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Keep your nose to the grindstone (keep on working assiduously)
MYTH: This is a reference to the old water-powered grist mill and its huge grinding stone. The miller had to check adjustments by sniffing. If the stone was set too close to the grain, the meal would overheat and begin to burn. His nose would alert him.
REALITY: The grindstone was the sharpening tool used by a blacksmith. Originally, the phrase indicated harshness or implacable cruelty that could wear a person down.
Let the cat out of the bag (disclose the real truth)
MYTH: The cat was the cat-o-nine-tails, the whip used to punish wayward sailors aboard sailing vessels. It was kept in a sealed bag to protect it from the elements. When it was taken out of the bag, the terrible truth was revealed: you are about to be flogged.
REALITY: It is probably a reference to a scam that was perpetrated on rural folk visiting cathedral towns and their markets in the Middle Ages. A slaughtered suckling pig was displayed to the buyer. If a price was agreed upon, the seller would pull a bait-and-switch by putting a shaved dead cat into a sack out of view of the buyer and cinch it tightly. The weight and the feel through the sacking would fool the victim until he got home. There, he would take the cat out of the bag and discover to his chagrin that he had been duped. This phrase is mirrored by “to buy a pig in a poke” (a sack).
Losing face (to suffer embarrassment; to be publicly humiliated)
MYTH: In the old days, many women had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee’s wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt, leading to the expression “losing face.”
REALITY: See mind your own beeswax. First of all, if your face was covered with wax, body heat alone would be enough to soften it. Second, there is no doubt that the term arose only in the late nineteenth century, and that it is a translation of the Chinese tiu lien. The opposite is to save face. How would they explain that? Women sat on a block of ice to save face?
Mind your own beeswax (stay out of my business)
MYTH: In the old days, many women had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee’s wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman’s face she was told “mind your own bee’s wax.”
REALITY: It never happened. The term developed in the 1930s as a humorous variant on the word business.
News (information reported by the media)
MYTH: Since reports come from all parts of the compass (North, East, West, and South), the acronym NEWS was invented.
REALITY: Plain and simple, it refers to new information. In fact, when it showed up in English in the 14th century, a translation of the French noveles, it was spelled newes, which ruins the so-called acronym. Remember: there were no acronyms before 1900.
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