Give someone the cold shoulder: the phrase comes from Medival England when homeowners were expected to take in travelers. Travelers would overstay their welcome and in an attempt to let them know the homeowners would place the shoulder of the lamb cold on their plate when they arrived for dinner.

ride shotgun: This phrase comes from early America during the Wild West. Stage coaches were used during this time period as a mode of transportation and were likely to be robbed. Stage coaches would have a driver ride outside of the coach and someone would sit next to them with a shotgun to fend off thieves.

coconut: the word coconut comes from Portuguese. Coco in Portuguese means bogeyman.

bikini: The Bikini Atoll is a ringlike coral reel that encloses the island where they tested the first atom bombs. A French designer thought that the bikini would have an explosive effect on the beach so they named it after the Bikini Atoll.

He/She’s no spring chicken: farmers raising chickens in the winter struggled because of no incubators. Chickens grown in the spring were sold for more so farmers would disguise their winter chickens and say they were born in the spring. Buyers would look at the chicken and say “ This is no spring chicken.”

get up on the wrong side of the bed: an ancient Roman superstition. Romans considered the left side to be evil and the word sinister comes from the Latin word of left. Bad luck would come to those who put their left foot down first when getting out of bed. started as “got up left foot forward”

sincere: comes from the Latin phrase sin cera. which means without wax. In ancient times dishonest sculptors would fill in mistakes with wax. So when a sculpture was finished they had to chisel sin cera on the bottom.

raining cats and dogs: could be from Norse mythology, because they connected dogs with storms and wind and ats with rain, or it could be a reference to medical English cities that had poor drainage systems, when it rained animals that were left out on the street would die and after the water recedes it would look like it had rained cats and dogs.

beat around the bush: there was a medieval sport called bat fowling where you would go into the woods in the night and beat birds senseless with a bird. Servents known as beaters would beat bushes in order to wake up the birds before they beat them.

quiz: in Ireland, a man made a bet with his friends that he could create a new word and within a day everyone would be saying it. he hired vandals to write quiz in chalk all over the city. It originally meant a hoax or practical joke.

Steal My Thunder: John Dennis wrote plays after Shakespeare, his plays were terrible but had good thunder sound effects. Since his plays were shut down he went to Macbeth which used his thunder sound effect. He stood up in the middle of the play and said that they had stolen his thunder.

heart in the right place: peasants didn’t understand anatomy and were impressed you could feel a heartbeat in many places. They believed your heart was moving and wherever you could feel your heartbeat was where it was. If you were put together well your heart was in the right place.