Many different vernaculars are used in daily conversations — English is constantly changing! Some phrases we hear often might make sense if we think about them, but we probably could never guess the backstory of others. So, let’s “dive in” and explore four commonly used phrases and their origins. Raining Cats and Dogs When you hear someone say, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” this comes from when houses had straw roofs with no wood underneath. Animals would burrow into the straw roof to stay warm. The roof became slippery when it rained, and the animals would fall off. It would “rain cats and dogs.” This phrase is now used to describe heavy and abrupt UNRAVELING THE HISTORY OF 4 PHRASES Tracing the Roots of Everyday Sayings
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rainfall and sometimes bad weather in general. Dirt Poor The phrase “dirt poor” is just an extreme way to call someone poor. As simple as this sounds, though, it comes from a time when many poor people had only dirt floors and were thus considered “dirt poor.” Bite the Bullet
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To “bite the bullet” means to accept something difficult or unpleasant. In the olden days, when doctors were short on anesthesia or time during a battle, they would ask the patient to bite down on a bullet to distract them from the pain. The first recorded use of the phrase was in 1891 in a Rudyard Kipling novel, “The Light That Failed.” Break the Ice When you “break the ice,” you remove tension from a first or uncomfortable meeting. Before road transportation was common, ships were the only means of transportation and trade. At times, the ships would get stuck during the winter because of ice formation. The receiving country would send small ships to “break the ice” to clear a way for the trade ships. This gesture showed affiliation and understanding between two territories — similar to how the phrase is used today.
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