Speak of the Devil! It's More Cliches! Quiz

Answer: Speak off the cuff

To "speak off the cuff" is to more or less make impromptu remarks, to speak on the spur of the moment or without preparation. A formal speech is often written out in advance or at least thought about and planned, but occasionally the speaker does not take much time to prepare what he or she is going to say or is told without notice that he or she must speak.

When this occurred in the past, some would apparently hastily put together a few thoughts and write them out on their shirt cuffs, which at one time were detachable as well as disposable.

This is assumed to be the origin of the expression. The earliest written record of the expression is from a 1938 volume of the "New York Panarama": "Double talk is created by mixing plausible-sounding gibberish into ordinary conversation, the speaker keeping a straight face or dead pan and enumerating casually or off the cuff".

Answer: the Bible

Someone who is the "salt of the earth" is someone on whom you can most certainly rely. Despite salt having a few negative associations, such as in the expression "pour salt in one's wounds", the mineral has been essential to humans' survival. People have historically relied on salt for the preservation of food, so much so that Roman soldiers were paid based on what they needed to purchase salt--thus, the word "salary".

However, the origin of the phrase goes back further than the Romans. The book of Matthew from the Bible's New Testament records Jesus saying, "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt hath lost his savour wherewith shall it be salted?" (KJV).

Answer: a stalking horse

A "stalking horse" refers to a front for some scheme or maneuver one has planned; it is a means of causing an opponent to reveal his or her strong points or strategy. The origin of the phrase lies in the act of hunting when the hunters used horses. Occasionally, a hunter on horseback would, when approaching the game, get off his horse and, using the horse as a blind, stalk step by step until he got within shooting distance of the game. From the game's point of view, or anyone else who happened to be looking on, the horse appeared to be stalking something, not the hunter hidden behind the horse. Using a stalking horse must have been a practice in use long before Shakespeare because the playwright uses the phrase in its figurative sense in "As You Like It".

The Duke and Jaques are having a conversation about the clown Touchstone when Jaques says, "Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at anything and yet a fool". The Duke replies, "He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit".

Answer: separate the sheep from the goats

To "separate the sheep from the goats" is to divide a group of people (or sometimes animals or objects) into two separate categories, with one of those categories consisting of the preferred people or those with good qualities and the other category consisting of the rejected people or those with bad qualities. The expression means to separate the desirables from the undesirables.

The common saying is derived from the Bible, specifically Matthew 25:31-33: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left" (New International Version).

Answer: dog

To be "sick as a dog" is to feel absolutely miserable, usually because of nausea. Of course, all animals become ill, so many have wondered why someone settled on the dog for a vehicle for comparison. The answer is not really known. However, there are several speculations. First of all, the dog is used in several expressions to convey negativity--"dog tired", "dog-eat-dog world", "dirty dog", "go to the dogs", etc. Someone may simply have reasoned, "Why not use the dog to convey how sick I feel since dogs already have such a bad reputation?" Furthermore, dogs are often associated with vomiting, and suffering from nausea is, interestingly enough, what "sick as a dog" is most often used to reference. Dogs are constantly eating anything and everything they come across that seems edible to them, no matter how disgusting these things may seem to us.

The result is often the dog's vomiting. Of course, many of these dogs will, in turn, devour their own vomit. This fact was recognized even by someone as long ago as the author of Proverbs, found in the Bible's Old Testament: "As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly" (Proverbs 26:11, New International Version). Most likely it is this image of a dog vomiting or even eating its own vomit that led people to the phrase "sick as a dog".

Answer: He was exceedingly drunk.

To be "stewed to the gills" is to be excessively drunk". There does not exist an exact point in history for the origin of this expression, but obviously the inspiration is the image of a fish. A very similar but older expression is "stuffed to the gills", which refers to someone who has eaten too much. Perhaps one can picture being "stuffed to the gills" better. Perhaps, someone cooking a fish might stuff it from the tail up to the gills, or, perhaps, a fish that has eaten too much itself may have enough food packed into it that the food reaches its gills.

The image also suggests not only being full but uncomfortably full, as anything blocking a fish's gills could potentially lead to the fish's suffocation. Once you've reached an understanding of "stuffed to the gills", "stewed to the gills" makes more sense. "Stewed" is a slang term for "drunk", suggesting that someone has drunk enough liquid that he or she could be cooked in it. Thus, if a fish had drunk enough alcohol that it filled the fish up from its tail to its gills, then it would be drunk indeed!

Answer: a square peg

"A square peg in a round hole" is a person who doesn't belong in a certain group, institution, or society. The others in the group may feel the "square peg" is a misfit or is too different, or the misfit may feel this about him or herself. The expression is also used to suggest that someone has been mismatched to a job or a task for which he or she is not suited, and lately the expression has been used to refer to an object or an idea as well as to a person. Occasionally, one will see or hear the items in the expression reversed: "a round peg in a square hole". One of the earliest written records of the expression's use is from the early 1800s: in his "On the Conduct of the Understanding" lecture, Sydney Smith expressed, "We shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole".

Answer: an organ found in a bird

Birds very often swallow small stones and grains of sand, which are stored in their gizzards, the muscular section of their stomachs that grind their food. This grinding is assisted by the stones and sand they swallow. Technically, it is the gizzard that those who use the phrase "sand in his craw" should be referring to, not the craw. To be accurate, the "craw" is another name for a bird's crop, which is the muscular pouch or enlarged section of the esophagus that is used to store small amounts of food temporarily. Nevertheless, the expression still works appropriately. To have a good supply of sand or small stones allows the bird to be better able to cope with whatever is passing through its alimentary canal. Similarly, a person who has "sand in his craw" is someone prepared to face whatever hardships are coming his way. One of the earliest references to the expression is found in G. W. Harris's 1867 "Sut Lovingood": "I tell yu hes lots ove san' in his gizzard; he is the best pluck I ever seed".

Answer: sixes and sevens

To be "at sixes and sevens" is, as the question declares, to be in utter confusion, to be discombobulated, or to be in a state of disorder or untidiness. Most scholarly articles argue that the expression is the remainder of a mutated phrase derived from a French gambling game involving dice. Originally, in the game of "hazard", an individual would want to avoid an attempt at rolling five or six--"cinque" and "six" in the French--and anyone who did try such an attempt was considered careless or foolhardy. In English, the expression evolved to "six and seven", probably for alliterative purposes, and at different times was worded "on six and seven", "at six and at seven", and eventually "at sixes and sevens".

Some have also argued that the expression is derived from the book of Job in the Bible's Old Testament. Job 5:19 states: "He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee".

One other explanation has been a story involving either two fur traders or two tailors or the two companies they represented, depending on the variation of the story one hears. Apparently, in the early 1500s, the two were quarreling over the fifth and sixth positions within a guild, and the solution decided upon was a compromise that allowed one to be in the sixth position one year and the other to be in the sixth position the next. However, this explanation ceases to be defendable once one considers that Geoffrey Chaucer used the expression in "Troilus and Criseyde" in 1374: "Lat nat this wrechched wo thyn herte gnawe, But manly set the world on sexe and seuene".

Answer: a skeleton in the closet

"A skeleton in the closet" is a secret that one keeps hidden for fear that its revelation would besmirch one's reputation or character. The 1870 edition of "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" links the origin of this expression to a story about a community's attempt to find one single person without a single care in the world. However, this "Dictionary" offers no source to verify any link between the expression and the tale. The tale goes like this: A woman was found who seemed to satisfy the criteria, for she indeed seemed to have no worries or concerns. Eventually, however, she ended up showing the evaluators a closet containing a human skeleton, which she claimed was the remains of a rival for her affections that her husband had killed in a duel. The woman explained, "I try to keep my trouble to myself, but every night my husband compels me to kiss that skeleton". While there is no real evidence that the cliché "a skeleton in the closet" comes directly from this story, more than likely, the expression is a result of the number of stories like this one. One need only consider William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and Edgar Alan Poe's "The Black Cat" and "A Tell-Tale Heart" as well as so many others to realize that, yes, there does seem to be a very popular motif of telling stories in which the main character's reputation is exposed or ruined after the remains of a murdered victim are found hidden in his or her home.

Interestingly, the British tend to word the expression thusly: "a skeleton in the cupboard". A closet, or water closet, is too often associated with what Americans would consider a bathroom or lavatory.