Posts Tagged ‘word with a past’
Words With a Past: Strike While The Iron Is Hot
I’ve always assumed that the phrase “strike while the iron is hot” was simply a term derived from blacksmithing. I recently learned that the phrase has a history beyond the making of horseshoes and sword blades. Who would have thought it was linked to marriage? Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1754 changed the laws governing…
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Word(s) With a Past: Two Bits
One of the favorite cheers for my junior high school’s football team went “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar, all for our team stand up and holler.” It made no sense to me, but neither did football. When the rest of the Trojan fans stood up and hollered, I stood up and hollered.…
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Word With a Past: How Did Germany Become the Hun?
The original Huns were a tribe of nomadic horsemen from Central Asia who rode fast and fought hard.* When they reached Europe in the second half of the fourth century, the Huns triggered a mass migration of Germanic tribes that contributed to the fall of Rome in the fifth century. Under the leadership of Attila,…
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