This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show,

including your stories, send them to Our American Stories.com. They're some of our favorites.

Up next, we continue with our recurring series about the curious origins of everyday sayings,

the stories behind them.

Here to join us again is Andrew Thompson as he continues to share another slice

from his ultimate guide to understanding these mini mysteries, these

many stories of our precious English language.

A nest egg is savings that are set aside for later use, which a person tries to add

to.

And that phrase has been used from as early as the 14th century in England.

In those days before commercial

factory chicken farming, chickens would lay their eggs in nests in a coop. As a means of giving

the chickens hope and encouraging them to lay more eggs, farmers used to place a porcelain or china

egg in the nest or the coop area. The dummy egg was known as a nest egg and did often

induce the chickens to be more productive.

The expression then came to mean someone's financial savings by the late 1600s.

In the nick of time means without a second to spare and it began in England in the Middle Ages.

At that time during team games there'd be a tally man

to keep score. He would carry a tally stick and each time a team scored he would carve

a small nick or notch or groove into the stick. If the winning nick was added just before

the end of the match it was known as the nick in time. The expression later became known as in the nick of time.

19 to the dozen means to be going at a very fast pace and it originated in the Cornish copper and tin

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