Where did the expression "work your fingers to the bone" come from?
90270
Work one's fingers to the bone (Also, work one's tail or butt off)\n\nMeans to exert oneself or labour very hard.\n\nThe expression comes from the image of working so hard that the skin and flesh off one's fingers comes off right to the bone. Dates from the mid-1800s. The less polite version dates from the first half of the 1900s.
929933
This would include people that used the left hand to remove defecation in olden times.  Sorry, I know this is a bit "earthy," but it's where it comes from, added to the fact that ancient people considered the left side the "evil" or gauche side of the body.
713364
Someone on mindlesscrap.com tried to answer this, but I think they came up with a very inadequate answer:\n\n "The phrase started up in the 1980s by teens in the United States.  It's an offshoot of the use of the word "cool" that had been in existence since the 1940s.  That usage was associated with the cool jazz movement of the 1940s, especially Charlie Parker's 1947 record Cool Blues."\n\nI like my guess better:\n\nIt came from the Grateful Dead culture.  At each G.D concert, there'd be people who would serve up vegetarian fare and love.  Someone started saying that, inspired by the cold bean dish which made a great dip, and didn't require any extra fuel.
885363
Bollocks.\n\nIt was a saying made up from so called skilled tradesmen because the so called jack of all trades were showing them up and proving anybody could do their jobs with a little practise.
451137
It means that everyone is required to work together on something, usually with a sense of urgency.\n\nIt derives from a nautical expression when the shout would go out throught a boat for "all hands on deck" meaning everyone was needed on the deck to tend the rigging, masts etc in situations of bad weather and the like.
976573
Common ancestor.  It's like having five fingers--it's not necessarily the ultimately best number of fingers to have, but the bone arrangement has been around since we got it from the actinopteryginii and possibly even before.  We just happened to get it from the animal that happened to make it.  Evolution can work in favor of dumb luck, occasionally.
244893
its actually an idiom\n\nthe meaning is actually Ironically or as a joke, as in Was he speaking with tongue in cheek when he said Sally should run for president? This term probably alludes to the facial expression produced by poking one's tongue in one's cheek, perhaps to suppress a smile. [First half of 1800s]\n\nas for the hand to mouth means providing only bare essentials; "a hand-to-mouth existence"\n\ntry these links\n\nthey are quite helpful if u ever stumble other idioms...\n\nwww.answers.com/topic/tongue-in-cheek \nwww.elook.org/dictionary/tongue-in-cheek.html\n\ngood luck and have fun!!
948767
I’ve read at least half a dozen contradictory accounts of the origin of the handshake. Because handshakes clearly predate written history, all these explanations are ultimately somewhat speculative. But the most popular story is that an open right hand showed you were not carrying a weapon; if two men met and displayed empty right hands, this presumably meant a basic level of trust existed that neither would stab the other. In one variant of this story, the handshake evolved from an elbow-to-wrist “patdown” to check for hidden knives; in another, the shaking motion was supposed to dislodge any sharp objects that may have been kept in the sleeve.\n\nOf course, this explanation, while plausible enough, doesn’t account for left-handed men, who presumably would have been happy to extend the right hand in greeting while wielding a dagger in the left. But in many parts of the world, since ancient times, the left hand has been considered the “bathroom” hand, the one never used for eating, giving, or receiving—nor, by extension, for greeting—whether you’re left-handed or not.\n\nMeanwhile, the “I’m-not-going-to-stab-you” story doesn’t tell us why the handshake won out over other greeting gestures in the West. After all, in some cultures the standard greeting (even between people who don’t know each other well) is a kiss on one or both cheeks; in others, people hug, rub noses, bow, or even stick out their tongues. Writer Margaret Visser suggests one possibility. As she noted in her book The Way We Are, at one time the English were more demonstrative with their gestures of greeting—for example, English men routinely greeted all women with a kiss on the mouth. As part of the Victorian behavioral “reforms,” public kissing of any kind became socially unacceptable and the handshake came into fashion for both men and women as a convenient way to keep a person at arm’s length. So to speak.\n\nThe Left Hand Doesn’t Know What the Right Hand Is Doing\nAt least in the United States, the handshake has become an extremely ambiguous symbol. At one level, it just means “hello” or “goodbye.” But it can also be construed to mean “we’re in agreement” or even that an informal contract has been reached, as in the proverbial handshake deal. And on a still deeper level, it can mean “everything’s OK between us,” particularly after some conflict has been resolved. But sometimes social convention awkwardly calls for shaking hands to signify the end of a meeting, even though no agreement has been reached or a state of conflict still exists. And heaven forbid that one world leader should shake hands with another whose ideology differs deeply, since people on both sides will judge this as a disingenuous move at best, and at worst, a betrayal of the leader’s values. But was the politician saying, “I accept you and your beliefs” or simply, “Hello”?\n\nThen, of course, business types will read all sorts of meaning into the very style of your handshake. Even if you execute it under exactly the right circumstances, it must be firm but not too firm; it must be held for exactly the right amount of time but no longer; it must be accompanied by direct eye contact; and, for bonus sincerity points, you should add your left hand to make a “hand sandwich.” You may also be judged on the angle of your hand and the number and intensity of shakes.\n\nAnd if this kind of confusion isn’t bad enough, that’s just the standard, run-of-the-mill handshake. Gangs sometimes use special handshakes to signify group membership, just as fraternal societies and children’s clubs use “secret handshakes” as a kind of password, a symbolic way of saying, “We’re insiders.” So if someone outside the group incorrectly attempts a handshake, the results can be quite serious. On the other hand, a high five (arguably a variety of handshake) pretty unambiguously expresses satisfaction or congratulations—but that’s t
534929
This expression, meaning "be very careful to behave correctly",\nhas been in use from the 17th century on.  Theories include:  an\nadmonishment to children learning to write; an admonishment to\ntypesetters (who had to look at the letters reversed); an\nadmonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with\ntheir tarred "queues" (pigtails); "mind your pints and quarts";\n"mind your prices and quality"; "mind your pieds and queues"\n(either feet and pigtails, or two dancing figures that had to be\naccurately performed); the substitution of /p/ for "qu" /kw/ in the\nspeech of uneducated ancient Romans; or the confusion by students\nlearning both Latin and Ancient Greek of such cognates as _pente_\nand _quintus_.  And yes, we've heard the joke about the instruction\nto new sextons:  "Mind your keys and pews."
1072287
One possible origin for the phrase is an incident said to have taken place during the siege of the Alamo in 1836, when William Barret Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword and urged those willing to stay and defend the fort to step across it. Unfortunately, this heroic story seems to have been invented by a 19th century promoter long after the fall of the Alamo. But the myth itself probably greatly popularized the phrase, so it does count as an origin of sorts even if the incident itself was apocryphal. \n\nAnother possible origin dates back to the time of the Roman Empire. It seems that one of the Macedonian kings, a bit short of cash, decided to invade Egypt, then a Roman protectorate. His army was met at the border by a lone Roman senator named Popillius Laenas, who ordered the king to withdraw. The king began to stall for time, so Popillius Laenas drew a circle in the sand around the king and demanded that the king agree to withdraw his army before he stepped out of the circle. The king, apparently impressed by the senator's nerve (or, more likely, by the Roman Empire in general), withdrew. Incidentally, not only is this account verified by contemporary historians, but it also may be the only known instance of a line drawn in the sand actually stopping someone.
18371
It is an idiom intended to mean "be careful, pay attention to detail"  it has morphed, in recent times, to mean many other things including "be polite".\n\nThere are several theories about it's origin, but the one I believe makes the most sense is - mind your Pints and Quarts.  Meaning to keep track of what you order in a pup so you are not over charged.
1170816
This originated in the early 1980s. It is generally regarded as an American expression. This item from the New York newspaper the Syracuse Herald-American, Feb. 1982, which is the earliest version in print that I can find, puts that in some doubt. It's in a piece by Jerry Buck, writing out of Los Angeles, about actress Lauren Tewes
738005
"This gesture originates from the custom of making a wish upon the cross. It was believed that the cross was a symbol of unity and that benign spirits dwelt at its intersecting point -- to wish on a cross was a figurative way of securing the wish at the intersection until it came true.\n\nThis custom dates back to pre-Christian times and, in many early European cultures, two people were required to use their index fingers to form the sign, one to make the wish and the other to support it. Over the years, the custom was modified so one person could make a wish on his/her own."
62526
around the 1830's because in theater the gesture was the same as "hissing" an actor- they would either hiss or "flip the bird" - now people just boo basically but in between then and now people used to boo and hiss.  The hissing sound was related to the hissing sound of geese, and thats how the term "flipping the bird" came to be.  Now we just call the middle finger the "bird" because it is the finger used when we "flip the bird"
32404
I used to think this too, I crack my finger knuckles all the time!  Here's a little medical myth's debunked info for ya!
652805
It's quote from the film Marathon Man.  Laurence Olivier's character says it as he is about torture Dustin Hoffman's character with a dentist drill.
19941
The principle of being on strike, if not the words, seems to have been started by the French.  Originating with the words "en greve" which means in "greve."  The "greve" or Greve in the 18th century was where people could bring their grievances (perhaps another clue there in that word) to be heard.\n\nAs for "striking," the word itself, we'd have to look it up in an Etymological Dictionary such as this extract from an online one cited below: strike (n.) "concentrated cessation of work by a body of employees," 1810, from verb meaning "refuse to work to force an employer to meet demands" (1768), from strike (v.). Perhaps from notion of striking or "downing" one's tools, or from sailors' practice of striking (lowering) a ship's sails as a symbol of refusal to go to sea (1768), which preserves the verb's original sense of "make level, smooth." Baseball sense is first recorded 1841; bowling sense attested from 1859. Meaning "sudden military attack" is attested from 1942.