Turn sideways for best view……
Can you remember the last time you ate a square meal? I can’t. As a rule of thumb, they’re round. At least when served on dishwasher-friendly round plates.
Has it ever rained cats and dogs? Certainly not in my lifetime. And have you ever gone the whole nine yards? Unlikely. Just as unlikely as encountering a brass monkey whose crown jewels have been frozen off in the cold.
We use phrases like these routinely, most often unaware of their original meanings. Unaware also that it did indeed rain actual cats and dogs – and rats as well as the odd chook – long ago in squalid olde England.
One theory is that back when the low-slung dwellings had thatched roofs, the thick straw offered warmth to all sorts of animals. In extremely heavy rain, they’d fall onto the people below.
More plausible is that the term referred to flooded streets being awash with dead animals which couldn’t escape the deluge.
The “rule of thumb” we employ to indicate a rough guide wasn’t linear to start with. Before thermometers brewers used to stick their thumbs into their ale to check its temperature so they could add the correct amount of yeast.
A “square meal”, which we now associate with heartiness, came to us via the Royal Navy. Meals were served on square wooden platters with raised edges to prevent food spilling onto the deck in heavy seas.
The “whole nine yards” – now meaning putting every available effort into something – was popularly thought to refer to the length of ammunition belts used by the World War I Vickers machine gun. But a much earlier use of the phrase turned up in a comical short story published by The New Albany Daily Ledger in 1855. It was about a traveller who ordered shirts made. The seamstress used the entire nine yards of fabric to make one hugely oversized and therefore useless shirt rather than three.
Among my favourite old Aussie expressions are “stone the crows” and “starve the flaming lizards”, both indicating complete surprise. Given how smart crows are, we know it’s highly unlikely we’d ever land a stone on one. Lizards would be hard-pressed to starve in a land so crowded with insects. As for being flat out like a lizard drinking … do lizards actually drink?
Another is “lower than shark shit”, to describe an act or person of questionable morality. Assuming a shark’s poop sinks to the bottom of the sea, it makes perfect sense.
I’ve never cut a snake so can’t confirm that when you do you’ll make it mad.
But I do know you can bark up the wrong tree – I’ve seen my own dog do that when being teased by flying foxes at night. And I have encountered people who I doubt could organise a piss-up in a brewery.
The Australian vernacular is a splendid thing, if a little incomprehensible to those not from these shores. So be aware when overseas.