The "I Bet You Didn't Know" thread...

The phrase "beat the rush" comes from an Alaskan coast guard cutter named "Richard Rush"

The Rush's record against poachers was so good that poachers would say "get there early to avoid the rush" when going to poach seals etc.

History: Sea Language washes ashore or Why beat the rush? « Coast Guard Compass

 

"Balls to the wall" referred to early aircraft throttle controls that were rods sticking out of instrument panel with round handles on them. They were pushed to the instrument panel(wall) for full throttle.

"Balls out" refers to the mechanical governors on old engines. There was vertical shaft that has some weights (usually round balls) on levers that moved further out as engine speed increased. Running "balls out" meant running at high engine speed with the balls flung as far out as they would go.

 

Licking the back of a standard US postal stamp will yield .003 calories. Not the peel&stick kind, though.

 

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be
right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.

 

The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan." There was never a recorded Wendy before.

 

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.

 

Some American Colloquialisms their origins! In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs;" therefore, painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence, the expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."

 

1. Money isn't made out of paper; it's made out of cotton.
2. The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottle represents the varieties of pickle the company once had.
3. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks -otherwise it will digest itself.
4. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
5. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
6. Every person has a unique tongue print.
7. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
8. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was albino.
9. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
10. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
11. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
12. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.
13. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
14. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
15. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
16. American Airlines saved $40,000 in '87 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
17. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

 

Three Sheets To The Wind

Among nautical folks, a "sheet" refers to the rope used to secure a ship's sail.

On the square-rigged ships of yore, three sheets were needed to tie up the sails. So, if all three of the ship's sheets were loose in the wind, the sail would flop about and the ship would go off course -- rather like a drunken sailor staggering around on shore.

"Three sheets in the wind" was first recorded in 1821 by Pierce Egan in his work "Real Life in London." In those days, sailors had a rating system for their inebriation. "One sheet" was merely tipsy, and it went up to "four sheets," meaning unconscious.

 

Some good ones that I hadn't heard before.

There are no clocks in any casinos!

 

More nautical stuff

Batten Down the Hatch

'Hatch' is one of those words with dozens of meanings in the dictionary. In this case we are looking at the 'opening in the deck of a ship' meaning. Ships' hatches, more formally called hatchways, were commonplace on sailing ships and were normally either open or covered with a wooden grating to allow for ventilation of the lower decks. When bad weather was imminent, the hatches were covered with tarpaulin and the covering was edged with wooden strips, known as battens, to prevent it from blowing off. Not surprisingly, sailors called this 'battening down'.
The above was explained, probably better than I just have, in the definitive record of history of nautical language, Admiral W H Smyth’s 1867 encyclopaedia The Sailor’s Word Book. He calls it 'battening of the hatches' but it is clearly the same expression:

“Battens of the hatches: Long narrow laths serving by the help of nailing to confine the edges of the tarpaulins, and keep them close down to the sides of the hatchways in bad weather.”

The earliest reference to this practice known of is in William Falconer's An Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 1769:

The battens serve to confine the edges of the tarpaulings close down to the sides of the hatches.​

​

 

Slush Fund

The word 'slush' was coined in 17th century England as the name for half-melted snow and is first referred to in print with that meaning in Henry Best's Rural Economy in Yorkshire, 1641. Of course, that's where the name Slushies, the part-frozen flavoured drinks, came from.
A century later, there was an alternative meaning of 'slush', or 'slosh', which was the fat or grease obtained from meat boiled on board ship. That invaluable guide The Gentleman's Magazine, 1756, referred to it like this:

He used much slush (the rancid fat of pork) among his victuals.​

William Thompson made it sound even less appetising in The Royal Navy-men's Advocate, 1757:

Tars whose Stomachs are not very squeamish, can bear to paddle their Fingers in stinking Slush.​

Despite it not being the apex of culinary delight it was considered a perk for ships' cooks and crew and they sold the fat that they gathered from cooking meat whenever they reached port. This perquisite became known as a 'slush fund' and the term joins the numerous English phrases that first saw the light of day at sea.

 

Some things you may not know about your dog:

1. Dogs see in color, not black and white. It has long been thought that dogs only saw in black and white, but that is not the case. Dogs see in color, but the color spectrum appears different to their eyes. Dogs are thought to have dichromatic vision and are not able to see colors from green to red. Dogs see the color in various shades of yellow and blue.

2. Dogs do not see as far as humans. A human with normal eyesight can see clearly up to 75 feet. A dog can see the same detail at 25 feet. A dog's vision would compare to 20/75 in humans.

3. Dogs have better night vision that humans do. Dogs can see in dim light much better than humans. Dogs are able to see objects and detect motion in dim light much better.

4. Dogs with ears that stick straight up and are pointed have better hearing than dogs that have flaps down over their ears. This is because the flaps block the vibrations which dogs detect.

5. Dogs have a higher body temperature than humans. The average body temperature of a dog is 101 to 103 degrees F. the higher body temperature is the reason that fleas are attracted to your dog instead of you.

6. Dogs only have sweat glands in their footpads. Dogs don't perspire, which is why they don't have efficient cooling systems and can overheat in closed places, such as cars, on hot days.

7. Dogs are pack animals. They view their human as the leader of the pack.

8. Dogs have very sensitive hearing. Their sensitive hearing is partly attributed to sound frequencies and vibrations. Not only can dogs can hear sounds at a great distance than humans, they can also detect from which direction the sound is coming.

9. Thunderstorms have sound frequencies that can hurt dogs' ears. The fear that your dog shows at the start of a thunderstorm may actually be a reaction to pain.

10. A dog's sense of smell is said to be one thousand times more sensitive than human beings.