, come saw". Kind of an early version of "been there, done that".
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This is a references to an old phrase started, not England, but Scottland... the term was mistranslated by the English in the midst of war. The Term was used by the Scottish to bring out their weapons and black axes, the axes weren't really black but that's a different story. In any case... it is now used to mean "Get ready for the worse"
785422
It's probably from Aesop's Fables. That's where most quotes like that come from.
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It is an idiom intended to mean "be careful, pay attention to detail"  it has morphed, in recent times, to mean many other things including "be polite".\n\nThere are several theories about it's origin, but the one I believe makes the most sense is - mind your Pints and Quarts.  Meaning to keep track of what you order in a pup so you are not over charged.