What's your favourite saying?

What's your favourite saying?
Where did it come from?
Who would know if the answer is true?
Often we use sayings that we might not know the origin of. I've been wondering if we shouldn't post here the sayings we use and where they came from. The answers could be true or a good fabrication, who cares as long as they are feasible?
I'll start the ball rolling with one of my favourites about the cold.
"It'd freeze the balls of a brass monkey"
Evidently in the days of sailing ships of war, the cannon balls were kept on twin brass rails, which when the mercury dropped shrunk enough for the shot to roll off. Hence the saying. Is it true? I don't know, but I like the story.
There's another about English archers and the origin of a certain rude finger gesture, but I've had my share of deletions this week.
So, add your favourite saying and the explanation of its origin.

Heres my fave........
Dont push the send button twice!!


Al :D

favourite saying - "Hovo, you're a goose - get a broadband connection"

where it from ? I just made it up, do you like it ?

Yeah, I wish Hovo would stop repeating himself.

Sorry Hovo But
There is a story, often repeated, that the phrase originated in the British navy at the time of the Napoleonic wars or thereabouts. It is said that the stack of cannon balls alongside each gun were arranged in a pyramid on a brass plate to save space, the plate being called a monkey. In very cold weather, the story goes, the cannon balls would shrink and they would fall off the stack.

Don’t let anybody convince you of this. It’s rubbish. There’s no evidence that such brass plates existed. Although the boys bringing charges to the guns from the magazine were known as powder monkeys and there is evidence that a type of cannon was called a monkey in the mid seventeenth century, there’s no evidence that the word was ever applied to a plate under a pile of cannon shot. The whole story is full of logical holes: would they pile shot into a pyramid? (hugely unsafe on a rolling and pitching deck); why a brass plate? (too expensive, and unnecessary: they actually used wooden frames with holes in, called garlands, fixed to the sides of the ship); was the plate and pile together actually called a monkey? (no evidence, as I say); would cold weather cause such shrinkage as to cause balls to fall off? (highly improbable, as all the cannon balls would reduce in size equally and the differential movement between the brass plate and the iron balls would be only a fraction of a millimetre).

What the written evidence shows is that the term brass monkey was quite widely distributed in the US from about the middle of the nineteenth century and was applied in all sorts of situations, not just weather. For example: from The Story of Waitstill Baxter, by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1913): “The little feller, now, is smart’s a whip, an’ could talk the tail off a brass monkey”; and from The Ivory Trail, by Talbot Mundy (1919): “He has the gall of a brass monkey”. Even when weather was involved, it was often heat rather than cold that was meant, as in the oldest example known, from Herman Melville’s Omoo (1850): “It was so excessively hot in this still, brooding valley, shut out from the Trades, and only open toward the leeward side of the island, that labor in the sun was out of the question. To use a hyperbolical phrase of Shorty’s, ‘It was ’ot enough to melt the nose h’off a brass monkey.’ ”

It seems much more likely that the image here is of a real brass monkey, or more probably still a set of them. Do you remember those sculptured groups of three wise monkeys, “Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil”? Though the term three wise monkeys isn’t recorded earlier than the start of the twentieth century, the images themselves were known much earlier. It’s more than likely the term came from them, as an image of something solid and inert that could only be affected by extremes.
Not me but on the net


The trouble with life is there's no background music.

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Cool
I said I didn't know if it was true and still stand by that. I still like the idea of people telling their favourite sayings and in the spirit of this board spreading some fun around and offering believeable (or otherwise) explanations. Thanks for setting the record straight. :D
I don't know why the thread got posted twice I only pushed the send button once. That's what's so good about you guys, you're so forgiving. :eek: ;)

actually My real favourite sayings are in no particular order :

well i'll be buggered

jebi se kurac :D

etc... hard to say really theres so many that make me laugh - I quite like some of the nasties that oz lets fly with... always get a chuckle at that and midgs deadpan wit can be laughsome. (my wife thinks im mad when she hears me bellowing..)

sheet a brick and have a square asre for a week. :D

It came from the old bloke who owned the servo that I had an after school job at when I was a kiddie.

Mate when you said the brass monkey thing it triggered something I had read , Glad it didn't upset you as it was never meant to.

Lost Al in the ether someware but I agree, don't usually copy stuff straight from the net as it usually is a bit zzzzzzz.....

As to favorite sayings I think its "Trust not and you won't be dissapointed"
or "and your point is"


but SHMBO says its " Well just one more then"

hay whatever


The trouble with life is there's no background music.

Most of mine would have to be heavily edited, alot of adjectives are used at work to describe fellow employees(inmates) and the tools(useless pieces of faecal matter) that are issued to us. One I use to describe a very bad person/item is "Son of a motherless goat's rectum!" Which when used around my MBGitW, sends her into hysterics. :) I do not know were I have picked it up, but it is still able to be used in polite company . . .

Another long surviving curse is "Sod Off ski!" :D

There are so many sayings, but so much falls into impolite language, so these two will have to do for now. :D

I like the old insult..."hope your earholes turn to rsoles and crap all over your shoulders".

And...."don't be a mug all your life, take 1/2 a day off".

:D

Regards

Neil

......Your Call is important to us"???

My favourite is one I overheard between what I think was were two Irish chefs chatting about exotic recipes...

"Whale oil beef hooked!"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ashore

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Lost Al in the ether someware but I agree, don't usually copy stuff straight from the net as it usually is a bit zzzzzzz.....

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Sorry :o
I was just trying an experimental post.
I didnt mean zzzzzzz, I could have typed 55555 or ......... or qqqqqq.
But z was the closest key to my finger.

Al :o

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ozwinner

Sorry :o
I was just trying an experimental post.
I didnt mean zzzzzzz, I could have typed 55555 or ......... or qqqqqq.
But z was the closest key to my finger.

Al :o

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At least you didn't do it twice :p

Not very feminine :o , definitely descriptive :D , don't know the origin ... but probably some farm person :p

"Useless as t1ts on a bull" :)

One of my uncles is fond of saying:

'Better than a slap in the guts with a wet spade'

Kinda like it in a weird way - no idea where it came from and don't care too much either way :)

Another one:

'I'd trust him about as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat'

Not sure if anyone's actually tried that one :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DarrylF

'I'd trust him about as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat'

Not sure if anyone's actually tried that one :)

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Well, not comfortably anyway. :D

Well not really my favourite but definitely most used.


"OUCH!!!!!"

"Off like Annie's knickers"

No idea who Annie was, but had to stop saying it when I had a colleague who's wife was named Annie & had a bit of a reputation.

I object.

Even if its not objectionable, so I can hear my own voice and stop taking notes for a minute or so....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tikki

"Useless as t1ts on a bull" :)

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This saying has never made any sense to me. If a bull had them or lets say a man had them, most women would put that man to good use I imagine.

"Useful as a lactating man"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zed

jebi se kurac :D

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:D:D:D

but I use "pitchka ti materna" more often....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boban

This saying has never made any sense to me. If a bull had them or lets say a man had them, most women would put that man to good use I imagine.

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Whoa too deep for me. :)

However, think why it is a farmer keeps one bull amongst a herd of cows.

Then decide if t1ts are going to be an adjunct to that bull's desired function.
:D :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boban

This saying has never made any sense to me. If a bull had them or lets say a man had them, most women would put that man to good use I imagine.

"Useful as a lactating man"

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And to become that way ..... he could self inseminate to carry the offspring!! I'd like to see that!! :D :D :D :p :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by craigb

However, think why it is a farmer keeps one bull amongst a herd of cows.:D :D

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Well he figures that if he cant service that many females himself, at least he can observe in envy...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tikki

And to become that way ..... he could self inseminate to carry the offspring!! I'd like to see that!! :D :D :D :p :eek:

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You see what I'm talking about.....:D oh its good to be a man.....

**** it!!

That's probably the most often used one for me. Works so well in so many situations:

**** it, let's do it.
**** it, how am I going to fix that.
What should we do with this? **** it!

cmon! that was harmless

:p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by silentC

**** it!!

That's probably the most often used one for me. Works so well in so many situations:

**** it, let's do it.
**** it, how am I going to fix that.
What should we do with this? **** it!

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Just as long as your not a NZ sheep farmer.

"It's your shout"

Origin: Me

:D

"I am sorry, You obviously have me confused with someone who actually gives a ****!"

mostly used at werk ;)

HEY, the profanity filter actually works :eek: :D

I do have a favourite saying, and it does get used a little too often (judging by the rolled eyes of the lad), but I can't remember it :eek:

Must be having a senior moment. I'll call back after my next cup of coffee.

Richard (I think)

I always say to my kids,

"it's all fun and games untill someone looses an eye" not sure where that one came from

or

It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

really not sure where that came from

or

My customer service approach, ring Telstra they care!!:D :D :D

Having children and a social worker for a wife means all my good saying have been forgotten or had to be forgotten because i get in trouble for swearing around the kids.:D

Can't wait for the opportunity to use one of Zed's that I'm about to steal...

"It smelt like a pensioner's f@rt"

Sorry to all the pensioners out there. :D

"Dial 1800 somebodywhogivesa****"

"Handy as a hip pocket in a singlet"

"Does a ducks asre pucker when it power dives?"

I have some others which are Non PC more or less in relation to various countrys:D , the origins and parentage of individuals concerned and, in so far as the Duck goes....its grammatically not pretty.

Cheers

Busy as a one armed paper hanger with crabs (didn't know that paperhangers were fishermen).
A couple we used to use in the Pubic Service TIFI (singular) and TEFE (plural).
Up and down like a brides nightie, no idea where that came from.
And the one that will be deleted for not being PC, the indigenous tribe who lost a court case to reclaim heaps of land in Vic became known to some as the Rorta Rorta tribe.
deleted by ?

One my Dad used to like:

"He's got as much chance as a one-legged man in an @rse-kicking contest."

One of my favourites:

"Slick as a rat with a gold tooth."

And, of course:-

(Wait for it .....)

In situations where something isn't working/looking good/feeling sufficiently smooth/etc etc:

"What that needs is some: (Tah-Dah!)

Max Factor Knacker Lacquer
It Adds A Lustre To Your Cluster!"

"More holes than hay" .. originally spoken by a young farmer after falling into yet another crevasse in the haystack while trying to retrieve a bale of hay, now used to refer to any object with holes

"Intracranial lead suppository" .. when someone annoys

"lonely neuron syndrome" .. when someone is being thick

"yards of petrol/water/bolts/parts" .. used to refer to anything but length. A businessman/mechanic I worked for used it as a common term when describing stock on hand for repairs.

Pushin s**t up a hill with a forked stick.

I cant remember where i heard it but it gets used very frequently.

Cheers

Steve