Idioms are very common in the English language. For example, “get off my back” does not have to mean someone is literally on your back but is more often used to imply that someone is bothering you. There are many idioms used on a regular basis, such as “I’ll do it when pigs fly,” which mean something will never happen, or “put a sock in it,” means for someone to stop talking. Although these common idioms are easy to understand, there are many that make absolutely no sense.

The idiom “let the cat out of the bag” means to spill a secret or something that was not supposed to be told. This actually came from the early 1700s when pigs were being sold for food. Mischievous sellers would place cats in the bags that the pigs were supposed to be in and sell them to the consumer. When a cat was out of the bag, the secret was out, and the buyer knew they were being scammed.

A common idiom used is when someone tells you to “sleep tight.” This phrase is used to tell others to sleep well or have a good night’s sleep. This actually came from Ancient Egyptian and Roman times. During this time period, mattresses were above the ground and needed a ladder to reach them. The beds were hung by ropes, and whenever the ropes were tight, the bed felt well-sprung. Before telling junior Landon Perry what the phrase meant, I asked his initial thoughts: “I think that sleep tight means to sleep good.” After telling him the true story behind the idiom, he was “amazed at what it actually means. I really did not know that.”

Another idiom with a weird origin is to “bite the bullet.” If someone ever tells you to do this, they mean to get something difficult over with, sort of like ripping off a bandaid. This idiom came from the 1800s, when hospital patients would literally bite on a bullet to take their mind away from the pain they were physically going through. This was mostly used before surgery whenever anesthesia was not around.

Idioms are very strange, and we use them without even thinking about their literal meaning. Next time you are using these phrases, think about their origin and what they actually mean. So long!