What Does That Mean? PQR

What Does That Mean?

PQR

Paint the town red
Meaning: Cause a large amount of mischief.
Origin: A popular and romantic (but possibly untrue) root points to a mischievous Marquis and his friends painting the English town of Melton Mowbray red, just for fun, in 1837. The event definitely happened but it is unknown if that was the source of the phrase.

Paparazzi
Meaning: Photographers who take and sell candid pictures of celebrities, sometimes by intrusive or illegal methods.
Origin: Paparazzo was the surname of a character in Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life), which is about photojournalists in Rome. ‘Paparazzi’ is the plural form of that and is related to an Italian word meaning ‘mosquitoes’.
Note: A singular member of the Paparazzi is called a Paparazzo, like how one long strand of thin pasta is called a spaghetto.

Pardon my French
Meaning: Excuse my foul language.
Origin: Believed to come from early-1800s England when people would use unfamiliar French words in conversations, causing the speaker to apologize to the listener. When this usage was established, French was often used to insult others, resulting in ironic pleas for forgiveness.
Note: One hypothesis speculates that French-into-English began happening as early as 1066, when William of Normandy conquered England and gave his countrymen positions of authority.

Pass the buck
Meaning: Putting something that is your responsibility on another person or group.
Origin: 19^th-century poker players did not trust others, so the dealer changed every hand and a knife was often used to indicate which person was next. Handles of those knives were commonly made from deer antlers, also called buckhorns. The word was shortened to ‘buck’.
Note: President Harry Truman utilized the same definition with his famous phrase, ‘The buck stops here’.

Pass with flying colors
Meaning: Excel during some kind of test, academic or otherwise.
Origin: This phrase comes from the 1500s, when the national flags of country’s ships were referred to as their ‘colors’. A ship going by while its flags were not obscured in any way was said to be ‘passing with flying colors’. This also became a saying for victory because hoisted flags on ships returning from battle would indicate that they had won.

Peanut gallery
Meaning: People who unhelpfully comment on a situation that does not involve them.
Origin: In the days of Vaudeville shows (1870s – 1930s), the cheapest seats in theaters were often occupied by rowdy people who would throw peanuts and other items at performers they did not like.

Pen pals
Meaning: People who are typically far apart geographically and correspond regularly through writing letters or e-mails.
Origin: Formerly known as ‘pen friends’, the practice goes back millennia, but the current term became popular in the 1930s when the Student Letter Exchange was formed to connect students from various countries. The word ‘pal’ likely comes from a Roma word meaning ‘brother’ or ‘comrade’. The Roma people originated in northern India and migrated to Europe and their tribe has nothing to do with Rome or Romania.

Pet peeve
Meaning: Something largely insignificant that a person finds particularly annoying, such as gum on a sidewalk or a guy who brings his guitar to a non-musical party.
Origin: ‘Peeve’ comes from the Middle English word ‘peevish’, which meant ‘easily irritated’. The ‘pet’ part of the phrase has to do with an old use of the word meaning that something was important to a person. Though ‘pet’ has come to mean a domesticated animal or the act of brushing one’s hand along its fur, the older definition is still relevant in phrases like ‘pet project’.

Peter out
Meaning: Something that gradually loses strength or power until it ends.
Origin: This phrase can be traced back to mid-1800s American miners. There are several uses of it, but the actual origin is unclear. It could be a Biblical reference, associated with saltpeter (an ingredient in gunpowder), and/or the French word Péter which is often used to mean fizzle.

Piece of cake
Meaning: A simple task.
Origin: The term ‘cakewalk’ pre-dates ‘piece of cake’ but both meant the same thing. The idioms are American and might date back to a time when cakes were common prizes in dance contests.

Pig in a blanket
Meaning: A small sausage wrapped in a pastry, commonly served as an appetizer at parties.
Origin: There is a debate as to when and where these treats came from, though some credit the 1800s United States, when the phrase referred to pickled oysters. Seafood aside, the name itself is fairly self-explanatory: Sausage is commonly made of meat from pigs while the ‘blanket’ covering keeps it warm.

Pigeon-holed
Meaning: Labeled as only being good at one thing, such as an actor who plays a similar role in multiple films.
Origin: In the 1500s, domesticated pigeons roosted in compartments that were designated for them. Shortly after, the term referred to any part of a piece of furniture with a small hole. By the 1800s, anything put into a specific category was described being ‘pigeon-holed’.

Pin-point accuracy
Meaning: Exact precision.
Origin: This phrase began as military aviation slang, specifically to describe how well bombs hit their targets.

Pipe dream
Meaning: An unrealistic hope.
Origin: English people, especially writers, were known to smoke opium in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Opium’s ‘high’ is said to be euphoric, leading many users to dream while on the drug. Curiously, the phrase’s first public use was in an 1890 Chicago newspaper article, describing aviation as nothing but a ‘pipe-dream’.

Play it by ear
Meaning: Proceed without a set plan.
Origin: When a musician plays a piece by ear, it’s done without looking at sheet music. The performer listens to what is being played to ensure it is good.

Pony up
Meaning: Pay money that is owed.
Origin: The Hebrew Bible’s longest Psalm, number 119, contains the phrase ‘legem pone’ and discusses a day in which debts are paid.

Prodigal son
Meaning: A person who acts recklessly then returns home.
Origin: Though sometimes (mistakenly) used favorably, ‘prodigal’ means ‘wasteful’. In the Bible’s book of Luke, Jesus tells a story about a man irresponsibly spending all his money and shamefully going back to his parents, who forgive and accept their son even though he expects them not to. The story is a metaphor for how God will always love and forgive, no matter what a person does.

Pulling out all the stops
Meaning: Trying anything.
Origin: On a pipe organ, pushing in a knob (or ‘stop’) mutes that particular note. When it is pulled out, the music can be as loud as the player wishes. Pulling out all the stops creates a magnificent (if ear-piercing) sound.

Pulling someone’s leg
Meaning: Jokingly trying to convince a person that something untrue is real.
Origin: Apparently, the source of this expression is one of the biggest mysteries among idiom enthusiasts. (Yes, those people exist. No, making a list of idioms does not put one in that group.) It could refer to common thieves or public hangings in Victorian England, but it might be a more modern American phrase.

Pushing the envelope
Meaning: Testing conventional boundaries and/or taking risks, relating from morals to legal issues.
Origin: Nothing to do with postal stationery, ‘envelope’ is also an aviation term meaning ‘the limit of what has been tested’, namely speed and altitude. It supposedly originated in the 1940s and was popularized by Tom Wolfe in his 1979 book The Right Stuff.

Put a sock in it
Meaning: Stop talking.
Origin: This phrase was (probably) coined in the early 1900s and refers to the practice of putting a sock into a phonograph to deaden the sound of the music.

Put one’s two cents in
Meaning: Humbly give one’s opinion even though it wasn’t asked for.
Origin: As far back as the 1500s, declaring something was worth two pieces of any currency was insulting, meaning the thing did not have much value. One popular hypothesis as to how the phrase came into use dates to when postage stamps cost two cents, rendering that the price to give one’s opinion. The true root of the saying is unknown.

Put your money where your mouth is
Meaning: Follow your statement with action to achieve it.
Origin: Though the phrase’s coiner is unknown, it stems from a 1913 political article and gained popularity during the 1930s, used mostly when discussing gambling at a race-track. People would try to convince others to bet on certain horses but were challenged to place the same wagers themselves.

Pyrrhic victory
Meaning: Winning something at a substantial cost, making it almost like a defeat.
Origin: In Ancient Greece, King Pyrrhus led a series of wars against Rome. Greece won the first two but lost so many soldiers to the Roman army (which suffered heavy losses but was much bigger) that the historian Plutarch said, “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.”

Quantum leap
Meaning: Sudden, significant advance or increase.
Origin: The word ‘quantum’ means ‘having an amount’ and comes from the same root as ‘quantity’. The term entered the scientific lexicon in the late 1800s and got popularized by the Quantum Theory (later called Quantum Mechanics), which described very small particles, like atoms. A ‘quantum jump’, as it was then known, refers to an electron changing its energy level. ‘Jump’ was replaced with ‘leap’ a few years later and still has the same meaning but now is used to discuss any kind of situation, whether related to Physics or not.

Quitting cold turkey
Meaning: Abruptly stopping something instead of gradually getting rid of it, such as a smoker giving up the habit without a reduction of cigarettes or using patches.
Origin: Before it was primarily used to describe ending addictions, ‘cold turkey’ referred to something that happened right away, such as losing a bunch of money at once. Why that specific bird was brought to the conversation is unknown, but its first use related to drug withdrawal was in a 1921 Canadian newspaper article.

Raining cats and dogs
Meaning: Precipitating heavily.
Origin: There are two major (unconfirmed) hypotheses: 1) that cats and dogs fighting intensifies everything, or 2) a version of the Greek phrase cata doxa, which describes something contrary to usual experiences. Regardless, the phrase is believed to have been born in Wales in the 1600s.

Rap sheet
Meaning: Criminal record.
Origin: Some say the sound of a judge’s gavel is a ‘rap’ and not proving one’s innocence before it is struck means the rap was not beaten. Others claim that RAP is an acronym for Record of Arrests and Prosecutions.

Rat fink
Meaning: An unpleasant, sometimes treasonous, person.
Origin: In the 1960s, Ed Roth’s character Rat Fink became popular for being a counter-culture response to Mickey Mouse, so the term entered the slang of the time. The word ‘fink’ likely came from ‘finch’, a bird with quirky and unconventional behavior.

Rat race
Meaning: A busy, often competitive but unfulfilling way of life, commonly focused on money and power.
Origin: Initially ‘rat run’, this phrase was used for laboratory rats who ran against each other in mazes, often with great exhaustion and little reward. In the 1940s, the saying was adopted by the aviation industry to describe training involving ‘follow the leader’ exercises.

Red flag
Meaning: Regarding relationships, something that warns you a potential partner may be a bad match.
Origin: Since at least the 1700s, red flags have been raised during battle to show the other side that the fighting is not yet over, because of bravery and/or stubborn-ness. A red flag has also been used in various arenas (such as auto racing) as a warning that something negative has happened.

Red herring
Meaning: A clue specifically intended to mislead or distract, common in (real or fictional) crime stories.
Origin: An article in a 1686 men’s magazine described the benefits of using an actual red herring to distract hound-dogs to prolong fox hunts.
Note: A red herring is not an actual fish, but silver ones turn a reddish color when smoked.

Ride shotgun
Meaning: Sit in the seat next to the driver of a vehicle.
Origin: In the 1800s, drivers of stagecoaches would often get attacked and robbed, so a new job was created for protection, which involved sitting next to them with a shotgun during their journeys. Western films of the mid-1900s brought the phrase into popular use.

Robber baron
Meaning: A derogatory term mostly used in the 1800s for a person who became wealthy due to unethical business practices, namely a focus on earning money while ignoring workers’ needs.
Origin: In medieval Europe, upper-class people (such as barons) would rob ships along rivers and/or charge travelers unwarranted tolls to amass even more fortune. The phrase was first used in the United States in 1859 to describe Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Roll with the punches
Meaning: Accept and deal with hardship.
Origin: In the boxing world, ‘rolling with the punches’ means that an athlete will get into a position to lessen the impact of any hits received.

Rule of thumb
Meaning: The generally accepted method of doing something, based on experience rather than strict practice.
Origin: A common story holds that husbands were once legally allowed to beat their wives with sticks no thicker than their thumbs. No evidence supports this idea, though there was an unpopularly harsh judge in 1700s England who people think would have passed such a law and is often credited as the “source” of the phrase. The origin is actually unknown, but experts think it has something to do with a crude system of basic measurement.

Run errands
Meaning: Do important but minor tasks.
Origin: The word ‘errands’ comes from an Old English term meaning ‘missions’. They are said to be run because the distances to the destinations are commonly short.

Run like the dickens
Meaning: Run as fast as possible.
Origin: ‘Dickens’ used to be an alternative word for ‘devil’ used by superstitious people. William Shakespeare is credited with coining this phrase in The Merry Wives Of Windsor.
Note: It has nothing to do with author Charles Dickens.