Many English speakers do n’t give much thought to the phrase they use on a regular base . Some common saying havesilly backstories , while others aremore disturbing than they seemout of context . From intoxication to war , here are the dark origins behind everyday set phrase that may be part of your vocabulary .
1. Mad as a Hatter
The phrasemad as a hattermay sound whimsical , but it refer to a serious aesculapian condition that once plagued the hatmaking industry . In the 18th and 19th centuries , fur felt(which is more indestructible and lightweight than wool felt ) for chapeau was made by process animate being hide with quicksilver nitrate . worker let out to this toxic substance over meter developed symptoms such as shudder , speech problems , hallucination , and mental and emotional instability . The popularity of the phrasemad as a hattershows how widespread the ailment were , but mercury continue to be used in hatmaking into the 20th century . The U.S. officially banish it from felt production in the forties .
2. Riding Shotgun
Today , riding shotgunsimply means sit down in the passenger seat of a fomite , butaccording to How Stuff Works , that spot came with freehanded responsibility on stagecoaches in the Wild West . If a coach was transmit something worthful , the person who sat beside the driver might be tasked with fending off potential thieves and groundless animals with a genuine shotgun . Although the concept originated in the Old West , the phraseriding shotgunitself was n’t used wide until the twentieth hundred — after occasionally popping up in newspapers , then often in Hollywood Westerns , until it got its less - violent version that apply to car travel .
3. Take It With a Grain of Salt
Today , if someone tells you to take information “ with a grain of salt , ” you should be sceptical of its veracity . The blood of the phrase is a flake muddy : According to one possibility , the phrase was meant literally when it come along in a troubling linguistic context in 77 CE . Greek writer Pliny the elderberry bush included the words “ addito salis grano ” in his translation of an antidote for poison . The transit from his treatiseThe Natural Historyreads :
This is one potential explanation for why we say to take something " with a cereal of salt , " but experts dissent on when the musical phrase as we bonk it today first come out . According toMerriam - Webster , food grain of saltwas first used in its innovative , idiomatical sense in 1647 .
4. Drinking the Kool-Aid
The origin of this saying , mean " following the crowd , " comes from theJonestown massacre . OnNovember 18 , 1978 , over 900 member of the Peoples Temple movement died in a mass self-annihilation event that involved a yield - flavored beverage lace with cyanide and other drug . The execution - self-annihilation orchestrated by cult leader Jim Jones is consider one of the deadliestnon - natural catastrophesin U.S. account . ( Though the tragedy take up place in Guyana , the majority of the dupe were American citizens . )
Today , drink the Kool - Aidcan be give to anyone who blindly hug a mathematical group or trend , especially if it ’s to their hurt , but there are a couple of reasons you shouldrethink using the phrase . In addition to being in hapless taste , it ’s not exact : The victims at Jonestown actually drank an off - brand powdery drinkable called Flavor Aid , leading to one of the more inauspicious case of brand name generalization of all time .
5. Meet a Deadline
The worddeadlinewas entail to be taken literally in the nineteenth 100 . During the Civil War , a dead line mark the boundarysurrounding a prison — sometimes in the shape of a ditch or line in the stain . absorbed soldiers who scotch it risked getting shot . After the state of war , the term rent on less serious logical implication . Coming up against a deadline is n’t exactly a worthy situation today , but you wo n’t be killed for handing in your terminus paper late .
6. Bite the Bullet
Someone is unremarkably distinguish to " prick the bullet " before push through something unpleasant . Centuries ago , that something unpleasant was considerably more painful than a plaguy chore or inconvenient meeting . harmonise to one hypothesis , the phrase grow with wounded soldier undergoing operating theatre on the field of battle without anesthesia ; they were impart something solid but pliant to sting down on , like a bullet , which prevented them from crying out in painfulness or burn their tongue . But some have cast dubiousness on this theory , aim to a lack of evidence and the fact that surgeons hadleather strapsin their kit for patients to bite down on .
An alternative origin story applies the same musical theme to victims of whipping . In the definition of the slang termnightingalein his 1796 bookA Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue , English lexicographer Francis Grose cite soldiers who would " chew a bullet " while being flog :
Punishments by flogging and surgeries without anaesthesia are thankfully less common today , but the expression has stuck around .
7. Hot Shot
Ahot shotis a ( typically untried ) person who has an annoying habit of flaunting their success . to begin with , the terminus described a special type ofcannonballhurled at foeman . live shotswere heat up up on heart-to-heart grates or in furnaces for the aim of setting opposing ships on fire . Because the blood-red - hot iron globe could ignite gunpowder easily , they had to be handled with extreme tending and attainment .
8. Show Your True Colors
The phraseshow your dead on target colorsoriginated on the high seas . To gain the faith of an foe vas , war vessel used to take down their signal flag and fly the colors of a unlike country — also known asfalse colour . Once they came within firing range of a function , the mask ship would flip flags , thus “ demonstrate its true colors . ” Pirate ship were known to employ thesame trickto get stuffy to the vessels they point . Now the same expression is implement to people who behave in deceitful ways to get what they desire before reveal their true nature .
