You can use these expressions origins puzzles and answers to illustrate
the ever-changing complexity of language and communications, for a competitive
team building game or exercise quiz, or as light relief in a training session
or meeting. The puzzles questions are on the cliches and expressions origins section, where
you'll find many more origins, derivations and meanings for words, cliches and
expressions.
Original meanings and derivations for words and expressions:
scuba (diving) - it's an acronym for 'self-contained
underwater breathing apparatus'.
biscuit (snack food) - from the Latin and French 'bis'
(twice) and 'cuit' (baked), because this is how biscuits were originally made,
ie., by cooking twice. The term is found also in pottery and ceramic glazing
for the same reason.
sold down the river (exploited or betrayed for profit) - from
the American slave trade 1620-1863, and particularly during the 1800's, after
the abolition of the slave trade across the Atlantic and the increasing
resistance against slavery in the northen USA, slaves were literally 'sold down
the river' (typically The Mississippi) to the cotton producing heartlands of
the southern states.
put a sock in it (shut up) - from the days before electronic
hi-fi, when wind-up gramophones (invented in 1887) used a horn to amplify the
sound from the needle on the record; the common way to control or limit the
volume was to put a sock on the horn, thus muting the sound. The practice was
still common in the 1930's.
red tape (bureaucracy) - from the middle-to-late English
custom for lawyers and government officials to tie documents together with red
tape. The term was first used metaphorically to describe official formality by
Charles Dickens (1812-70).
hip hip hooray (three cheers) - originally in common use as
'hip hip hurrah'; derived from the middle ages Crusades battle-cry 'Hieroslyma
est perdita' (Jerusalem is fallen), and subsequently shortened by Germanic
tribes when fighting Jews to 'hep hep', and used in conjunction with 'hu-raj'
(a Slavic term meaning 'to paradise'), so that the whole phrase meant
'Jerusalem is fallen and we are on the way to paradise'.
hat-trick (three scores/wickets/wins) - from the game of
Cricket in 18-19th century, when it was customary to award a bowler who took
three consecutive wickets a new hat at the expense of the club. The word
'trick' has meant a winning set of three, particularly in card games, for
hundreds of years.
velcro (cloth fastener) - velcro was invented in 1954 by
George de Mestrel, having been inspired by Alpine burdock burrs which stick to
cloth; he named the nylon fastening after velours crochet , French for 'velvet
hook'.
bury the hatchet (agree to stop arguing) - from the native
American Indian custom, as required by their spirit gods, of burying all
weapons out of sight while smoking the peace pipe.
scot free (escape without punishment) - scot free (originally
'skot free') meant 'free of taxes', particularly tax due from a person by
virtue of their worth. One who avoided paying their tax was described as 'skot
free'. 'Scot and lot' was the full English term for this levy which applied
from 12th to 18th century. Scot was derived from the Norse 'skot', meaning tax
due from a tenant to his landlord; 'lot' meant the amount allotted. Less
significantly, a 'skot' was also a slate in Scottish pubs onto which customers'
drinks debts were recorded; drinks that were free were not chalked on the slate
and were therefore 'skot free'. In the USA, the expression was further
consolidated by the story of Dred Scott, a slave who achieved freedom,
presumably towards the end of the slavery years in the 19th century, by
crossing the border fom a 'slave state' into a 'free state'.
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