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#62984 03/30/02 03:23 AM
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Ever since I became a member here, I have been spending too much time on the web !! Since it is such a "fantabulous" discussion group, I was wondering why haven't been there any discussions of phrases, idioms etc ?

A friend of mine who is also fascinated by word origins told me this crazy story about the origin of "saved by the bell" ...

....When our ancestors realized that they were burying a great deal of people before their time had actually come, they came up with a solution. They tied a string onto the "dead" person's hand, buried them, and tied the other end of the string to a bell and then tied it to nearby tree branch. If the person revived enough to ring the bell, their survivors would rush out and dig them up. Hence... "saved by the bell"

Are there any good websites where I could look up these phrases ? Does anyone else have stories about the origins of such commonplace sayings ?

P.S. I finally figured out what the "Title" (Stranger, pooh-bah , carpal tunnel ) meant !! I was completely "discombobulated"! ;)



#62985 03/30/02 03:38 AM
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>I was wondering why haven't been there any discussions of phrases, idioms etc ?

actually®, there have been a great many such, but as there is no specific category for them, just try to find them! there are lots of sites that cover these (just as there seem to be lots of sites for everything) and some good ones like "Word Detective" and Quinion. but when you don't know where to start, the best ploy is to plug the phrase (in quotes) plus the word 'origin' into google.com -- try it with "saved by the bell" and see what you get.

btw, you prolly won't like what Quinion has to say about this phrase -- in a word, he says this story is "hogwash".
:-D

http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-sav1.htm

(post no bills)

#62986 03/30/02 05:03 AM
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Hi indianaugust! Welcome to our energetic little wordcrew here! And thanks for the great threads!

Dead ringer is a saying that claims the same story as its tale of origin. But the true source of this can be traced back to horse racing.
Saved by the bell actually is naturally, and very simply, taken from boxing. If a guy was getting hurt, and the round ended, he was "saved by the bell."

Here's an intriguing article by Richard Lederer called Spook Entymologytsuwm, you'll like this one! that explores the origins of each of these (at the bottom of the article) and many others. An enjoyable read.

The "lead-mug and beer" coma that supposedly gave rise to the custom of holding a wake is also debunked there's that word again in lieu of a true linguistic etymology.

http://pw1.netcom.com/~rlederer/arcwdcr2.htm

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...and in http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.htm

One is almost disapointed to find that they're not true - that's how appealing they are :-) !

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