D is for devil

“I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.” When you’re faced with two dangerous alternatives, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. An earlier version of the idea of being caught between evil and the sea is found in Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus is caught between Scylla (a six-headed monster) […]

C is for curiosity

“Curiosity killed the cat.” This phrase has always bothered me, as I am a naturally inquisitive person. So imagine my delight in finding that the original phrase in Tudor England was in fact “Care killed the cat”, meaning that worry and sorrow did the animal in. (Source) So out with worry and in with natural […]

B is for bed

“As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.” Or: “You made your bed, now sleep in it.” (Wie man sich bettet, so liegt man.) This is rather moralizing, don’t you think? Unless, of course, you’re Gianna Nannini singing Kurt Weill. Anyhow, life sometimes lets you get up and remake the bed, and […]

A is for apples

Advent is here, and here comes my advent calendar, based on the alphabet and my favorite sayings. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” This seems to be based on the olde English saying, “Ate an apfel avore gwain to bed, make the doctor beg his bread.” “It’s as American as apple pie.” Did […]