Re the expression "dead as a door nail". Go to a hardware store and ask to buy one. Where did that expression come from?

Here is another, "hoisted by his own petard". Anyone know what a petard is? Hint, it is not a hook.

lol, thats hilarious you ask that...

I used to know exactly what it meant...but I since forgot...Pat I am sure remembers...

All I remember it had to do with blowing yourself up.

Didnt it have to do with coffin nails?

hoisted by own petard---

= ate too many beans

close GK. Petard is an explosive charge used to blow up the amin gates in a fort or calstle. It would be attached to a long pole or lance and thrown over the moat or drawbridge next to the main gate and blow it up. Timing was key or one ran the risk of being hoisted by ones own Petard. It also refers to the act of farting in an elevator. Makes it rise faster. Or so I am told. I know for a fact it makes it less crowded.

door nails comes form the custom of putting a big nail or spike in a door of someone killed by the plague, hence the occupant of the house was "dead as a door nail". I don't know if I buy this one, it has always bothered me.

'dead as a doornail' also to me implies 'absolutely smooth surface'. Door nails I think hold the frame/sill to the structure, and nails not 'dead' are sloppy carpentry. Maybe????

:rolleyes:

You can find books on common sayins like that.

Finding out the sources of some of these are not to pleasant like:

Raining cats and dogs - during the industrial revolution people would not pick up the dead cats and dogs, so a heavy rain would flush out the dead cats and dogs.

Then there are the nursery rhymes. But that is a totally different subject :p