where popular phrases came from

here are some of the most popular phrases that people use often. but what do they mean and where did they come from?

"Houston, we have a problem..."

Meaning

Originally a genuine report of a life-threatening fault. Now used humorously to report any kind of problem.

Origin

John Swigert, Jr. and James Lovell who, with Fred Haise Jr., made up the crew of the US's Apollo 13 moon flight used (almost) this phrase to report a major technical problem back to their Houston base.

Swigert: 'Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.'
Duke: 'This is Houston. Say again please.'
Lovell: 'Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main B bus undervolt.'

The phrase was later used as the tagline for the 1995 film - Apollo 13.

"shiver my timbers!"

Meaning

An oath, expressing annoyance or surprise.

Origin

Those of a certain age will remember Robert Newton, rolling his eyes and yarring it up in his archetypal Hollywood pirate role - Long John Silver in the 1950 film Treasure Island.

Robert Louis Stevenson used shiver my timbers several times in the original 1883 book, for example:

"Well, he [Old Pew] is dead now and under hatches; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers, the man was starving!"

Of course, Newton made the most of such 'parrot on the shoulder' phrases and it also appears several times in the film's screenplay. Newton's version, like that of all self-respecting stage pirates, was shiver me timbers, with the occasional 'aaarh, Jim lad' thrown in.

The first appearance of the phrase in print is in Frederick Marryat's Jacob Faithful, 1834:

"I won't thrash you Tom. Shiver my timbers if I do."

One meaning of shiver, which is now largely forgotten, is 'to break into pieces'. That meaning originated at least as early as the 14th century and is recorded in several Old English texts. A more recent citation, which makes that meaning clear, is James Froude's Caesar; a sketch, 1879:

"As he crossed the hall, his statue fell, and shivered on the stones."

So, the sailor's oath shiver my timbers, is synonymous with (if so and so happens then...) let my boat breaks into pieces. The question is whether any real sailor used the term or whether it was just a literary invention. Well, we can't be sure, although the fact that it actually means something and isn't just Newton-style hokum must count in favour of it being an authentic sailor's oath.

"i'm in a pickle!"

Meaning

In a quandary or some other difficult position.

Origin

This alludes to the pickling liquid made from brines and vinegar which is used to preserve food, and presumably to the imagined difficult of being stuck in such. The phrase was known in Dutch by 1561 - ' in de pekel zitten' meaning 'to be in a pickle'.

There are a few references to ill pickles and this pickle etc. in print in the late 16th century, but Shakespeare appears to be the first to use in a pickle, in The Tempest, 1611:

ALONSO:
And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they
Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?
How camest thou in this pickle?

TRINCULO:
I have been in such a pickle since I
saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of
my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.

oops!! my bad!

Meaning

My mistake - I'm to blame.

Origin

This slang term originated in about 1970. At that time, i.e. pre the widespread use of the Internet, slang terms often circulated at street level for many years before being adopted by anyone who felt inclined to write them down. That's clearly not the case any longer of course and any word or phrase that is widely known is dateable quite precisely via website logs.

The first citation in print is C. Wielgus and A. Wolff's, 'Back-in-your-face Guide to Pick-up Basketball', 1986:

"My bad, an expression of contrition uttered after making a bad pass or missing an opponent."

'My bad' came into widespread popular use in the mid to late-1990s in the USA via the 1995 movie “Clueless”. This starred Alicia Silverstone and contains what seems to have been the first use of the phrase in the mainstream media. The 1994 'Green revision pages' for the movie script has a scene with Alicia Silverstone's character learning to drive:

"Cher swerves - to avoid killing a person on a bicycle. Cher: Whoops, my bad."

the original version to popular fairytales

i found this really good article on fairy tales. all credit goes to the orginal author so have a good read like i did.

written by stacy - orginal post here.

You might have noticed from an earlier post that I’m a bit of a Disney buff. This is kind of out of character for me, to be honest, because I’m not a huge fan of happily ever after. I like movie endings that are unexpected. After doing a little research, though, I realized that maybe fairy tales and I are a perfect match: those Disney endings where the prince and the princess end up blissfully married don’t really happen in the original stories. To make sure kids go home happy, not horrified, Disney usually has to alter the endings. Read on for the original endings to a couple of Disney classics (and some more obscure tales).

1. Cinderella

Don’t break out your violins for this gal just yet. All that cruelty poor Cinderella endured at the hands of her overbearing stepmother might have been well deserved. In the oldest versions of the story, the slightly more sinister Cinderella actually kills her first stepmother so her father will marry the housekeeper instead. Guess she wasn’t banking on the housekeeper’s six daughters moving in or that never-ending chore list.

2. Sleeping Beauty

In the original version of the tale, it’s not the kiss of a handsome prince that wakes Sleeping Beauty, but the nudging of her newborn twins. That’s right. While unconscious, the princess is impregnated by a monarch and wakes up to find out she’s a mom twice over. Then, in true Ricki Lake form, Sleeping Beauty’s “baby’s daddy” triumphantly returns and promises to send for her and the kids later, conveniently forgetting to mention that he’s married. When the trio is eventually brought to the palace, his wife tries to kill them all, but is thwarted by the king. In the end, Sleeping Beauty gets to marry the guy who violated her, and they all live happily ever after.

3. Snow White

At the end of the original German version penned by the brothers Grimm, the wicked queen is fatally punished for trying to kill Snow White. It’s the method she is punished by that is so strange - she is made to dance wearing a pair of red-hot iron shoes until she falls over dead.

4. The Little Mermaid

You’re likely familiar with the Disney version of the Little Mermaid story, in which Ariel and her sassy crab friend, Sebastian, overcome the wicked sea witch, and Ariel swims off to marry the man of her dreams. In Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale, however, the title character can only come on land to be with the handsome prince if she drinks a potion that makes it feel like she is walking on knives at all times. She does, and you would expect her selfless act to end with the two of them getting married. Nope. The prince marries a different woman, and the Little Mermaid throws herself into the sea, where her body dissolves into seam foam.

Now here are four more fairy tales you might not be familiar with, but you might have trouble forgetting.

1. The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter
What It’s Like: Cinderella, with an incestuous twist

The King’s wife dies and he swears he will never marry again unless he finds a woman who fits perfectly into his dead Queen’s clothes. Guess what? His daughter does! So he insists on marrying her. Ew. Understandably, she has a problem with this and tries to figure out how to avoid wedding dear old dad. She says she won’t marry him until she gets a trunk that locks from outside and inside and can travel over land and sea. He gets it, but she says she has to make sure the chest works. To prove it, he locks her inside and floats her in the sea. Her plan works: she just keeps floating until she reaches another shore. So she escapes marrying her dad, but ends up working as a scullery maid in another land? from here you can follow the Cinderella story. She meets a prince, leaves her shoe behind, he goes around trying to see who it belongs to. The End.

2. The Lost Childen
What It’s Like: Hansel & Gretel meets Saw 2

This French fairy tale starts out just like Hansel & Gretel. A brother and sister get lost in the woods and find themselves trapped in cages, getting plumped up to be eaten. Only it’s not a wicked witch, it’s the Devil and his wife. The Devil makes a sawhorse for the little boy to bleed to death on (seriously!) and then goes for a walk, telling the girl to get her brother situated on the sawhorse before he returned. The siblings pretend to be confused and ask the Devil’s wife to demonstrate how the boy should lay on the sawhorse; when she shows them they tie her to it and slit her throat. They steal all of the Devil’s money and escape in his carriage. He chases after them once he discovers what they’ve done, but he dies in the process. Yikes.

3. The Juniper Tree
What It’s Like: Every stepchild’s worst nightmare

Cannibalism, murder, decapitation? freakiness abounds left and right in this weird Grimm story. A widower gets remarried, but the second wife loathes the son he had with his first wife because she wants her daughter to inherit the family riches. So she offers the little boy an apple from inside a chest. When he leans over to get it, she slams the lid down on him and chops his head off. Note: if you’re trying to convince your child to eat more fruits and veggies, do not tell them this story. Well, the woman doesn’t want anyone to know that she killed the boy, so she puts his head back on and wraps a handkerchief around his neck to hide the fact that it’s no longer attached. Her daughter ends up knocking his head off and getting blamed for his death. To hide what happened, they chop up the body and make him into pudding, which they feed to his poor father. Eventually the boy is reincarnated as a bird and he drops a stone on his stepmother’s head, which kills her and brings him back to life.

4. Penta of the Chopped-off Hands
What It’s Like: Um?you tell us

These old fairy tales sure do enjoy a healthy dose of incest. In this Italian tale, the king’s wife dies and he falls in love with Penta? his sister. She tries to make him fall out of love with her by chopping off her hands. The king is pretty upset by this; he has her locked in a chest and thrown out to sea. A fisherman tries to save her, but Penta is so beautiful that his jealous wife has her thrown back out to sea. Luckily, Penta is rescued by a king (who isn’t her brother). They get married and have a baby, but the baby is born while the king is away at sea. Penta tries to send the king the good news of the baby, but the jealous fisherman’s wife intercepts the message and changes it to say that Penta gave birth to a puppy. A puppy?! The evil wife then constructs another fake message, this time from the king to his servants, and says that Penta and her baby should be burned alive. OK, long story short: the king figures out what the jealous wife is up to and has her burned. Penta and the king live happily ever after. I can’t really figure out what the moral of this tale is. Chopping hands off? Giving birth to a dog? I just don’t get it. Help me out here, people.