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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 us at Our American Stories and we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your stories,

send them to us at our American Stories.com.

There's some of our favorites.

And up next, we continue with our recurring series about the curious origins of everyday sayings.

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

slice from his ultimate guide to understanding these many mysteries of the English language.

In a nutshell means concisely or in a few words, you might say to someone, just tell me in a nutshell.

And it's said to originate from the ancient story described in 17 AD by the Roman scholar Pliny the elder. The story goes that

the philosopher Cicero witnessed a copy of Homer's epic poem, The Iliad, written onto a piece of

parchment and enclosed into the shell of a walnut.

Obviously this is impossible, but it is believed that important documents were folded

and inserted into walnut shells and bound so that they were waterproof and could be taken

long distances without damaging them. Shakespeare referred to the expression in his

1603 play Hamlet and that immortalised the expression.

Inner shambles means a state of complete disorder or ruin, and it derives from the open-air meat sellers of medieval times.

The word shambles derives from the old English word meaning footstool which came from the Latin word meaning small bench.

Most towns at that time in England had streets designated to a single type of vendor.

There were streets for grocers, streets were breadsellers, butchers,

who all offered their wares from streetside work benches. These streets were known as shambles,

but it was the butchers that became particularly associated with the term. As they were supplied

directly by the slaughterhouses, the meat shambles were renowned for being a complete mess of blood

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