Why Do.........................................

We call it Beef instead of Cow? Or Pork instead of Pig? Or Lamb instead of Sheep?

Fish are fish and when we eat them we still call it fish. Likewise with other meats, rabbit is called rabbit, duck is called duck, and chicken is still chicken...

So why are certain other meats called something entirely different than the animal they come from?

Why Do...we say..Beat around the bush !!

This saying came about when people used to hunt game. The birds were chased and scared out of their hiding place, normally a bush. They were then captured and killed. We now say don’t ‘beat around the bush’ meaning don’t procrastinate like the birds did when they hid.

Food for thought, It's good to know where these weird sayings come from, will have to see if I can find some more.

I might be having cow for dinner, but will have to see what gets puts before me later. x

The whole nine yards.

Meaning

All of it - full measure.

How was the phrase derived?

"The whole nine yards" crops up in many contexts, which isn't surprising, as there are many things that can be measured in linear, square or cubic yards - and there are also yard-arms, steelyards etc. to account for. This is the source of the variability of the many plausible, but of course mostly incorrect, explanations of the phrase's origin. Regrettably, plausibility doesn't get us very far, as the following will show. The early citations of the phrase don't in fact refer to yards of any particular material, just to a non-specific measure - 'yards'.

The most probable source of the phrase is the US military - that's where many early references to the phrase originate.

The earliest such military reference is from the 1960s, in Elaine Shepard's novel about the Vietnam War - The Doom Pussy (A narrative about the Vietnam War and the men who are fighting it). The book was first published in 1967 and recounts army life during the early 1960s.

The whole nine yards is used several times in the book, principally by the character Major 'Smash' Crandell. The first citation relates to his extracting himself from an unwanted marriage:

The story began when he had absent-mindedly gone through a wedding ceremony a couple of years before while snockered one Saturday night in San Francisco. Slipping out of the knot was expensive but Smash was eventually able to untangle what he called "the whole nine yards."

A later reference concerns a letter to a serviceman from a sweetheart, promising him comprehensive sexual favours when he gets back home. His response to this is:

God. The first thing in the early pearly morning and the last thing at night. Beds all over the gahdam house. The whole nine yards.

High on the hog
Meaning

Affluent and luxurious.

Origin

The source of this phrase is often said to be the fact that the best cuts of meat on a pig come from the back and upper leg and that the wealthy ate cuts from 'high on the hog', while the paupers ate belly pork and trotters. The imagery of lords and ladies feasting on fine meats, done to a turn, at Olde Englyshe banquets is easy to bring to mind and this seems to be the right context for the phrase to have been coined in. However, as far as the source of this expression goes, our imagination needs to leap forward a few centuries.

None of the variants of the phrase 'living (or eating) high on (or off) the hog' is to be found in any of the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare or the like. In fact, they aren't found in print in any form until the 20th century, and then in the USA rather than England.

'High' has been in used in the UK with the meaning 'impressive; superlative; exalted' since the 17th century and in the USA since the early 19th century. For example, this from Samuel Pepys Diary or, as he liked to call it, Samuel Pepys' Memoirs - Comprising his Diary, in the entry for 29th July 1667:

"Where it seems people do drink high."

The word alluded to people's status and is the source of the terms 'high-life' (18th century), 'high-table' (15th century) and even 'high-heaven' (9th century).

The idea that 'living high on the hog' initially meant 'living the high life' and eating pork, rather than literally 'eating meat from high on the pig', seems plausible but is dealt a blow by the following citation. This is the earliest printed form of the phrase that I have come across - from the New York Times, March 1920:

Southern laborers who are "eating too high up on the hog" (pork chops and ham) and American housewives who "eat too far back on the beef" (porterhouse and round steak) are to blame for the continued high cost of living, the American Institute of Meat Packers announced today.

'High off the hog' has a similar pedigree, i.e. mid 20th century USA. For example, the San Francisco paper the Call-Bulletin, May 1946:

I have to do my shopping in the black market because we can't eat as high off the hog as Roosevelt and Ickes and Joe Davis and all those millionaire friends of the common man.

An alternative suggestion, also originating in America, is that piglets who get suckled from the top row of teats of the prone mother sow tend to fare better. There are various explanations as to why the top row is considered more advantageous - either that the teats are easier to access there and so the 'top' piglets get more milk, or that the top row of teats express milk more easily. Either way, it seems that this explanation is what etymologists call a 'back-formation', i.e. it is a plausible story that is back fitted to provide a supposed derivation of an existing phrase. The explanation is only found in the late 20th century and, as it post-dates the phrase, appears to be spurious.

There is also a phrase of Irish descent - 'on the pig's back'. The imagery there is with happy children riding on pigs and generally having a good time. The phrase certainly predates the American 'cuts from high on the pig' meaning, but the connection with 'high on the hog' may be no more than coincidental. The expression took many years to travel outside Ireland and the Irish expatriate communities in Australia/New Zealand, and it is quite reasonable to accept that the two phrases developed independently.

Why, when people had eaten pork for millennia, did the phrase not originate before the 20th century, is a difficult question to answer. Nevertheless, 'high on the hog' appears to have been derived, in the USA, as a reference to the cuts of meat on pigs. The question of why the clunky idiom 'eating too far back on the beef' didn't quite catch on with the public is a little easier to resolve.

El_Guapo wrote:We call it Beef instead of Cow? Or Pork instead of Pig? Or Lamb instead of Sheep?

Fish are fish and when we eat them we still call it fish. Likewise with other meats, rabbit is called rabbit, duck is called duck, and chicken is still chicken...

So why are certain other meats called something entirely different than the animal they come from?

We eat beef because we don't eat cows, we eat castrated male (beef) cattle. Cows are for milking and making babies! When they die they go to feed pets and stuff and as fodder for the hunt pack (fallen stock)!

We eat lamb (one under 1 year old), usually castrated male sheep. You can get sheep meat (so called in Halal supermarkets) it's known as mutton and is usually a female (ewe) but also castrated males.

Pork is so called because the Latin porcus = "pig"

so in a way we are calling it pig.

[b]
I'll go to the foot of our stairs
Meaning

An exclamation of surprise.

Origin

This originated in the North of England. It did travel to others parts of the UK during the 20th century, but not much further, and is little known in other parts of the English-speaking world. It is now less used than previously, although it is still staple fare for any writer wishing to write a part for a stage northerner.

The foot of the stairs was en route to the lavatory, as was, in the days of the outside privy, the less well-known alternatives, 'the back of our house' and 'the bottom of our garden'. The implication of the speaker's destination suggests that the real meaning was 'I was so surprised that I soiled myself and need to visit the lavatory to clean up'.

Beyond that there's little more to tell. Exactly, when the phrase was coined and by whom, I don't know.

Alfie wrote:

El_Guapo wrote:We call it Beef instead of Cow? Or Pork instead of Pig? Or Lamb instead of Sheep?

Fish are fish and when we eat them we still call it fish. Likewise with other meats, rabbit is called rabbit, duck is called duck, and chicken is still chicken...

So why are certain other meats called something entirely different than the animal they come from?

We eat beef because we don't eat cows, we eat castrated male (beef) cattle. Cows are for milking and making babies! When they die they go to feed pets and stuff and as fodder for the hunt pack (fallen stock)!

We eat lamb (one under 1 year old), usually castrated male sheep. You can get sheep meat (so called in Halal supermarkets) it's known as mutton and is usually a female (ewe) but also castrated males.

Pork is so called because the Latin porcus = "pig"

so in a way we are calling it pig.

lol

ok cleverclogs..explain Venison?

nelix wrote:

By the skin of your teeth
Meaning

Narrowly; barely. Usually used in regard to a narrow escape from a disaster.

Origin

The phrase first appears in English in the Geneva Bible, 1560, in Job 19:20, which provides a literal translation of the original Hebrew:

"I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe."

Teeth don't have skin, of course, so the writer may have been alluding to the teeth's surface or simply to a notional minute measure - something that might now be referred to, with less poetic imagery than the biblical version, as 'as small as the hairs on a gnat's bollock'.

Interesting...

There might be another explanation. It was coined in 1560 you say? What was dental hygeine like in those days? Maybe they were alluding to a coating of tartar?

El_Guapo wrote:We call it Beef instead of Cow? Or Pork instead of Pig? Or Lamb instead of Sheep?

Fish are fish and when we eat them we still call it fish. Likewise with other meats, rabbit is called rabbit, duck is called duck, and chicken is still chicken...

So why are certain other meats called something entirely different than the animal they come from?

Beef,Steak,Sirloin,Ribeye,Rump,Silverside,.....Cow is not enough!

Pork,Bacon,Ham,Gammon.etc............Pig, not enough!

Fish is just fish............Maybe that's why! lol