A legend suggests that clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
95
The phrase 'rule of thumb' is derived from and old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
48
The word 'gymnasium' comes from the Greek word gymnazein which means 'to exercise naked.'"
98
The equivalents of the English saying "That's Greek to me" are "This appears to be Spanish" (German), "This is Chinese to me" (Dutch), "It's German to me" (Philippines), "It's Hebrew" (Finnish), "It's Chinese to me" (Hebrew), "Sounds like Mars language/These are chicken intestines" (China).
10
'⸮' is a punctuation mark that was first proposed in the 1580s to denote sarcasm or irony.
17
The Danish word for condom is 'svangerskabsforebyggendemiddel'.
89
The word 'mile' is derived from the Latin word for 1,000 - the number of paces it took the average Roman!
6
The word "impossible" dropped in use by 50% over the course of the 20th century
5