where does the phrase nippy come from?
970477
When cold air hits your face or other exposed skin it can feel as if it is biting or nipping at you.\nNipply on the other hand is something quite different. :)
141560
Nobody actually knows where that phrase comes from.  There is an urban legend about where it came from that can be found here: http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.htm
749353
To "get down to the nitty gritty " means to get down to basics, or the bottom line.\n\nThis comes from the days of slave ships from Africa. The women in the hold were covered in grit and nits (lice) and the sailors would resort to sex with them - getting down to the nitty gritty.
1077763
Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum was part of a rhyme from Jack and the Beanstalk (Nursery Rhymes).  I think the other one was too, if I remember correctly.
99581
Usually spoken in harsher words, but it comes from another way of saying "do not give a poop"\nIt means "I do not care."
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'.
621745
It is indeed rhyming slang, originally from the East End of London, but taken to Australia by English emigrants. The source is the phrase cobbler’s awl.\n\nAn awl is an ancient pointed tool for making holes in things, the most characteristic tool of any leatherworker; it was an essential part of the shoemaker’s kit, since he was forever piercing leather to sew pieces together. So a cobbler’s awl was as characteristic of his trade as his last, or foot-shaped anvil.\n\nThe rhyming slang linked cobbler’s awls with balls, that is, testicles. As was usual with such rhyming slang phrases, the first word later appeared on its own as a kind of half-disguised code, so cobblers! came to be used in the same way as balls!, as an exclamation of derision or disbelief, suggesting something was rubbish or nonsense. The examples in the big Oxford English Dictionary suggest that this last sense is actually quite recent, only being recorded in print from the 1950s onwards (though very probably older in the spoken language).\n\nA load of old cobblers is an intensification of that, once commonly heard in London as well as in Australia and also in other Commonwealth countries. Americans seem never to have got into the habit of using cobblers! (or indeed balls!), though British cop shows exported to North America have made both retorts familiar to many there.
506377
"To shuck and jive" originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards.  The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier.\n\n"Shucking and jiving" was a tactic of both survival and resistance.  A slave, for instance, could say eagerly, "Oh, yes, Master," and have no real intention to obey.  Or an African-American man could pretend to be working hard at a task he was ordered to do, but might put up this pretense only when under observation.  Both would be instances of "doin' the old shuck 'n jive."\n\nToday, the expression has expanded somewhat from earlier usage, and is now sometimes used to mean "talking pure baloney," "goofing off," or "goofing around."  The original meaning of deceit often remains, however.
457443
This phrase, in which French refers to "bad language", is employed when the speaker feels compelled to use an obscenity despite having listeners who might be offended.  It's a late 19th century euphemism which first appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1895.\n\nIt is thought that the term French is employed in this sense as it already had a history of association with things considered vulgar.  As far back as the early 16th century, French pox and the French disease were synonyms for genital herpes, and French-sick was another term for syphillis.  The OED [Oxford English Dictionary] also equates the adjective French with "spiciness", as in French letter for "condom", French kiss (1923) and French (i. e. "sexually explicit")
1177695
There are several theories on the origin of the term. In the bar culture, it is attributed to Article 86 of the New York State Liquor Code. Article 86 specifically outlines the circumstances in which a bar patron should be refused alcohol or removed from the bar. In the restaurant culture, the theory goes back to the Great Depression and the soup kitchens. The legend goes that soup kitchens were limited to 85 patrons at a time so number 86 in line wouldn't receive food.\n\nA lesser known theory is that Cockney rhyming slang took the word nix and transformed it into "86'ed".
165477
Like a tee is also interchangeable with to a tee.\n\n"We use this expression very commonly in the sense of minute exactness, perfection; as, the coat fits to a T; the meat was done to a T. \n\nIt is easy to dismiss the origin of the expression as, I am sorry to say, some of our leading dictionaries do, by attributing it to the draftsman's T-square, which is supposed to be an exact instrument, but the evidence indicates that the expression was in common English use before the T-square got its name. \n\n'To a T' dates back to the seventeenth century in literary use and was undoubtedly common in everyday speech long before any writer dared to or thought to use it in print. But it is likely that the name of the instrument, 'T-square,' would have been in print shortly after its invention, yet the first mention is in the eighteenth century. \n\nThe sense of the expression corresponds, however, with the older one, 'to a tittle,' which appeared almost a century earlier, and meant 'to a dot,' as in 'jot or tittle.' Beaumont used it in 1607, and it is probably that colloquial use long preceded his employment of the phrase." From "2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Expressions from White Elephants to a Song and Dance" by Charles Earle Funk (Galahad Books, New York, 1993).\n\nI use the source below for all of my phrase origin needs.
279355
It comes from Cockney Rhyming slang, originating in the east end of London. (Cockneys are traditional those born within earshot of the bells of Bow Church)\n\nBristols = Bristol Cities = Titties.\n\nSome othe examples are\nButhers = Buthers Hook = Look\nBoat Race = Face\n\nIn use it would be something like "Jesus have a butchers at her bristols... shame about the boat race."\n\nhttp://www.lingo.arollo.com/cockney.html\n\nMany of the cockney rhyming slang terms have become every day terms around the UK now.
1094818
Never heard of that one!! Despite spending even longer in England than pniccimiss!!\n\nBut there are always new slang terms evolving, so it may be in use among the 'yoof' of today!!\n; )\n\nIt's not an official or colloquial 'English' term though, but it could become one with frequent use!
340804
in the cold winters of the 5th century a.d., the native Aztecs in what is now Peru, used dog skins as a type of moccasin that was the same texture as leather when it was frozen... soon after the Spanish inquisition, the Spaniards adopted the slang term of "dogs" as shoes and brought it to the south western states of the U.S. where it is still in use today. Going along with this, The Spanish began calling people they "looked down upon" "dog", which  later derived into the slang term. just like how the frowned upon word "niggerr" has become a slang term meaning friend.
932740
It is Cynical since it is a Greek word written ΚΥΝΙΚΟΣ.It is an adjective for someone who describes things as exactly are not presenting them better even if what he says is unpleasant.The root of the Greek word comes from the word ΚΥΝΑΣ which means dog
667330
It's bull. It comes from English's proto-Germanic root language, and many Northern European languages have similar words.
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."