fact
In 1963 the first message sent on the Moscow–Washington hotline was the test phrase “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG’S BACK 1234567890”. Later, the confused Russian translators responded, “What does it mean when your people say ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’?” The phrase was commonly used by the […]
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The phrase “Mad as a hatter” was born because men who worked in the hattery industry was suffering from mercury poisoning due the substance being used in the process of hat making. 00
The phrase ‘pulling out all the stops’, meaning to use all the resources or force at one’s disposal, comes from organ-playing, where it means to literally pull out every knob to play all the pipes at once, thereby creating the fullest possible sound. 00
We say “pardon my French” after swearing because in the 19th century, English-speaking people would drop French phrases into conversation to display class, apologizing because many of their listeners wouldn’t know the language. Then people hid swear words under the pretense of them being French.