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How hot is it?

December 5, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

Have you ever listened to a weather forecast on the radio and the announcer says something like “it’s 26 degrees, but it feels like 31.”

You hear this all the time.

If it’s 26 degrees, isn’t that what the current temperature actually feels like? How can it feel hotter, when what you are experiencing, is the actual feeling of what it’s like at that temperature?

When the colder weather arrives and your furnace comes on, you don’t set the thermostat to 17 because it will feel like 22.

A lot of times, sayings we hear or use on a daily basis, really don’t make a lot of sense or have an origin that most people have never heard of. 

“Money can’t buy happiness.” That’s an old saying implying that happiness is something that comes from within. In a way, there’s some truth to that. I guess you can be poor, but keep a good outlook on things.

However, I’ve never heard anyone say “Financial stability is horrible.”

I’ve never seen a lottery winner pick up their winnings with a scowl on their face and say “I wish I didn’t win this money.”

Studies have shown that people who make higher salaries are generally happier because they don’t have the same anxiety when it comes to finding the money for monthly bills.

A lack of money and financial stability is a leading cause of strife in a marriage, and quite often can lead to divorce.

I’m pretty sure having money will make you happy.

“Turning a blind eye” implies that a person will not admit to seeing something they don’t want to see.

That phrase, according to legend, was born when British Navy hero, Horatio Nelson, who was quite the guy, was told to withdraw during a naval battle. Nelson held his telescope up to his blind eye, and said, “I really do not see the signal.”

I think he deserves to be in the history books on that alone.

On the subject of ships, the phrase, ‘show your true colours’, comes from a time when pirates would deliberately fly a false flag to encourage potential targets to come within range.

Only when they were close enough to attack, would the pirates run their real flag, and intentions, up to the top of the mast.

That’s one you should remember when dealing with shady used car dealers.

‘Winning hands down,’ generally means someone has won a competition by a large margin. The phrase comes from horse racing where jockeys use their riding crop on a horse’s rear quarters to tell the horse to give it more effort.

If a horse has a comfortable lead and is going to win, the jockey doesn’t need to use the crop and this is known as winning ‘hands down.’

‘Saved by the bell’ or ‘being a dead ringer’ have a rather macabre reference.

During Victorian England, and probably earlier, a lot of people had a fear of being buried alive. Someone came up with the idea of having an above-ground bell with a line attached to the deceased’s finger.

If someone was buried prematurely, they could ring the bell and alert anyone walking by.

I think the better option would be to make sure someone is actually dead before you bury them.

I’m pretty sure ‘saved by the bell’ in the modern sense comes from boxing when the bell rings to end the round before an eight-count is completed.

‘Break a leg’, is something said to actors before they go on stage, usually on opening night, as a way of wishing them success.

In theatre circles, which are notoriously superstitious, wishing someone ‘good luck’ is a bad omen.

The phrase ‘break a leg’ may refer to an actor bending at the knee or to curtsy at the end of a performance to acknowledge the audience’s enthusiastic response.

Others think it comes from the fact that actor John Wilkes Booth broke his leg after shooting President Lincoln after leaping from his box seat to the stage and limping off into the night to escape.

How committing a murder equates to wishing someone well – seems a little misguided.

Finally, there is the phrase, ‘Saskatchewan is so flat you can watch your dog run away for three days.’

There’s a lot of truth in that saying, but don’t tell the folks in Dog River, they’ve heard it too many times already. 

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