Pointless post

I was telling someone today that they could "talk the hind legs off a donkey", then I thought later what it actually meant.  As Google is everyones smartes friend I decided to look it up.

I'm sure you've heard the expression... 'a sea change.' Apparently we have Bill Shakespeare to thank for that. It means a radical, and apparently mystical, change. Not so much mystical these days.

 

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell

 

Bill was responsible for more than anyone else apparently. Here’s but a few.

 

A sorry sight.

All that glitters is not gold.

As dead as a door nail. [Donkins nicked that for ‘A Christmas carol'

As pure as the driven snow.

Eaten out of house and home.

Fair play.

Foul play.

Green eyed monster.

I have not slept one wink.

 

And millions more.

 

Here’s a nautical one.

 

'Between the Devil and the deep blue sea'

Meaning

In difficulty, between two dangerous alternatives.

Origin

The phrase was originally 'Between the Devil and the deep sea'. The sea turned blue much later and the phrase became well-known via the title of a popular song. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea was written by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen, and recorded by Cab Calloway in 1931, although that version of the phrase may have been circulating earlier.

Cut and paste

Meaning... Martin has been on Google again.

Smell the cheese

Meaning... I've just guffed and I want you to enjoy it

'Raining cats and dogs'
In olden times dogs and cats might sleep in the upper loft area within the thatch of the roof. When rain was heavy the thatch bacames slippery and the pets would sometimes fall into the thresh or straw on the floor. Hence raining cats and dogs. Incidentally, that thresh was kept from spilling out into the street by means of a bar running across the floor between the door-posts, hence the name "threshold".
And in that house of old, on bathnight Fridays, the man of that house, dirty from his toils of the week would wash himself in the bathtub, then kindly allow his wife to bathe in those murky waters. She, having finished would allow the eldest child to partake of the bath and so on down the ranks until eventually the youngest offspring benefitted from the human soup of mud that ensued. The baby would have been well hidden in that murk, so hence the saying "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water".
'Freeze the balls off a brass monkey'
Meaning the "monkey" or stand on which cannon balls were piled. As the temperatures dropped, the balls contracted (come on fellas we've all suffered that) and dropped from the monkey.
There are a few more, but I cant remember them right now.