15 Common Expressions
Etymology is fun! It’s especially fun to learn about the quaint old-fashioned practices that gave rise to some of the words we use. Stereotype comes from printing, hard-up comes from sailing, pipe dream comes from opium dens.
Cultural practices change, technology changes, but words stick around—and not just in some long ago, far away place. It’s happening all around us as we speak, a hard truth thatmental_floss editor-in-chief Jason recently had to face up to.
4. WHY DO CASHIERS “RING UP” A PURCHASE?
Cash registers also used to have little bells in them. Cashiers would enter the price of each item on a set of mechanical levers, when they pressed the button to get the total, the total price would pop up in a window and the bell would ring.
5. WHY DO WE “ROLL” A WINDOW UP OR DOWN?
Cars used to have hand cranks in the doors that moved the windows up or down when turned. To open or close a window, you had to roll the crank around a few times.
6. WHERE DOES “SOUNDS LIKE A BROKEN RECORD” COME FROM?
Music used to be played on grooved discs, called records. When these discs were scratched or otherwise damaged, it would cause the same sound to be played over and over again. So to sound like a broken record was to repeat the same thing over and over.
7. WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF “LUGGAGE”?
People used to travel with big, heavy bags that had no wheels or collapsible handles. They had to “lug” these bags around from place to place.
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