Popular "sayings" that make no sense

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by witty

Maybe some of you southern folks may have heard this one... "more *blank* than carter has liver pills..."

My grandmother says it. Makes no sense.

Carter's Little Liver Pills is a brand name...it's a laxative.

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by mkl

You were lied to. That isn't the origin of "rule of thumb". There has never been anything in english common law saying that. It is however, a common misconception that this is where that saying came from. It is thought that rule of thumb just refers to the practice of estimating distance using something common to measure with, a thumb.

I wasn't lied to. I have seen the law that includes this in New Zealand. It was only removed from NZ law books in the 1980s. It doesn't specifically mention thumbs, but this is what the section of the Act was called in common parlance.

[mkl]

Originally Posted by witty

Maybe some of you southern folks may have heard this one... "more *blank* than carter has liver pills..."

My grandmother says it. Makes no sense.

There was a brand of very popular pills 1940s,1950s or so called "Carter's little liver pills". Since Carter sold so many of the pills, he must have had a lot of them. So it would be like saying "more *blank* than Borders has books" or something.

[mkl]

Originally Posted by Bebe

I wasn't lied to. I have seen the law that includes this in New Zealand. It was only removed from NZ law books in the 1980s. It doesn't specifically mention thumbs, but this is what the section of the Act was called in common parlance.

Pretty much everyone agrees that it isn't from that.

Rule of thumb

Rule of Thumb and Wife-Beating - Mostly a Myth

The Straight Dope: Does "rule of thumb" refer to an old law permitting wife beating?

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-rul1.htm


http://www.debunker.com/texts/ruleofthumb.html

http://www.canlaw.com/rights/thumbrul.htm

http://tafkac.org/language/etymology/rule_of_thumb.html

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~korenman/...leofthumb.html

http://www.ifeminists.net/introducti...519wilson.html

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/my...e_of_thumb.htm

[TeddyPicker]

The bee knees....? I've never gotten that one.

[mkl]

Originally Posted by TeddyPicker

The bee knees....? I've never gotten that one.

I like that one, and "the cat's pajamas".

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by mkl

Pretty much everyone agrees that it isn't from that.

Pretty much everyone from the web links you provided
It was used in New Zealand to refer to this law, until fairly recently too. Pretty much all the law professors at the university I taught at would disagree with the Straight Dope Digest

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by TeddyPicker

The bee knees....? I've never gotten that one.

I wonder if it has something to do with bees carrying pollen on their knees...?

[mkl]

Originally Posted by Bebe

Pretty much everyone from the web links you provided
It was used in New Zealand to refer to this law, until fairly recently too. Pretty much all the law professors at the university I taught at would disagree with the Straight Dope Digest

That doesn't mean people didn't start recently (or within the last hundred years) referring to a new zealand law by that name, it just means the phrase "rule of thumb" did not START from a law about beating your wife. It is not the origin, it is something that came along afterward.

There are no credible sources that say this phrase came from beating your wife, and a ton (all of them that I could find) that say it wasn't.

And with that...a new phrase that applies ,
"to eat crow"

[Bebe]

Originally Posted by mkl

That doesn't mean people didn't start recently (or within the last hundred years) referring to a new zealand law by that name, it just means the phrase "rule of thumb" did not START from a law about beating your wife. It is not the origin, it is something that came along afterward.

There are no credible sources that say this phrase came from beating your wife, and a ton (all of them that I could find) that say it wasn't.

And with that...a new phrase that applies ,
"to eat crow"

Nup. I'm not eating crow. I stand by my explanation. You looked it up on the internet, I learned it/taught it at university. I trust my sources more than I trust you or wikipedia.

Brings up an interesting point tho. We are debating probably unknown origins. Almost any ancient saying has an unknown origin - they are just guessed at really.