More Cliches Yada Yada Trivia Quiz

Answer: your bottom dollar

"You can bet your bottom dollar" is what you might say to someone when you wish to convey to that person that he or she can be sure of something. The speaker of the phrase is claiming that he or she is so certain of a particular outcome that if he or she had only one dollar left to spend in life, he or she would still bet that one dollar. I suppose, too, that you could picture a stack of paper money and that the speaker has lost or spent all of that money except for the dollar at the bottom of that stack; nevertheless, the speaker is so certain of a particular outcome that he or she would have no problem betting that very last dollar. We're talking about absolute confidence here. One of the earliest written recordings of the expression is found in an 1856 publication of the "La Crosse Independent Republican": "I'm goin' to vote for you--you can bet your bottom dollar on that!"

Answer: a yawning gulf

A "yawning gulf" refers to a formidable obstacle or hazard or a daunting task. The metaphor obviously relies on a deep and wide body of water, a chasm, or an abyss, one with a large enough surface area or mouth-like opening to instill fear or dread in the one viewing it.

The author of the Gospel of Luke in the Bible's New Testament wrote the following: "And beside all this, between you and us there is a great gulf fixed" (Luke 16:26 KJV). However, Edmund Spenser's 1590 publication of "The Faerie Queene" shows the evolved expression as we know it: ". . . [T]hey . . . / . . . brought the heavy Corse with easy pace / To yawning gulf of deep Avernus' hole". Of course, the ancient Greeks already had this image firmly in mind, for their word "khasma", from which we have the word "chasm", literally meant "yawning hollow".

Answer: Your cake

The entire proverb is, "You can't have your cake and eat it too" although there are many other variations, such as "You can't both eat your cake and have it", "You can't have everything and eat it too", and "Eat your cake and all you'll have is the crumbs in bed with you".

Many misunderstand the cliche and believe it to make no sense. They often frustratedly claim, "If I own the cake, then of course I can eat it" or "Having a piece of cake and eating a piece of cake are the same thing". However, the expression is meant to declare that a person cannot use something up and still have it to use later, or, often in life, situations arise when you cannot experience two events at the same time. You can't have it both ways. You can't eat up all of your cake and still have a cake to own, or you can't own a cake forever if you're going to eat it.

The earliest written record of the expression is in the playwright and poet John Heywood's collection of "Proverbs" from 1546.

Answer: Richard is a dependable employee who works hard.

Someone who does "a yeoman's service" is someone who works arduously and competently, making certain that a job is done thoroughly. This person is also dependable and loyal, as the term "service" might also imply. The variation "a yeoman's job" means mostly the same thing but doesn't so readily imply the "loyalty" theme. Both terms also sometimes imply that the job is one that didn't necessarily require a particular set of skills as much as it required dedication, determination, and hard work.

The phrase dates back to around 1595 and is a direct reference to the English yeoman of yore. A "yeoman" was once a servant of a royal or high noble during the late medieval to early modern eras and held a rank somewhere between a squire and a page. This individual was considered highly trustworthy and was given tasks or responsibilities around the household or castle that the nobleman needed to feel certain would be accomplished.

Answer: water, drink

"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink" dates back to at least to 1175, where it appears in an earlier form in "Old English Homilies": "Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken?" [Who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]. People who are familiar with horses, and obviously more were in the past than they are now, very well understand that after exerting much effort to bring water to a horse or a horse to water, the horse may be completely uninterested. This frustrating experience is comparable to the attitude and behavior of human beings. Many people are so stubborn or willful (or perhaps ignorant) that you can provide them every opportunity to advance or benefit themselves, and they will not take advantage of those opportunities until they have decided to do so--if they ever decide to do so.

There are many variations of this maxim. Stan Laurel jokingly said, "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led". However, perhaps the most famous variation is Dorothy Parker's satirical version; supposedly asked to use "horticulture" in a sentence, she responded, "You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think".

Answer: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

In 1842, Alfred Tennyson published "Locksley Hall", which contains the line from the question--"In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" (line 20). The warming of the outdoors, now filled with new life, puts the young man of the poem in the mood for love.

However, the woman he loves cannot be his as she is made to wed another, and the man, now a much older one, looks back on this time with sorrow. As Tennyson uses his phrase "a young man's fancy", he appears to refer to the joyful and passionate feelings that youth experience and allow to run unchecked. Tennyson's American contemporary Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captured a similar idea in his poem "My Lost Youth" with the following refrain: "A boy's will is the wind's will / And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts".

Answer: a sow's ear

"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" means, "you have to have the right starting material to make something useful" or "you can't take something ugly or worthless and turn it into something beautiful or valuable". The idea stems from the fact that people in the past have used practically every part of a pig for some purpose or another. Not only is its flesh edible by those whose faith doesn't forbid its consumption, but people eat the animals skin, brains, intestines, kidneys, liver, snout, tongue, feet, and many other parts. Furthermore, the pig's skin, ears, stomach, bladder, tail, etc. have been put to other uses. When people are poor and hungry, they resort to what they must. However, while every part of the pig may be utilized in some manner, there are obviously some things you just cannot make them into. Using materials from a pig is associated with the poor. Furthermore, pigs are considered dirty because they tend to wallow in mud and their own food and feces (when kept in a pen), and this connection with dirtiness isn't helped by the fact that certain faiths, such as Judaism and Islam, consider the consumption of pork to be forbidden by God. All of this explanation leads to why someone decided to use a sow's ear to represent something ugly, low-class, or cheap, but why a silk purse to represent something high-class and valuable? Silk is obviously a valuable fabric and was considered even more so in the past when only the upper classes could afford it, and a purse, being an accessory to one's apparel and not a necessity, would also be associated with luxury, particularly when it was and is used to hold one's money (in the past, even males wore purses, usually at the waist).

The expression at an earlier time relied on an association with a goat. During the 1500s, Alexander Barclay wrote in "Certayne Eglogues": "None can make goodly silke of a gotes fleece". However, in 1579, Stephen Gosson wrote in his "Ephemerides", "seekinge to make a silke purse of a Sowes eare".

Answer: Workers on Caribbean sugar cane plantations whose shirts became stained from their labor

In the eighteenth century, "yellow-belly" was a mildly derogatory name but not really one associated with cowardice. A 1787 publication of "Knight's Quarterly Magazine" recorded a lady's attempt to guess the name used to refer to people who lived in the Staffordshire Collieries. She guessed, "Lie-a-bed", "Cock-eye", "Pig-tail", and Yellow-belly". A publication from the same year, Grose's "A provincial glossary; with a collection of local proverbs etc" explains the term thusly: "Yellow bellies. This is an appellation given to persons born in the Fens, who, it is jocularly said, have yellow bellies, like their eels". Beyond this definition, some wishing to be more insulting claimed the people of the fens crawled around on their bellies like eels. An 1839 publication--"A General Dictionary of Provincialisms" by William Holloway--even claims the people of Lincolnshire have a "yellow, sickly complexion of persons residing in marshy situations".

An entirely different story is that the players of Wexford's hurling team were playing a team from Cornwall in the sixteenth century. The manager of Wexford's team, Sir Caesar Colclough, had his players were yellow cloth tied around their waists to differentiate them from Cornwall's players. The Wexford players today still wear yellow on the fronts of their jerseys and still are referred to as "Yellow-bellies".

In the mid-nineteenth century Texas and the United States began to refer to Mexican soldiers as "Yellow-bellies". More than likely, this derogatory reference is a result of a combination of factors: the phrase was already used as an insult in Britain, and many saw an opportunity to borrow the unsavory appellation to apply it to a people whose skin was darker or browner than their own. An 1842 article from the "Wisconsin Enquirer" has the following words: "We learn from Capt. Wright, of the N. York, that it is the intention of the Texans to 'keep dark' until the Mexicans cross the Colorado, and then give them a San Jacinto fight, with an army from 5000 to 7000 men. God send that they may bayonet every 'yellow belly' in the Mexican army".

However, none of these explanations really associates a yellow belly with cowardice. Perhaps, it became customary simply to assume that one's enemy was cowardly--whether that opponent was someone on another team or someone in another army--and the use of "yellow-belly" gradually picked up the connotation of "coward" to go along with the connotation of "opponent".

Answer: chain

"Don't yank my chain" means "don't irritate, annoy, or anger me", for perhaps as David Banner used to say on the American TV drama "The Incredible Hulk", "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry". Some have argued that this expression came into existence due to certain practices and behaviors in the mining occupation during the American 1800s. Apparently, one of the mining cars deep in a mine was reserved for miners to relieve themselves so that they would not have to wander all the way out of a mine to do so. A wooden board with a hole cut into it was placed over a car, and a miner would squat above this board. However, many miners thought it quite funny to play a prank upon those who were relieving themselves; they would sneak up and push or pull the car so that miner would be rolling down the rails of the mine with his pants down and with no way to control the car. To story is that some miners began chaining the "toilet" car so that this prank could not occur; anyone attempting to play this prank would succeed only in yanking a chain.

Many argue, however, that despite the number of people who support this explanation, it doesn't seem all that probable. Many argue that the origin of this expression is simply due to watching an animal resisting being controlled, mistreated, or teased by a chain. Some have also suggested that the expression is the result of the abominable practice of slavery.

Answer: a yoke around his neck

A "yoke around your neck" is a tremendous burden you are being required to carry or a responsibility that is creating tremendous stress in your life. A literal yoke is a device fitted around the necks of animals, usually oxen, and then attached to a plow or a wagon. Any such animal wearing a yoke would obviously be required to pull a heavy load or to exert great effort.

However, the Bible more than likely contributed to the frequency of the expression's use. Both the Old Testament and the New make several references to the literal use as well as the metaphorical image of a yoke around a person's neck. For example, in Jeremiah one can read, "This is what the LORD said to me: 'Make a yoke out of straps and crossbars and put it on your neck'" (27:2, NIV), and in the Matthew one can read, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (11:29-30, NIV).