hand....which side IS the back? the dorsal side, or ventral?

back of the hand - opposite of the palm :2cents:

well, i know the front of my hand better than the back.....of my hand

Cuts as in dilutes rather than separates, perhaps? Makes palatable?? Undiluted mustard is pretty strong stuff, after all, and overwhelms the tastebuds.

You know ... this might make an interesting party game.

I thought maybe someone already had done this, but the objective of Wise and Otherwise is to complete a maxim, not explain it.

I'd rather be broccoli.

Opening a can of worms usually means "making a bigger problem than the one you were trying to solve", because it is harder to deal with an open can of worms than a closed one. When the can is closed, you at least know roughly how many worms you have and where they can be found. Open the can, and the squiggle all over, and it is nearly impossible to put them back in.

Now..."Piss like a racehorse"...that's one that has always baffled the piss out of me. Are racehorses known for producing more urine than, say, a plough horse? Or is this related to the drug testing they make racehorses endure? I thought that was done via saliva, so shouldn't it in that case be "spit like a racehorse"?

Stupid sayings... :rar:

Drier then a popcorn fart. One of my favorites..
This one always gets me...

Cuter then a fat puppies ass..or Cuter then a bug's ear.

Drunker the Cooter Brown.

Huh?

Race horses are given the diuretic Lasix that in addition to making them piss a lot also helps to prevent them bleeding in the lungs from the exertion during races.

Hey! My dad used to say this, although I seem to remember it being 'piss like a Russian racehorse'. Huh. Who knew.

" a right smart"

EX: "He has a right smart of money".
"Yes, There were a right smart of people there"
***AND***

SAM HILL
Now what the Sam Hill does that 'spose to mean?

I disagree. I think Sundae Girl and xoxoxoBruce are right on this one.

Jesus H Christ! You have wierder ones in the US than in the UK.

Sam Hill??? Who the Dickens is Sam Hill??? And 'right smart' is another one I've never come across, unless it arises north of Watford (over to Sundae Girl...)

Piss like a racehorse - now I think that is a corruption of 'piss (it) like a racehorse', Where the idea of 'piss it' means to accomplish it easily, as in the English cockney 'it was a piece of piss' meaning it was really very easy, as it is to piss (or pass water*) when you need to (although we also use another phrase for the same thing describing something easy as 'being a right doddle' - and I have absolutely no (zilch??) idea about where that one comes from...!)

* there's a joke about this: guy goes to doctors complaining about feeling poorly, to which the doctor asks 'do you find you have trouble passing water?' to which the guy replies 'funny you should ask that, I came over real dizzy on the bus the other day, just as it was going past the local reservoir!' Oh well some you do, some you don't!

SAM HILL = hell


[Q] From Doug Hickey: “I have often heard in American movies and on television phrases like ‘What in the Sam Hill is going on?’ Or, ‘What the Sam Hill happened here?’ Or, some such exclamation. I have not been able to find the basis of this expression.”

[A] There is a story sometimes told (for example in Edwin Mitchell’s Encyclopedia of American Politics in 1946) that one Colonel Samuel Hill of Guilford, Connecticut, would often run for political office at some point in the early nineteenth century but always without success. Hence, “to run like Sam Hill” or “go like Sam Hill”. The problem is that nobody has found any trace of this monumentally unsuccessful candidate.

On the other hand, an article in the New England Magazine in December 1889 entitled Two Centuries and a Half in Guilford Connecticut mentioned that, “Between 1727 and 1752 Mr. Sam. Hill represented Guilford in forty-three out of forty-nine sessions of the Legislature, and when he was gathered to his fathers, his son Nathaniel reigned in his stead” and a footnote queried whether this might be the source of the “popular Connecticut adjuration to ‘Give ‘em Sam Hill’?” So the tale has long legs.

The expression has been known since the late 1830s. Despite the story, it seems to be no more than a personalised euphemism for “hell”.

that's just a hard goddamned fact of life.

I thought we were just going to speculate wildly and offer our own bullheaded opinions on these sayings. Now LJ has gone and brought apparent factual information into the mix. Damn, you can't fake anything anymore.