I hope you're enjoying these little posts about unusual
sayings or phrases. Feel free to suggest
ones I should do for future posts.
Pardon
My French – I haven't heard this one much lately. But it is used to apologise for using bad
language. Why French? Apparently in days gone past the phrase was used
when a French word was used in an English sentence. But I suspect this has origins in
Anglo/French rivalry of old.
Chew
the fat – this means to have a chat with someone. There is no agreement as to the origins of this. Equating having a nice chat with chewing on a piece of animal fat doesn't
seem that sensible!
Thick
as thieves – thick here isn't meant in the sense of
meaning stupid (like she's thick as a brick).
It means to be close to or being close allies – as in thieves conspiring
together or sharing secrets.
Curiosity
killed the cat – according to Wiki this is an Irish
proverb. It's meant to warn of the
dangers of unnecessary experimentation. I was reminded of this by a TV ad for
cat food where the tag line was 'feed their curiosity'. In my experiences cats are both curious and
good at staying alive. It is possible
that originally the saying was 'care killed the cat' – care, as in worry.
I haven't seen some of your other posts on this but after reading this one, I bet they're really good. My unusual phrase is 'win hands down'. I don't know if you've got it already but it means to do something without a lot of effort!
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