Old Sayings and What They Really Mean

Old sayings today can lose some of their meaning since many common practices and forms of technology change to make certain terms obsolete. There was a time when many of the old sayings would have been brought into focus by the acts of doing them. But, those days have mostly passed. Here are some of those phrases that many people today take for granted, but which were once rooted in real activities and terms that have since vanished from our collective vocabulary.

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

If you get to something right away the problem doesn’t have a chance to get bigger. But, if you delay your task might have grown in the meantime. There was a time when clothing repairs were done by hand and so the time it took to save a few stitches was well worth it, especially when most people had larger families and the mending pile could be quite large. This phrase dates back the the 1700s.

It’ll All Come Out in the Wash

Whatever seems to big to deal with right now will most likely will get better with time if you just do your thing. Back in the day laundry was the analogy, but this applies in any era. Simply letting time pass often quashes some problems.

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Gravy

This old adage maintains that you can’t have everyone giving their inout or else the enterprise becomes too confusing, muddied, and the mission unclear. Lasagna wouldn’t taste like lasagna if you put all the spices in the cupboard in the sauce! Likewise it simply isn’t practical to take every single person’s opinion into account.

Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels

Always inspect anything you get from someone else, lest you accept something worthless. There was a time when “dummy” coins were actually in circulation though, so getting illegal coin tender back at a store was not completely out of the question. It became less profitable to make fake coins as inflation and electronic payments have made them almost obsolete. However some account’s hold that wooden nickels were only ever made as souvenirs, not as counterfeits intended to fool the public.

Don’t Buy Pig in a Poke

The poke in this phrase refers to a sack, meaning the pig is hidden from the potential buyer. Basically the saying warns you to always inspect what you’re buying. This saying dates back to at least 1555, a time in which pigs were often brought to market in bags, otherwise known as pokes.

You’re the Bee’s Knees

I’m not even sure if bees have knees as you and I would think of them. But, this kooky saying was meant as a compliment. This saying was popular in the 1920s when Prohibition made getting an alcoholic beverage next to impossible. Good mixed drinks were even rarer and the bee’s knees was a lemon, gin, honey cocktail which sounds pretty darn good. No wonder the phrase means you think someone is the best!

Hang Up on Someone

There was a time when if you wanted to suddenly and angrily let someone know you were mad at them you could slam down the phone on the receiver, ending the phone call. Not only would the person on the other end of the line hear that you had slammed the phone down, everyone in your immediate vicinity in your house or office could, too. It was usually quite satisfying!

We still use the phrase today, but it has honestly lost all the power behind it since we use our touch screens to end calls and there’s nothing to physically hang up.

Doesn’t Cut the Mustard

According to some accounts this phrase stems from when mustard plants were actually cut using scythes and if these cutting tools weren’t sharp enough, well they simply wouldn’t cut the cut mustard. Even though scythes are long out of use now, the phrase has stuck around and everyone seems to understand what it means without having ever witnessed the harvest of mustard fields being done by hand.