Idioms

Psychotic Neurotic · Posted: Thu 02nd Nov, 2006 7:01 pm Post subject: Idioms

I'd like to consult the council of wisdom on this 'ere site by asking:

Why when a bride has second thoughts is she said to have 'cold feet'?

If you know, tell me, if you have an i dea, put it forward.
Anyone else got any problems with common idioms? Post em!

Felixwah · Posted: Thu 02nd Nov, 2006 7:59 pm Post subject:

good post man i dont have a clue why its called cold feet. one that annoys me is why when parents have to tell there son or daughter about *** for the first time is called 'the birds and the bee's'?

Psychotic Neurotic · Posted: Thu 02nd Nov, 2006 9:40 pm Post subject:

Not sure man not sure, but i guess thats where the slang term 'bird' came from. Doesn't explain why each gender is each creature though

Felixwah · Posted: Thu 02nd Nov, 2006 10:59 pm Post subject:

hmmmmmmm HI 5 MR RACOON!!!

Tony Doodles · Posted: Mon 06th Nov, 2006 12:53 pm Post subject:

cold feet
Origin: 1894

At some time between the 1893 first edition and the 1896 second edition of his novel Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane added the earliest known instance of cold feet: "I knew this is the way it would be. They got cold feet."

The new slang term, referring to loss of courage or enthusiasm, appears also in George Ade's Artie, another novel of 1896: "'I see. He turned out to be a boodler [corrupt politician], eh?' 'I don't see no way o' gettin' past it. I like Jimmy. He's one o' them boys that never has cold feet and there's nothin' too good for a friend, but by gee, I guess when it comes to doin' the nice, genteel dip he belongs with the smoothest of 'em. And he learned it so quick, too. Ooh!'"

By the turn of the century, college students were getting cold feet too. A glossary of college terms published in 1901 includes this definition from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York: "'To get cold-feet in a subject,' abandon it for weariness."

In the West in the twentieth century it has also been possible to call a person cold-footed, as in an example from New Mexico, "you are cold-footed on this proposition of marriage." The term was noted by Elsie Warnock in her rhetoric classes in 1914-17 when she asked them to list twenty disparaging terms used in everyday speech.

The birds and the bees
"The birds and bees" means ***. It usually refers to explaining the phenomenon to a child in general terms (bees pollinating flowers; birds building nests and laying eggs)

I'm not convinced about "apple of my eye"....I mean, you what????

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