Where did some of our favorite cliched phrases come from? Sometimes you can give even a worn out cliche some new and interesting life in a story if you know something about its provenance.
I'll start with "piss poor" and the related "not a pot to piss in".
They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery . . . if you had to do this to survive.....you were “piss poor”
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot . . . they “didn’t have a pot to
piss in” and were the lowest of the low.
Do you have a good one to contribute?
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