01-21-2009, 05:39 AM
Where did it come from
My wife “Barbara” came to me today and asked me where did the expression “gone to Hell in a hand basket” come from? I had to admit that I had no idea but have heard that saying all of my life.
We started talking about “where did it come from” and came up with a bunch that I know where. I’m willing to bet that Punaweb people have a lot of this very important knowledge,
for example:
“The cats out of the bag”
It’s an old maritime expression meaning, someone was about to get a lashing aboard the ship. The Chief Boatswain Mate would take his cat-of-nine-tails out of it’s storage bag on the Captain’s orders to implement a disciplinary action, say “twenty lashes” The crew knew what was about to happen and the word would spread “The cat is out of the bag”.
Another example:
“Freeze the balls off a brass monkey”
Again this comes from an old maritime expression. When we had navel war ships with cannon aboard the cannon balls were stacked in a pyramid fashion on top of a brass monkey as not to roll around the deck. This worked well as long as they were in fair weather, but when the temp. went really freezing cold, brass monkey base plates and steel cannon balls would expand and contract at different rates and the cannon balls would rolling around the deck, hence the saying, “freeze the balls off a brass monkey”
Barbara would love to hear your expression and the explanation of where it came from.
The Lack
My wife “Barbara” came to me today and asked me where did the expression “gone to Hell in a hand basket” come from? I had to admit that I had no idea but have heard that saying all of my life.
We started talking about “where did it come from” and came up with a bunch that I know where. I’m willing to bet that Punaweb people have a lot of this very important knowledge,
for example:
“The cats out of the bag”
It’s an old maritime expression meaning, someone was about to get a lashing aboard the ship. The Chief Boatswain Mate would take his cat-of-nine-tails out of it’s storage bag on the Captain’s orders to implement a disciplinary action, say “twenty lashes” The crew knew what was about to happen and the word would spread “The cat is out of the bag”.
Another example:
“Freeze the balls off a brass monkey”
Again this comes from an old maritime expression. When we had navel war ships with cannon aboard the cannon balls were stacked in a pyramid fashion on top of a brass monkey as not to roll around the deck. This worked well as long as they were in fair weather, but when the temp. went really freezing cold, brass monkey base plates and steel cannon balls would expand and contract at different rates and the cannon balls would rolling around the deck, hence the saying, “freeze the balls off a brass monkey”
Barbara would love to hear your expression and the explanation of where it came from.
The Lack