Weird Words » Oddities

Toxic

dave — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 14:38:18 +0000

The word is derived from a Greek word “toxikón”, which is a the arrow of type of bow.
It is thought that this word became our western world meaning of “poisonous” because of the story of Hercules.
Hercules’ second labor was to kill the nine-headed Hydra.

Once Hercules slayed the Hydra, he dipped his arrows in the Hydra’s blood. This made his arrows poisonous.

Blowing smoke up your ass

dave — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:29:26 +0000

The Smoke Enema:

was used to push smoke into a drowning victim in order to warm the victim from the inside-out.

“…A rectal tube inserted into the anus was connected to a fumigator and bellows that forced the smoke into the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the credibility of tobacco enemas led to the popular phrase “blow smoke up one’s ass.” Search on “tobacco smoke enema” for illustrations of the apparatus.”

Ventriloquist

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:53:49 +0000

The word is a Latin derivation from two words ‘venter’ and ‘loqui’ meaning ‘speaking from the stomach’.
Ventriloquists were almost like shamens in the early days. They would produce voices of spirits and ghosts that would possess their body, and speak from inside their stomach.
They did not become entertainers until a few hundred years later.

Thug

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:49:28 +0000

The word originated from India describing a band of ruthless bandits in the hills of India. These mythical bandits wore yellow (or orange) bandana which they used to strangle unsuspecting travelers. The ‘hugghi’ only kill their victims by this way.
During British occupation, the British soldiers decided to erradicate the ‘thugghi’. They found thousands of bodies burried by them. From that point on, the word ‘thug’ was used to describe someone who is ruthless.

Spunk

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:47:37 +0000

In the 1500s, someone who fought bravely, especially against tough opponents, was thought of as being on fire. The flaring of the human spirit that happened when someone acted bravely was compared to tinder bursting into flames. In Scotland, tinder was often a dry, spongy wood that was called ‘spong’ because it looked like a sponge (‘spong,’ the Scottish Gaelic name for a sponge, developed from the Latin word ‘spongia,’ which also meant ‘sponge’). The image of that spongy wood bursting into flames inspired English speakers to turn ‘spong’ into ‘spunk.’

Siamese Twins

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:22:23 +0000

The term was first used in 1829 to describe a popular sideshow act of two siblings from Southeast Asia that were joined at the stomach by a small stretch of skin.

Sarcophagus

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:56:37 +0000

In Latin, sarcophagus means ‘flesh-eater’.
When the Romans would open up the tombs that would store the dead commoners of Egypt, the bodies were so decayed (because they were not embalmed) that the Romans thought that they were meant to be in that condition.
They thought that the bodies were put in the containers to rot, so they called the container ‘flesh-eater’, or ‘sarcophagus’.

Raining cats and dogs

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:02:59 +0000

Houses had thatched roofs–thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath.

It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, and bugs lived in the roof.

During a large rainstorm, it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof–hence the saying

Private Eye

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:59:58 +0000

The Pinkerton Detective Agency came up with a creative logo for the company.

It was a picture of an eye with the logo ‘We Never Sleep’ underneath it. It was from this logo that the term, ‘private eye’ came to mean private investigators.

Pork Barrel

dave — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:24:11 +0000

You might expect that the original pork barrels were barrels for storing pork — and you’re right. In the early 19th century, that’s exactly what ‘pork barrel’ meant.

But, the term was also used figuratively to mean ‘a supply of money’ or ‘one’s livelihood’ (a farmer, after all, could readily turn pork into cash).

When 20th-century legislators doled out appropriations that benefited their home districts, someone apparently made an association between the profit a farmer got from a barrel of pork and the benefits derived from certain state and federal projects. By 1909, ‘pork barrel’ was being used as a noun naming such government appropriations, and today the term is often used attributively in constructions such as ‘pork barrel politics’ or ‘pork barrel project.’