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    1. Home
    2. Why do we say...?

    Why do we say...?

    From "Gordon Bennett!" to "turn a blind eye", discover the history behind popular phrases and sayings...

    Scrooge and Marley's ghost
    Victorian

    Q&A Why do we say ‘Bah Humbug’ and what does it mean?

    The card game cribbage
    General Early Modern

    Q&A Why do we say ‘level pegging’?

    Barristers' wigs
    Medieval

    Q&A Why are barristers ‘called to the bar’?

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    A portrait of James Gordon Bennett, Jr (1841–1918), by Alexis Joseph Perignon, 1867. (Photo by The New York Historical Society/Getty Images)
    General Modern

    Q&A Why do we say ‘Gordon Bennett’?

    Photo of gauntlets
    Medieval

    Q&A Why do we say throw down the gauntlet?

    (Photo by iStock/Getty Images Plus)
    20th Century

    Q&A Why do Americans call the British ‘limeys’?

    A red herring on a plate
    Georgian

    Q&A Why do we say ‘red herring’?

    A 1782 cartoon by James Gillray that depicts Buller as ‘Judge Thumb’. (Photo by Library of Congress)
    General Modern

    Q&A Why do we say ‘rule of thumb’?

    19th-century boxer Larry Foley
    Victorian

    Q&A Why do we say ‘happy as Larry’?

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    The history of maritime travel could explain why we use the word 'posh' for the British upper classes. (Photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)
    Victorian

    Q&A Where does the word ‘posh’ come from?

    Children running down a street
    Georgian

    Q&A Why do we say ‘run amok’?

    A sack of red beans
    Ancient Greece

    Q&A Why do we say ‘spill the beans’?

    An etching of a 17th-century coal merchant. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)
    Industrial revolution

    Q&A Why do we say ‘get the sack’?

    Photo of pears
    Second World War

    Q&A Why do we say 'it's all gone pear-shaped'?

    A stone statue of Achilles
    Ancient Greece

    Q&A Why do we say ‘Achilles Heel’?

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