Where did the term "peeping Tom" came from?
85563
Peeping tom came from England. \n\nIt is said that when Lady Godiva rodew through the town of Coventry naked to protest her husbands taxes against the poor town, the people where asked to go in theirs home with shutters drawn and curtains closed untill she had rode past.\n\nA tailor, named tom, peeked out his window to catch a glimpse of the passing beuaty and was instantly struck blind. :) \n\nnot sure what that says about Lady Godiva. :D\n\nThat is where the term peeping tom came from
857567
As far as I know, it stems from a humorous political cartoon from the 1800's. I googled the two and came up with this link, which sounds right.
1006550
Toilets appeared as early as the year 2500 BCE. The people of Harappa in India had water borne toilets in each house that were linked with drains covered with burnt clay bricks. There were also toilets in ancient Egypt, Persia and China. In Roman civilization, toilets were sometimes part of public bath houses where men and women were together in mixed company.\n\nAnd NO! Thomas Crapper did NOT invent it. Look in Wikipedia for more detail.\n\n\nQuote: "Thomas Crapper (baptized September 28, 1836; d. January 27, 1910) was a plumber who founded Thomas Crapper & Co. Ltd. in London.\n\nDespite urban legend, Crapper did not invent the flush toilet (the myth being helped by the surname). However, Crapper put in much effort to popularise it and did come up with some related inventions."\n\nEnd Quote.\n\n\nExtra detail: "1880s: Thomas Crapper's plumbing company built flush toilets of Giblin's design. After the company received a royal warrant, Crapper's name became synonymous with flush toilets. Although he was not the original inventor, Crapper popularised the siphon system for emptying the tank, replacing the earlier floating valve system which was prone to leaks. Some of Crapper's designs were made by Thomas Twyford. "\n\n\n\nAnd, why am I writing so much? Because I'm finaly lvl 2 ))))\nHope My answer will be enough for yall. Heh.\n\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet
388965
There are a couple of possible theories of origin for the term "gibberish". One says that the basis is in the old word "gibber" which is allied to "jabber". However, "gibberish" was in use before the word "gibber", therefore making this a dubious theory. A better explanation says the word comes from Geber, the name of an Arabian alchemist in the 11th century. He invented a strange terminology so that his works could not be understood by others; more importantly, he could not be accused of heresy, which was punishable by death. "Gibberish" in its modern sense was certainly used by 1811.
1048794
[Q] From Mike Willis: “I’m trying to find out the origin of the phrase, on the QT, meaning off the record or in confidence.”\n\n[A] According to Robert Hendrickson, in The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, the first reference is from a British ballad of 1870, which contained the line “Whatever I tell you is on the QT”. It seems to have been just an abbreviated spelling, using the first and last letters of the word quiet, the mild obfuscation also suggesting a meaning for the expression. The Oxford English Dictionary has a first sighting from 1884: “It will be possible to have one spree on the strict q.t.”. Mr Hendrickson points out that it also occurs in a famous London ditty of 1891, sung by Lottie Collins, which also introduced the famous chorus line “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay”:\n\n    A sweet Tuxedo girl you see,\n    Queen of swell society,\n    Fond of fun as fun can be,\n    When it's on the strict Q.T.
939354
It refers to the comic strips.\nCartoonist Roy Crane wrote a comic strip Called "Wash Tubbs" in 1935. He visited St. Marys, GA and sat on the porch on the second floor of the Riverview Hotel and got ideas for his strip. He featured local landmarks and people in his strip. When the strip come out the local people would look to see who was used for that particular strip. The saying "See you in the funnny papers" arose from that experience. Another local item he featured was the Model T Ford truck with a wooden passenger enclosure on it that ran on the railroad tracks between Kingsland and St. Marys, GA. This was dubbed the Toonerville Trolley.
292502
The first I heard the term was in an old Meatloaf song where he mentioned having sex by the dashboard lights. I don't understand the context that you use it in unless he is refering to it like the lights on your dash that tell you something is wrong with your car.
652864
"Hick" is widely agreed to be derived from a nickname for Richard --Middle English Hikke\nhttp://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=hick\nhttp://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=hick\n\nSimilarly, the Oxford English Dictionary says it was "by-form" of the personal name Richard (like Dick) and Hob (like Bob) for Robert.\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick\n\n"Hick" was actually just one of many examples of a trend of creating rhyming nicknames (arbitrarily changing the first letter).   Hick and Dick (appearing in wriring around 1220) were  at the beginning of a great 13th-14th century trend That's where we get all these surprising forms like Polly from Molly, Bob from Rob (from Robert), Bill from Will (from William); and Hodge from Roger.\nIncidentally, a variant on this is also preserved in the nursery rhyme "HICKORY, dickory, dock"!\nhttp://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdick.html\n\nFor other forms of "letter swapping" to create nicknames, and a variety of other methods by which English nicknames developed see:\nhttp://www.geocities.com/edgarbook/names/other/nicknames.html\n\nThe derogatory use of "hick" apparently goes back to the beginning, or very near it.   In fact, it may have been specifically coined to mock countryfolk.\n\n"At the time "hick" arose as a derogatory term for a country bumpkin in England around 1565, "Richard" was considered (unfairly, of course) a typical "country" name, much in the way "Paddy" (short for "Patrick," after the patron saint of Ireland) came to signify "Irishman." '\nhttp://www.word-detective.com/061300.html
944468
gobbledygook\n\nHere's a link:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobbledegook
741742
I think it's a euphemism for "jacksh-t"\nSo now the question is, where did THAT phrase come from?
1048785
Try Peeping Tom. Just came out last week. Excellent CD!
1058172
I heard a few theories on this on a TV show which was investigating where today's words come from...\nI THINK that it has something to do with the fact that centuries ago, nutmeg was the word used to refer to a guy's whatsits...\nSorry i can't help any more, but I've forgotten most of it!
383253
The term, which has been around since the 18th century, is of unknown origin but there are several theories floating about, none of which has anything to do with thatched roofs!\n\nRain cats and dogs: If the rain is teeming down the it's said to be raining cats and dogs. This seems to be an odd way of describing weather. The expression first appeared in print in 1653.("It shall raine.....dogs and polecats").\nThere are three possible origins, one of which goes back to Norse times. In old Norse weather lore the cat was related to rain and the dog to the wind. If this were the origin then it is likely that the words would have appeared in print before 1653.\n\nThe second suggestion puts the basis in the Greek word Catadupa, "cataract" or "waterfall".\n\nThe final idea suggests that the drainage of medieval streets was so poor that cats and dogs frequently drowned during a heavy downpour. Swift's "Description of a City Shower" (1710) gives a good idea of what it was like. It's worth repeating.
1156551
It's currently used synonymously with "the creeps", "the willies", "goose bumps."  i.e. "That ghost story gives me the heebie-jeebies!" \n\nIt's thought to have originally had anti-semitic meanings (which you might be meaning as the 'military definition', but according to what I found: \n\nThe phrase "heebie-jeebies" was invented by Billy De Beck, a famous American comic strip artist of the 1920's, in his popular "Barney Google" strip in 1923. De Beck, by the way, also invented "hotsy-totsy" (a term of approval) and the wonderful "horsefeathers" (meaning "utter nonsense") in his strip. "Heebie-jeebies" must have caught the popular imagination immediately, since the dance of that name appeared a scant three years later, in 1926.\n\nThe invention of "heebie-jeebies" by De Beck was, without doubt, innocent of any racial or ethnic animosity. The only possible anti-Semitic interpretation of "heebie-jeebies" comes from its unfortunate resemblance to the slang term "hebe" (a cropping of "Hebrew"), which is indeed an anti-Jewish epithet. Whether you want to risk possible misunderstandings when you use "heebie-jeebies" is up to you, of course, but the truth of its innocent origin is its best defense.
998592
It comes from the early 1800s in London.  The term "pig" for a contemptable person was around a long time before that.  Particularly, the name refers to a certain group of Police called the Bow Street Runners that criminals referred to as China Street Pigs.
162975
It's generally used in the UK as a euphemism for going to the toilet....\n\neuphemism:\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism
38922
1178, "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry," perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"). Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays. The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1637. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.