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Where do words come from?
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Salty Dog
Sailing Master
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:50 am    Post subject: Where do words come from? Reply with quote

To Egg On

Ever wonder where the phrase "to egg on" came from? The phrase means to encourage someone to do something -- usually something risky or foolish.

Strangely enough, the origin of the phrase has nothing whatsoever to do with eggs! Instead it comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon tongue, where the term eggian meant to spur on (as in "eggian" your horse!) The Old Norse tongue had a similar term with a similar meaning. Eggja meant "to incite". When the terms drifted into the English language, they were transformed into the English phrase "to egg on" -- literally to spur or incite someone to do something!
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sparticus
Helmsman
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 3:04 am    Post subject: Re: Where do words come from? Reply with quote

Salty Dog wrote:
To Egg On

Ever wonder where the phrase "to egg on" came from? The phrase means to encourage someone to do something -- usually something risky or foolish.

Strangely enough, the origin of the phrase has nothing whatsoever to do with eggs! Instead it comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon tongue, where the term eggian meant to spur on (as in "eggian" your horse!) The Old Norse tongue had a similar term with a similar meaning. Eggja meant "to incite". When the terms drifted into the English language, they were transformed into the English phrase "to egg on" -- literally to spur or incite someone to do something!


A very nice piece of history.

Like the origin of cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey

"It is often stated that the phrase originated from the use of a brass tray, called a "monkey", to hold cannonballs on warships in the 16th to 18th centuries. Supposedly, in very cold temperatures the "monkey" would contract, causing the balls to fall off."

So nothing to do with testes at all Smile
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Mr. Blue
Rigger
Posts: 1947



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PostPosted: Tue Sep 01, 2015 11:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Probably that is not the origin of the brass monkey expression.

The website below gives 5 reasons it isn't true. The most convincing IMO is that shot were not stored in this way.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_(colloquialism)#Supposed_etymology

So yeah, this statue probably gives you the correct interpretation. Its a shame really, since the clean version is actually more interesting.


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Red Rabbit
Cutthroat
Posts: 414



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PostPosted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 6:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Besides its meaning, much bigger factor why I chose my "Hooked on Pirates" username is on that how it sounds. - Yarr!
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