Fact or fiction

[Excalibur]

Hey Ho, I actually know one! The Devil was a damn great beastie called "Scylla" ( don't know if she was from Liverpool) and the deep blue sea was a whirlpool called " Charybdis". They were on either side of a narrow strait, and if you stayed far enough away from one the other one could get you, hence the phrase" between............"

[davidP]

MrWiggly:

Why should Gentlemen always walk on the right hand side of ladies ?

I always thought that was something to do with having to draw your sword with your right hand from the left side of your body.

[Steve Burke]

To enable them to draw a weapon right-handed men have long tended to walk to the left of their ladies. Perhaps walking on the right is the reason why 70% of people still today tilt their head to the right when kissing?

 

Driving on the left is thus more natural. It was Napoleon who changed so as to be different fron the British. Unfortunately it seems to have become mighty popular!

[Newt]

Re: the right hand / left hand thing -

 

If you will notice the stair case in a house or castle, you will see most are designed so that a right-handed swordsman will have an advantage over another one who is lower on the stairs then he. The idea being defenders, if hard pressed, would be retreating up the stairs and could take a full swing while the ones moving up the stairs would be hampered by the post placement at every turn or by the curve.

 

And as to walking, I think that custom may have been modified because in the US, at least, polite behavior has the man walking on the street side. I was told as a youngster that it meant you'd get splashed with mud/water rather than the lady. So right side vs. left side depends on which direction you are walking if a sidewalk bordering on a street . Usually to the ladie's left so no good whatever if you need to use a sword. But since we do more guns than knives, it works out pretty well.

[Newt]

A couple more for you trivia fans:

 

Mad as a Hatter (a la the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland)

 

Son of a Gun (hint - nautical expression from the British sailing Navy era)

[Poolboy]

The "Devil" is the plank or line on the boats hull which marks the level at which the boat should sit in the water. I think.

[bikenut]

You're all making it up as you go along!!!

And watawoppa, you've put fishes in your signature, should be WOMEN

Bikenut

[wotawoppa]

Bikenut...Fish are far more complex than women.

 

All you have to do for women is:

 

1) Do what they want before they know it needs doing.

 

2) Buy the things they want before they know they want them.

 

3) Give them your undivided love and attention 24 hrs a day 365 days a year.

 

4) Wash up.

 

I always seem to mess up on the washing up bit though..the rest is easy :confused:

 

I have in fact used a little artistic licence and altered a quote attrubuted to Winston Churchill. The origial word was russians, not fish or women.

[wotawoppa]

Newt:

A couple more for you trivia fans:

 

Mad as a Hatter (a la the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland)

 

Son of a Gun (hint - nautical expression from the British sailing Navy era)

Mad as a hatter.....Hatters used to use mercury in the making of hats. This affected their nervous systems and, because of the tremors they experienced, they were labelled as mad. The Hatter in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is not actually described as mad in the story; although it can hardly be called sane.

 

 

Son of a gun...Women on board sailing ships sometimes had sex with sailors between the cannons. A male child born of such a union would be a son of a gun.

[corydoras]

I reckon that 9 years in the Merchant Navy qualifies me to clear up at least one of these.

 

The saying "There will be the devil to pay" come from the sea. Sorry watawoppa but AFAIK it has got nothing to do with wedding vows. Poolboy almost got it right.

 

The devil is the seam that runs round the weather deck and the hull of a ship built of wood. During rough weather the devil would sometimes open up and allow sea water to seep down into the bilges, with potentially disastrous consequences.

 

Filling in a seam between planks is called 'paying' the seam. Seams were payed using a mixture of rope picked out into its individual fibres (this is called oakum) and hot pitch (tar).

 

In bad weather it was not possible to light a fire to heat the pitch.

 

The full version of this proverb is 'The devil to pay, and no pitch (or tar) hot'.