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aphorisms based on agriculture and nautical matters

The Knize

The Knize

"Can't hit the board side of a barn."

"Close the barn door after the cow has escaped/left."

"Fox in the henhouse."

"Cows are in the corn."

"Reap what you sow."

"The law of the harvest."

"Count chickens before than hatch."

"All our eggs in one basket."

"Like lambs to slaughter."

"Judas goat."

Did we say "beat a dead horse"?

"You've got another mule kicking in your stall"

"Stubborn as a mule"

"All the character traits of a dog except loyalty."

"Around Robin Hood's barn."

Do smiths really talk about a piece or steel or iron having a "nice ring"? That is great. "Forging ahead,"i is great, too.

"Hell's half acre" I assume that means something!

"A mare's nest."

"A dog's breakfast."
 
SparkyLB

SparkyLB

The Knize said:
I am very intrigued as to what "hiking the appalachian trail" refers to!!!
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A few years ago a congressman couldn't be found by his wife for days. When he thought to keep her apprised of things, he told her he was, "Hiking the appalachian trail." He was found to actually be on a romantic endeavor with a woman who was not his wife. Perhaps it didn't really catch on, but for months, the expression came to be a euphemism for infidelity.

hiking the appalachian trail euphemism - Search - https://www.bing.com/search?q=hiking+the+appalachian+trail+euphemism&FORM=QSRE5
 
The Knize

The Knize

SparkyLB said:
A few years ago a congressman couldn't be found by his wife for days. When he thought to keep her apprised of things, he told her he was, "Hiking the appalachian trail." He was found to actually be on a romantic endeavor with a woman who was not his wife. Perhaps it didn't really catch on, but for months, the expression came to mean cheating on one's spouse.
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Thanks. Good one. Now I remember. That would have been Mark Sanford, then governor of South Carolina and chair of his party's national governors association, before and after a multi-term SC Congressman. He not only told his wife that, but told his staff in the governor's office the same thing and no one knew how to reach him for something like a week. He was actually in Argentina for the reasons you say. A great phrase! Maybe it will have a resurgence in use, even though I think Mr. Sanford is long gone from the scene.

I am sure there are some great sayings derived from politics, too! Maybe in Sanford's case "you can fool some of the people some of the time."
 
Doc4

Doc4

Stumpy in cold weather
Staff member
Two nautical ones ...

"son of a gun" (back in the age of sail, when a Royal Navy ship came to home port, wives, girlfriends and *ahem* other lady-friends were allowed on board to visit ... children born nine months later were referred to in this manner.)

"Posh" ... back in the day when England had an Empire in India, and steamships that took passengers back and forth (through the Suez Canal) ... and there was no air conditioning, mind you ... the preferred passenger berths were the ones that were on the north side of the ship during the hotter part of the journey ... the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean. So on the outbound journey one wanted to be on the port side of the ship, and on the homeward journey on the starboard. The passenger liners knowing this, they charged more for those cabins, and only the affluent could afford them.

Port Outbound Starboard Home ... P.O.S.H.
 
The Knize

The Knize

Can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Don't cry over spilt milk.

Bet the farm.

Spill the beans.

Spin a tale.

Dumb as an ox.

Strong as an ox.

Rare as hens' teeth.

Take the bull by the horns.

Bull in a China shop.

Up with the roosters

**** of the walk.

Mad as a wet hen.
 
Captain Pre-Capsize

Captain Pre-Capsize

My grandmother grew up on a farm in the midwest, born in 1908. This was already mentioned but she would often comment, "Not 'til the cows come home." Which means the end of the day. So they are out all day long and as the sun sets they make their own way back to the barn.

Another I saw not long ago was, "He is an afternoon farmer." In other words he is lazy. Sleeps in and only gets to work late. Somehow I love that one.

As high school kids out carousing around it was common in my midwest town to refer to someone as, "getting plowed" or "he was plowed" as in getting drunk. (As in the soil getting plowed under.)

Doc4 said:
Two nautical ones ...

"son of a gun" (back in the age of sail, when a Royal Navy ship came to home port, wives, girlfriends and *ahem* other lady-friends were allowed on board to visit ... children born nine months later were referred to in this manner.)

"Posh" ... back in the day when England had an Empire in India, and steamships that took passengers back and forth (through the Suez Canal) ... and there was no air conditioning, mind you ... the preferred passenger berths were the ones that were on the north side of the ship during the hotter part of the journey ... the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean. So on the outbound journey one wanted to be on the port side of the ship, and on the homeward journey on the starboard. The passenger liners knowing this, they charged more for those cabins, and only the affluent could afford them.

Port Outbound Starboard Home ... P.O.S.H.
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Those two are great and I recall hearing them. It seems to me the "gun" part referred to the working class sailors below decks that were gunners, responsible for firing the canons. So at the time it was looked down upon that the child was that of a gunner rather than an officer. I may well be wrong and if so, hey it sounds good anyway. :biggrin1:
 
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Whisky

Whisky

ATF. I use all three.
Staff member
My great grandmother (born in the late 1800’s) was fond of saying

“Nobody would see it from a galloping horse” when discussing a job that was finished less than perfect.

Another one i’d hear occasionally

“Tell them how the cow at the cabbage” when giving someone the truth they might not want to hear. This one came from an old joke about an escaped elephant and a nearsighted woman.
 
The Knize

The Knize

Whisky said:
This one came from an old joke about an escaped elephant and a nearsighted woman.
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Now you have my attention! I do not think I have heard that one.

"More hat than cattle."

Did we do "put out to pasture"?

"hog wild"

"pigsty"

"get you duck in a row"

"like a chicken with its head cut off"

"bullish"

"piggish"

"like a horse"
 
Whisky

Whisky

ATF. I use all three.
Staff member
The Knize said:
Now you have my attention! I do not think I have heard that one
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I never said the joke was funny.

A circus had arrived in a small town, and one morning one of the elephants managed to escape. The fugitive pachyderm made its way to the backyard garden of an elderly (and very near-sighted) woman, where it began hungrily uprooting her cabbages with its trunk and eating them. Alarmed by the apparition in her garden, the woman called the police, saying, “Sheriff, there’s a big cow in my garden pulling up my cabbages with its tail!” “What’s the cow doing with them?” he asked, to which the woman replied, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”

It was considered “off color” and vulgar in the 40’s when it was popular.
 
The Knize

The Knize

I really like that one, Whisky, and it creates a great metaphor for telling someone a truth they do not want to hear!
 
Hair Scraper

Hair Scraper

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him put his bathing suit on.” (I’m paraphrasing😉)

“Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”

This is actually a fallacy. A monkey is a brass square or triangular frame that was used to keep stacked cannon balls from rolling around on the deck of a ship.

The theory was that due to the different rates of expansion/contraction between the iron balls and the brass monkey cold weather would cause enough sloppiness that the balls would jump over the monkey and roll around the deck.
 
Rushman2112

Rushman2112

"Three stops short of Dagenham" - means "barking" as in mad, it refers to the London Tube system.

"Couldn't hit a cow's a**e with a banjo": of a striker missing an easy goal-scoring chance, usually used at Carrow Rd. ;-)
 
The Knize

The Knize

One bad apple spoils the whole barrel.

A stitch in time saves nine.

I think there may be some saying about trying to milk a bull, but maybe not.

There must be more about roosters and sheep.

Happy as a pig in "mud."
 
Whisky

Whisky

ATF. I use all three.
Staff member
“Don’t squat with your spurs on.” Meaning don’t do something dumb or think things through before doing them. I’ve been guilty of this both figuratively as well as literally.

Saying someone “isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed” is pretty self explanatory.
 
Ratso

Ratso

Mr. Obvious
Sh## through a tinhorn.

Lock, stock, and barrel. The major components of the old muzzle loader guns.

The whole nine yards.
 
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