Saturday, 29 December 2007

The Greeks Have a Saying For It

Having crabs in the pocket

Meaning: being miserly, not wanting to spend money

Having your pockets full of crabs would obviously make one rather reluctant to put one's hand in.

Green horses

Meaning: nonsense, absurdities

Apparently an "acoustic orthography" (an exact sound alike) of the Ancient Greek phrase meaning to act unreasonably or nonsensically.

Having eaten one's bread

Meaning: dead or at death's door, having had one's chips

Black humour as there comes a time when one is unable to eat anymore bread (food) and the phrase is always used in the third person, past tense; ie "he had his last breads". In this manner the departed will not take offence.

Funnily enough, in English we use "bread" too, as he is brown bread = rhyming slang for dead. As is "toast", also another word for dead. What is it about bread being equated to death?

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