by Don Voorhees
Start the ball rolling evolved from the game of croquet and the fact that the first person to go had the best chance of winning.
Cash on the barrelhead comes from early frontier saloons, where drinks might have been served on the top of a barrel in lieu of a bar proper. Patrons had to pay in advance by putting their cash on the barrelhead.
Gung ho is an expression used by the Chinese to synchronize the movements of workers on large projects. Early European visitors to China picked up on the expression and the enthusiasm it appeared to inspire in the workers.
Pipe dream came to mean a delusional idea during the late 1800s when England was flooded with opium from the Orient. Its smokers often had grand and confused thoughts.
Clip joint dates back to the time when coins were made of precious metals that could be shaved or clipped around the edges by unscrupulous merchants. The addition of milled edges put an end to this practice.
Go haywire comes from a new hay-baling machine patented in 1828 by Moses Bliss. The contraption bound bales of hay in wire. Ofttimes the machine malfunctioned, tangling up workers and horses.
At loose ends comes from the practice on sailing ships for the crew to be given the busywork of securing/taping the loose ends of the numerous ropes on board when things were slow.
Make ends meet also comes from the sailing ships of old. Some sails had fixed ropes attached that had to be joined at the ends when they snapped. As the two halves got a little shorter in the process, this was accomplished with some difficulty.
A pretty penny is an expression rooted in the minting of a beautiful English gold piece in 1257 by Henry III. Its twenty-shilling value made it inconvenient for trade at the time, and it did not gain acceptance. As not many were minted, they became valuable, and people believed them to be good luck pieces.
Selling like hotcakes comes from the benefits put on by ladies’ aid societies on the American frontier. They pan-fried corn hotcakes that were extremely popular and sold out quickly.
Blackball came into the language when clubs and societies held secret ballots to pick new members. Voting consisted of white balls for yes and black balls for no, which were placed in a hat. Often, just one black ball was enough to scuttle a candidate.
Boner, meaning mistake, comes from the idea that stupid people have heads full of bones, not brains.
Lay an egg comes from the inscrutable game of cricket where they say “you scored a duck’s egg” if no points are scored.
Pull a fast one comes from baseball in the 1920s, when to get himself out of a jam a pitcher would suddenly throw a pitch of much greater velocity than he had been throwing.
Roger came to mean “yes” and “I understand” from the British pilots of the Royal Air Force. In radio communications, instead of saying “received,” they used the first letter of the word, “r,” which was “roger” in the radio alphabet of the time.
Ballpark estimate comes from the early days of baseball, when team owners didn’t announce the size of the crowd and sportswriters just had to make an estimate.
Skid row originated from the early logging industry in the United States. Logs were dragged out of the forest to the nearest road on paths lined with wooden skids. In adjoining towns, a street with run-down buildings was known as a skid row by the loggers.
Whole hog dates back to the time of the Crusaders, who noticed that the Muslims they encountered would not eat pork, but would use a pig’s bristles for brushes and its skin for water containers. The Europeans wondered why they didn’t go “whole hog” and enjoy its meat as well.
Go to pot arose from the practice of throwing leftover bones and meat bits into a pot for stew after the good meat was eaten.
Stool pigeons were tame birds or decoys that were tied to stools in hopes of luring other birds close enough to shoot. In a way, these stool pigeons betrayed their brethren.
Dead as a doornail is thought to have originated from the heavy metal knockers used to pound on metal plates nailed on doors.
Wisdom teeth come in when one reaches adulthood and presumably is wiser than in youth.
When the Transcontinental Railroad was being built, it went through vast stretches of uninhabited land. To service the workers on the line, railcars filled with prostitutes followed and came to be called hell on wheels.
Over a barrel is where people about to be whipped were tied in early America.
Orders at sea were given by sounding the boatswain’s pipe. When sailors were to go belowdecks and retire for the evening, they were piped down.
Cloth made and dyed blue in Coventry, England, stayed colorfast, or true. Hence the expression true blue for steadfast.
In medieval times, cannon tubes were held together with metal staves, such as those used on a barrel. This is the origin of the term gun “barrel.”
Occasion, accommodate, maintenance, fiery, embarrassed, restaurant, vacuum, separate, recommend, and yes, misspell, are some of the most commonly misspelled words.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank my editor, Jeanette Shaw, for overseeing this wonderful series of useless information that the world so desperately needs. Also, I’d like to thank copyeditor Rick Willett for so thoroughly checking the myriad facts in this book, and Sarah Romeo for designing such a “magical” cover. As always, many thanks to my extraordinary literary agent, Janet Rosen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Don Voorhees is the author of eleven books of trivia. A New Jersey native, he lives near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Lisa, and two children, Eric and Dana.
He is always on the lookout for those tidbits of not-so-important information that his readers crave.