The phrase, “As Good Luck Would Have It”, is attributed to Shakespeare who coined many phrases that we use today. It means by fortunate chance. The origin is from The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff speaking:
You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes
in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford’s
approach; and, in her invention and Ford’s wife’s
distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.
All things must pass isn’t about colon cleanse reviews, but does mean that nothing lasts forever. The origin of the phrase is again the King James Bible from Matthew 24:6-8:
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
The phrase was used by George Harrison for the title of his 1970 album.
A drop in the bucket is a phrase that is interpreted to mean a very small portion of the whole. The origin is actually the King James Bible:
“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” – Isaiah 40:15
Unfortunately, the origin of the term malarkey, meaning nonsense, is something of a mystery. Some think it originated from the Greek word “malakia” meaning soft. I found these interesting stories, but they are probably a bunch of malarkey!
The Mullarky clan in County Clare in Ireland were wealthy land owners with typical serf-tenants of the era (mid 1800’s). They paid their tenants in “Estate Script” which was paper money that could be spent locally. When the Great Potato Famine hit, the Mullarkys just kept issuing this script even though it rapidly became worthless due to the falling fortunes of the clan. Eventually the script was “just a lot of Mullarky,” said with the same scorn as “Confederate Money” in the USA during the Civil War. Something worthless…ridiculous…too silly to be considered. The phrase was carried to the US by the flood of Irish immigrants during the famine. After the famine eased in Ireland, the phrase died out fairly quickly, except in the US.
Both of these stories are based in New York.
One is the story of a fish seller named Malarkey. The story goes that this fellow would display on salted ice, the nice fresh fish, and when the lady of the house made a purchase, he would bag up a rotten old fish from the underside of the fish cart. Upon reaching her home she would open the package only to discover that evening’s dinner was not fit to eat. And thus was born “a bunch of Malarkey.”
The second story involved a cop named Malarkey walking a beat in Old New York. He apparently was assigned to a rural area, where, frankly not much of anything happened. So this fellow started to file false reports indicating that he had done this or that. Over time the tales of his exploits were exposed as false. Thus leading to the saying, “a bunch of Malarkey”.
Another:
Mullarkey was a leader of one of the many attempts to overthrow the English monarchy. He was a powerful orator and pamphleteer. To denigrate him, the English would refer to his writings and speeches as “that’s a lot of Mullarkey.”
Who knows what the true story is!
The term “dead as a doornail” was first seen in print in 1350, but was, perhaps, popularized by William Shakespeare in his play King Henry VI in 1590:
Brave thee! ay, by the best blood that ever was
broached, and beard thee too. Look on me well: I
have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and
thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead
as a doornail, I pray God I may never eat grass more.
But why compare death to a doornail. Doornails are large nails. The nails were hammered through and then the protruding end was bent over to secure it. After a doornail was used once, it could not be taken and used due to the bending of the nail. Thus, a doornail would be dead (or not usable) a second time.
Many years ago, kitchen sinks were often made of porcelain. During World War II, people were often asked to contribute to the war effort by turning in any scrap metal for the US Arsenal. Excluded from this list were porcelain kitchen sinks. Thus the phrase, “everything but the kitchen sink”, to mean almost everything that you have.
What are the first two degrees anyway? The term “the third degree” is often associated with interrogation, but actually originated in Freemasonry. The Third Degree is actually the highest rank in Freemasonry and to reach this level, one must submit to questioning.
Around the beginning of the 20th century, the term was applied to police questioning.
The term “Dollars to Doughnuts” alludes to odds in a bet. Dollars versus doughnuts that are worth far less than a dollar. The phrase first appeared in print in the Daily Nevada State Journal in 1876:
Several Benoites took a vantage of the half fare tickets offered to those who were to attend the ball given by the railroad boys at Carson last night, and attended it. It’s dollars to doughnuts all enjoyed themselves.
Also used is the term “Dollars to Buttons” since buttons were worth far less than a dollar.
If you have ever had a Charley’s Horse, you might have wondered where the term came from. Charles I of England, in 1640, decided to expand the London police force. The new recruits were nicknamed Charleys. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough money to provide the new recruits with horses, so instead they had to patrol on foot. They would joke that their sore fee and legs came from riding Charley’s horse – walking all day.
Most of us know that “letting the cat out of the bag” means to reveal a secret. But how did this term come about. It seems that there was an old scam of selling young piglets in a bag and substituting a cat for the piglet, thus taking the buyer’s money who in turn would get a cat (and probably a feral one at that). If the cat was let out of the bag before the deal was closed, the scam would be revealed and the seller out any money.
