Where did the term "running a tab" come from?
832044
Tab is just a synonym for bill.  So, instead of running up a bill, you can run up a tab.  Same thing.
166288
I'm not sure that this is what you are after, but a "RUN SHEET" is an internal reference document that shows what ads are to run in a given publication (such as newspaper, magazine, newsletter, or even a website).
1072287
One possible origin for the phrase is an incident said to have taken place during the siege of the Alamo in 1836, when William Barret Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword and urged those willing to stay and defend the fort to step across it. Unfortunately, this heroic story seems to have been invented by a 19th century promoter long after the fall of the Alamo. But the myth itself probably greatly popularized the phrase, so it does count as an origin of sorts even if the incident itself was apocryphal. \n\nAnother possible origin dates back to the time of the Roman Empire. It seems that one of the Macedonian kings, a bit short of cash, decided to invade Egypt, then a Roman protectorate. His army was met at the border by a lone Roman senator named Popillius Laenas, who ordered the king to withdraw. The king began to stall for time, so Popillius Laenas drew a circle in the sand around the king and demanded that the king agree to withdraw his army before he stepped out of the circle. The king, apparently impressed by the senator's nerve (or, more likely, by the Roman Empire in general), withdrew. Incidentally, not only is this account verified by contemporary historians, but it also may be the only known instance of a line drawn in the sand actually stopping someone.
111686
This is about as good as it gets...\n\nhttp://www.e-tabs.org/index.php3
1058993
Actually, the reference originally came from a song that was popular in 1956.  It was by the Jayhawks and called Stranded In The Jungle.  It managed to climb the Billboard charts to #18.\n\nThe story is about a guy who gets stranded in a jungle and all he wants to do is get back to his girl in the states.  He gets knocked out, wakes up in a big pot and smells something cooking then realizes he's about to be the main course for a tribe of cannibals.  The next line is "Great googly moogly let me out of here! " \n\nOf course the expression has been used in numerous other songs since but now you know the complete story goes back half a century.
359549
In British pubs, particularly in earlier times, bartenders kept track of customers' purchases on a slate behind the bar. Beer was sold in pints or quarts (the size of the glasses or mugs the beer was served in - no bottles back then), and had to pay up before they left. Hence, mind your Ps and Qs meant keep an eye on the tab you were running.
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."
884912
"Hands down" is a term meaning "easily" or "with little or no effort." It's used most often in the context of a competition or comparison, as in the sentence "Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive is hands-down the most significant cultural event of the last decade." (Editors' Note: Sentence used for demonstration purposes only.) \nWe stumbled upon several wrong guesses, but just about all the etymological sites we came across agreed that the term dates back to the mid-19th century and the genteel world of British horse racing. Back then, a jockey who found himself way ahead as he approached the finish line would relax his grip on the reins and drop his hands. Not as confrontational as a spiked football, but still a bit of gestural in-your-face-ness. By the late 19th century, the idiom had been extended to non-racing contexts, and it remains in frequent use today.
347945
Unless something creeped up on my while i wasn't noticing, "tab" is just for guitar/bass. It's a roundabout way to read music by diagramming fret and finger position, some say tab is cheating cause it's not really reading true music notation. The only thing i'm aware of for piano is a "fake book" or fake sheets which provide basic chord layout for a song, but "basic" is the key word, it doesn't provide all inflection and doesn't account for the original sound and style.
681710
"QT" is the abbreviation of "quiet." \n\nSo "on the QT" is something that should be kept quiet.  I do not know the origin of how it started though.\n\nModification:\nDid find this site that states where it might have come from but it isn't definite: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/9/messages/127.html
472901
There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…" Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunchmeat Spam: \n\nNobody wants it or ever asks for it. \nNo one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree. \nSometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.
553810
Probably the term you are thinking of is "Web-Based Technology", or "Web Application."  This is not the same as a "web page."  It's more like a complete application that uses a web browser as a user interface.  \n\nMy company writes "Web Applications" often, because then it can be run on any device that runs a web browser, and we don't have to worry about installing software on individual workstations.
529025
I think this is a case of a writer, or his editor, searching for a word and not coming up with the word he intended. I think he was looking for "tapped," which can mean selected, but his mind gave him "tabbed" instead. It's not the making of a noun into a verb that is the problem. That's done all the time in informal English. It's just not a good word choice.
157240
I used to be a server and we used to say that all the time but I had no idea where it came from.  So...  I tried to find some info and this is a website I found.  I hope it answers your questions.  I found it interesting.  \n\nhttp://www.dinermuseum.org/culture/culture-slang.php
814037
Social Climbing Admin(istrative) B**tard.\na Strike breaker often directly bought in by management recruited from outside the area usually, and employed specifically to break the strike.  By the way acronym given above is pure speculation the simple English word scab was probably scurrilous enough on it's own.\nIt has been around for at least 2 centuries.
44504
there are two supposed origins - \n1. is from the word nut, meaning hard seed, which is called "hnutu" in Old English or "*khnut" in Proto-Germanic\n\n2. from earlier be nutts upon "be very fond of" (1785), which is possibly from nuts (noun, plural) "any source of pleasure" (1617), from nut (described above). Sense influenced probably by metaphoric application of nut to "head" (1846, e.g. to be off one's nut "be insane," 1860). Nut "crazy person, crank" is attested from 1903, (British form nutter first attested 1958).
641334
yes, its a good one, have'nt heard it in a while , thanks for bringing it up... but where did it originate.[ sounds like something out of ww2.]