Sayings

If your best friend sidles up to you and tells you that he or she is “as pleased as punch,” then you know that person is very pleased indeed. But how did this phrase come into being in the  first place?

For a lot of people these days, the job market is still a pretty gloomy affair. Temporary jobs, part-time work and freelancing have all been on the rise. Well, for those of you who make your bread and butter by freelancing, you can take heart. You’re in the company of proud, if somewhat immoral, warriors.

When you tell someone, “please pardon my French,” you are in fact apologizing for your offensive language. When French people speak French, they don’t say, “pardon my English” when they want to cuss someone out. So what’s going on here? Do the French have better curse words than we do?

When a parent, a boss, a co-worker or someone in a position of authority tells us that we have to ‘face the music,’ we know we’ve probably done something wrong, and now we’re in for a bit of trouble. Where on Earth does this expression come from, though?

When you say, “I’ll take a raincheck,” you’re telling someone that you can’t accept his or her offer or invitation now, but you’d be happy to accept it down the road. The phrase can also be used sarcastically, by letting someone know you’d prefer to delay something unpleasant until the future, or as a promise for out-of-stock goods. But how did this expression make it into our lexicon?