You will never imagine that there is such a story behind these English phrases

时间：2022-6-5 22:16:09 作者：雅信博文翻译

In the process of learning English, we need to constantly accumulate and memorize phrases or phrases in English. However, did you know that there are many phrases in English with stories behind them! What kind of stories do they have? Below, Shijiazhuang Yaxin Bowen Translation Company will reveal it for you, please join us to take a look!

1 "Fly by the seats of your pants"

Fly by the seats of your pants means doing things by feeling without a clear plan.

The phrase became popular after Douglas Corrigan flew 29 hours from Brooklyn to Dublin in 1938. Corrigan's application to fly across the Atlantic was rejected because his plane was deemed unfit for such a mission, and upon landing in Dublin, he said his compass was broken.

One mechanic said Corrigan "fly by the seats of your pants," an old flying term for flying without any instruments or radio. That phrase was used in the headline of the Edwardsville Herald in 1938 to describe Corrigan's unplanned flight.

2 "Mad as a hatter"

The meaning of "crazy", so why hatter? Because in those days, felt cloth was needed to make hats, and the production process of this felt cloth at that time used mercury. At that time, the industrial protection was poor, and the hatmaker became a little crazy in contact with mercury all day long, so there is this idiom. . This is the more popular origin of the idiom.

3 "Piss Poor"

This phrase means "especially poor, poor and scum". In ancient times, tanneries often soaked animal skins in urine, and those especially poor people sold their urine to tanneries, so they were called piss poor.

4 "Kick the bucket"

Kick the bucket literally means kicking the bucket, which is extended to death, death, and kicking. This is an idiom with a playful tone and cannot be used in written language.

This idiom is said to have originated in the 16th century. At that time, when a prisoner was executed, he had to stand on a bucket, put a noose around his neck, and then kick the bucket, the noose would tighten and the prisoner would be hanged. used in death of any cause.

Regarding the formation of this idiom, Bruwer explained in his "English Idiom Dictionary": "bucket" refers to "frame" or "yoke". In the past, every time a pig was killed, its hind legs were tied with ropes and pre-hanged on a wooden frame called a "bucket" equipped with pulleys. in preparation for transporting them upside down. And pigs will struggle to kick the bucket before dying. According to the principle of pulley lever, they will naturally hang upside down and slide forward in turn.

Feeling lonely and desperate in life , the penniless old hermit hoped that he would kick the bucket in a peaceful way .

Feeling lonely and hopeless about life, the penniless old hermit hopes to end his life in a peaceful way.

When I kick the bucket , bury me on top of that mountain .

Bury me on that hill when I kick my legs

5 "Bite the bullet"

To "bite the bullet" is to do something unpleasant. This idiom comes from the past when soldiers did not use anesthesia during surgery, they could only bite the bullet and endure the pain.

There is still debate as to whether this source is genuine or not. The phrase has been in use since 1796 and is always used to refer to having a stiff upper lip when doing something you don't want to do.

The researchers say this may come from a belief that people gain courage from biting bullets.

6 "Go doolally"

Doolally is an adjective used to describe someone who is insane, indicating that someone is mentally abnormal, insane, insane.

The origin of Doolally, it is said that some British soldiers stationed in India heard that they were about to withdraw and waited happily at the dock to return to their homeland. But the wait was too long, and after months of torment, the soldiers finally returned home by boat. However, the long-term mental torture turned many a soldier insane, and the word doolally was coined, and just like that, the new word doolally was born.

At first doolally was often used in "He's got the Doo-lally tap", but now we say "to go doolally" more. For example: My parents have suggested that I should move back home. I think they've gone doolally. In Australia people say "Calm down, don't do your lolly".

7 "It's raining cats and dogs"

You probably already know that rain cats and dogs means "to pour down rain", but do you know how the phrase came about? When it rains, it rains, how can cats and dogs fall from the sky? How does rain relate to cats and dogs? It turned out that the phrase first appeared in the 17th century, but its origin has not been verified. But it is now generally believed that its origin may be related to the underground drainage system used in the 17th century, when the drainage system used by people was very simple and the drainage capacity was extremely limited. Once it rained heavily, sewage from the underground drains would flow everywhere. With the sewage flowing out not only garbage, but all kinds of filth.

Sometimes even the corpses of small animals such as dead cats and dogs spread out with the sewage. So dogs and cats are associated with pouring rain, and people coined the phrase rain cats and dogs. It can be seen from this that rain cats and dogs does not mean that cats and dogs really fall from the sky, but because of the poor drainage caused by heavy rain, the dead cats and dogs in the sewer float to the ground with the sewage.

In addition, it has also been suggested that the phrase may have originated from the fact that whenever there is a storm, it looks like a cat and a dog are fighting. Some people think it comes from Norse mythology and legends. In northern Europe, people think that cats affect the weather changes, and dogs represent wind, so once it rains, cats and dogs are naturally inseparable.

8 "Win hands down"

Hands down, if the literal translation is to put down your hands. People often say: win hands down, imagine how easy it would be to win with your hands down.

This idiom came from horse racing more than a hundred years ago. When a rider feels that victory is in sight and that he can win without much effort, he tends to drop his hands, loosen the reins, and let the horse charge forward instead of having to continue to tighten the reins and whip the horse.

9 "Wear your heart on your sleeve"

If you have something glued to the sleeves of your clothes, everyone can see it. The expression to wear your heart on your sleeve is a famous sentence from Shakespeare's play "Othello", "But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve..." It means that a person is easy to reveal his feelings. That is to say, if you reveal your thoughts and feelings about something or someone, others are likely to take the opportunity to take advantage or bully you, then "exposing your feelings" becomes your weakness.

Example: One thing about Karl is that you don’t have to guess what he’s feeling. He always wears his heart on his sleeve. So you won’t have to guess if he really likes you or not.

If you wear your heart on your sleeve it’s easy for people to take advantage of you. Sometimes it’s better to keep your true feelings to yourself.

Note that the phrase to have something up your sleeve means that someone has a trick in the back, a secret trick to handle a difficult situation well.

10 "It's brass monkeys outside"

"frozen to death" means even the brass monkeys froze. Derived from 'Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey', the ship's cannon is placed on a brass structure called 'monkey', the brass meets extreme cold weather would shrink and cause the shell inside the cannon to fall off, hence the phrase.

‘You need to wear a coat today, it’s brass monkeys outside.’