°•°hidden meanings in old phrases°•°



1. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by  ropes.    When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed   firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came   from.


   2. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Uses   every letter in the alphabet.  (developed by Western Union to test   telex/twx    communications


   3.   The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year    because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the    weight of all the books that would occupy the building.


   4.    The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the    Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the ..50 caliber    machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded   into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got   "the whole 9 yards."


   5.    The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which    stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your    thumb.


   6.   The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for  the    "General Purpose" vehicle, GP.


   7.   The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver."


   8.  It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a    month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law    with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their    calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or    what we know today as the "honeymoon."


   9.  In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old    England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them    to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the    phrase" mind your P's and Q's."


   10.    Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked     into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill,     they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the     phrase inspired by this practice.


~~~Do you have any interesting trivia for us. We love the really good stuff...Send some my way soon.....WEB-UPLIFTER@webtv.net