HISTORY'S GREATEST IDIOMS

1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries Podcast

Jon Hagadorn

Society & Culture, History

4.4 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Idiom- A group of words established by usage as having a mean not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g. It's raing cats and Dogs!)

There is one explicit idiom - Kick the Bucket- which follows "Laughing Stock"- it is not suitable for children- there is an audible warning before that piece begins.

We hear uncommon or old expressions, many of them idioms, all the time in everyday language. Their origins can often be very interesting- so I wanted to share some of them with you.

In this episode (in order): Making ends meet~Mind your own beeswax~Turn a blind eye~Caught red-handed~Gaslighting~Buckle down~Back to square one~Knock on wood~The laughing stock~Kick the bucket~You've stolen my thunder!~Break a leg~Pie in the sky~A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush~Let's paint the twon red~That will cost me an arm and a leg~The writings on the wall~He let the cat out of the bag~Don't look a gift horse in the mouth~Its raining cats and dogs.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Hi everyone and welcome back to
0:33.4	one, heroes, legends, histories and mysteries podcast.
0:37.8	This is your host, John Hagadorn, and it's great to be with you today.
0:41.5	I had a challenge picking a title for this story and
0:45.0	finally picked History's Greatest Idioms. Some of you might be asking,
0:49.5	What is an Idiom? Idioms is a word we don't hear often, but idioms we hear all the time, not to be confused with idiot.
0:59.0	The dictionary defines idiom has a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from
1:05.5	those of the individual words. For instance, it's raining cats and dogs, cut to the chase,
1:12.1	or spill the beans. The actual meaning has nothing to do with the
1:16.4	words we're hearing. All idioms have a history attached to them and that's
1:21.0	what interests me. How they came to be is often a pretty good story.
1:26.0	Idioms come to us in lots of ways from reading, in conversation, in listening to others talking,
1:32.0	but one of my favorite recollections of hearing some
1:35.1	interesting idioms comes from the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia.
1:40.2	Most of you know about Williamsburg.
1:42.4	Once the colonial capital of the Virginia colony from 1699 to 1789,
1:47.8	and now wonderfully restored to around 1774-5, no doubt the largest and most accurate restoration in our country.
1:56.0	It's a huge tourist destination these days.
1:59.0	The Raleigh Tavern, when I was last there, not only offers a very tasty colonial era menu,
2:05.8	but period players who play instruments and sing while strolling the dining area,
2:10.7	and sometimes they stop to talk and share conversation.
2:14.0	That was where I first heard with the expression
	...

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