General Chat

Where did these sayings come from, then?

a. sent to Coventry

b. not worth a candle

c. see a man about a dog

d. the man on the Clapham omnibus

e. at sixes and sevens

f. Doolally tap

Have fun with this!

Sue x

a........soldiers fighting against Cromwell were shunned by people of Coventry...hence "sent to Coventry"

b... in bygone days candles were expensive so if task wasn't too important the saying was ,not worth (lighting a candle for)

d. A reasonable man.

1. It comes from the 1640's during the English Civil war, when Cromwells's captured the Royalist Cavaliers in Birmingham and took them to A parlimentary prison in Coventry.

You're right, Mau with (a)

Sue x

Hi Mau

My understanding of "not worth a candle" derives from the days when card tables had a candle holder in each corner, and it cost to light said candle. If the hand you were dealt wasn't worth paying for, then - it wasn't worth a candle.

Sue x

'doolally tap' comes from India... Deolalie being a town

"To say someone was doolally tap meant he was mad, or at least very eccentric. The first bit is obviously the result of the standard British soldier’s way of hacking foreign-sounding placenames into something that sounded English. The second part is from a Persian or Urdu word tap, a malarial fever (which is ultimately from Sanskrit tapa, heat or torment). So the whole expression might be loosely translated as “camp fever”.

My mum used it quite a lot lol, saying so and so was going a bit 'doolally'

Hi Rose

You're right. Interesting, isn't it?

sue x

f....army phrase used in India to mean going mad

Ref the man on the Clapham omnibus, you're right Mummo. It means a "reasonable man" and was first coined by one of the Law Lords, Lord Bowen, who said "we should ask ourselves what the man on the Clapham omnibus would say"

Sue x

yes Sue if the task etc, 'wasn't worth it'.......

think answer to sixes and sevens...must be connected to a dice game?.

c - see a man about a dog

and

e - at sixes and sevens

still to go

Hope you're had a bit of fun with these

Sue x

c.... going to see about something secretly!

You're right Mau, that's what it means

But ........ where does it come from?

Sue x

Prohibition days perhaps? x

sixes and sevens - not sure about dice? I know it means to be "all over the place"

I want to say there's a connection to "Being in a two and eight" - cockney rhyming slang for "state" but that doesn't work!

Jill

Hi Mau

You either know it or you don't - and I certainly didn't until I did a bit of research for this silly quiz.

Apparently it comes from an Irish play called "the Flying Scud" - of which nothing is remembered except this phrase.

Next time it comes up in a pub quiz, remember me!!!!

Sue x

Hi Jill

You're right about the dice. Apparently this comes from the old french where the word "cinque" (five) was mis-pronounced "sice" and therefore later became "six".

Originally, to "set all on cinque and sice" meant to gamble on the highest numbers, and - since cinque had been wrongly anclised to six - then we ended up with "sixes and sevens"

Sue x

ee well - I'll go to the bottom of our street......

Glad you enjoyed it.

Good-night all

Sue x