where did the phrase "I'm in a PICKLE" come from?
916316
From the American Heritage Dictionary:\n\nTrade with the Low Countries across the North Sea was important to England in the later Middle Ages, and it is perhaps because of this trade that we have the word pickle. Middle English pikel, the ancestor of our word, is first recorded around 1400 with the meaning "a spicy sauce or gravy served with meat or fowl." This is a different sense from the one the word brings to mind now, but it is somewhat related in sense to its possible Middle Dutch source pekel, a solution, such as spiced brine, for preserving and flavoring food. After coming into English the word pickle expanded its sense range in several ways. It was applied, as it had been in Middle Dutch, to a pickling solution. Later pickle was used to refer to something so treated, such as a cucumber. The word also took on a figurative sense, "a troublesome situation," perhaps under the influence of a similar Dutch usage in the phrase in de pekel zitten, "sit in the pickle," and iemand in de pekel laten zitten, "let someone sit in the pickle."
1070490
'... It’s a fairly common American expression, known for much of the twentieth century. But it’s one about which almost no information exists, at least in the two dozen or so reference books I’ve consulted. William and Mary Morris, in their Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, confess to the same difficulty. A handbasket is just a basket to be carried in the hand (my thanks to the Oxford English Dictionary for that gem of definition). The Dictionary of American Regional English records to go to heaven in a handbasket rather earlier than the alternative, which doesn’t appear in print until the 1940s (Walt Quader tells me that Burton Stevenson included a citation in his Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases from Bayard Kendrick’s The Odor of Violets, published in 1941). But DARE quotes a related expression from 1714: “A committee brought in something about Piscataqua. Govr said he would give his head in a Handbasket as soon as he would pass it”, which suggests that it, or at least phrases like it, have been around in the spoken language for a long time. For example, there’s an even older expression, to go to heaven in a wheelbarrow, recorded as early as 1629, which also meant “to go to hell”. I can only assume that the alliteration of the hs has had a lot to do with the success of the various phrases, and that perhaps handbasket suggests something easily and speedily done.'
598034
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, \nA peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. \nIf Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, \nWhere's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
250056
Yes, it is a reference to Erol Flynn.  Apparently, he was a pretty wild guy.  According to IMDB:\n\n"The phrase "In like Flynn," stems from his 1942 trial for statutory rape."
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
554152
peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers\na peck of pickled peppers peter piper picked\nif peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers\nwhere is the peck of pickled peppers peter piper picked
181854
I'm a nut in a rut I'm Crazy\nI called Myeslf up on the phone just to see if I was Home\nAsked Myself out on a date\nPicked Me up at Half Past Eight \nI'm a nut in a rut I'm crazy\n(That's all I know but I'm sure you can google it)\n(Hope this Helps)\n(Is it for Girl Scouts?)
778170
I'm not entirely sure, but I think it originated with the Rolling Stones as they described their backstage parties for an interview of somesort. The saying has pretty much been adopted by every rock group and wannabe rocker eversince as a way of answering why they're in the music buisness.
306930
Pickles.  Seriously; the cup was on display at an exhibition in London and stolen on 3-20-1966.  A week later, a mutt named Pickles found it while walking with its owner.
672711
The German Christmas Pickle Tradition
699615
pickle solution and smoldering and not synonymous.
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
788541
Don;t know the origin by it is saying =This place is going to hell. Not being taken care of properly. This world is going to hell in a handbasket. means too much illegal actions and war. Hell in a handbasket mean just about any thing that is going wrong.
225140
I don't know if there's much etymology of the phrase, but here's an article about it which puts forth some interesting possibilities of the origin.\n\nQuote from the site:\n\n"Some linguists and historians think the expression must have been well known during the war years, citing a story about General Eisenhower's dog. The story goes that the dog (Felix) urinated on a map and the officers joked that the enemy was "pissed off." (Leonard Mosely, Marshall, 1982)."
900932
cracker originates from the slaves days refering to a whip cracker or a slave driver/ owner.  it is more meant to mean that you are still racist and treat black people poorly.  i personally think it is not that big of a deal and there are was worse slurs out there.
835594
According to Wikipedia, origins of this saying are unknown.......
468482
This phrase stems from a kissing booth at a carnival that was held in Podunk, Iowa.  It turns out that the young lady that was going to occupy the booth was thrown from the animal that she was riding on the way to said boot and injured her mouth so they decided to use the animal that she was riding, her Jackass.  So for a buck you could kiss to her jackass, or as she would say “kiss my jackass”, and over time it was shorten too, well you know.