I often wonder
 

Where and how those little lines originated.
For example:

*Scattered from hell to breakfast

*Make no bones about it

*Come hell or highwater

I know what they imply but my curious mind wonders how they came about. I know there was a thread similar to this in 3.0 but just for shits and giggles (yet another of those lines) let us know what ones strike your fancy. And if you know where they originated, add that as a bonus.

Don't know the origins but here are two I understand,I think..

To say someone is 'full of piss and vinegar'

And to my friends in the south who say 'they're fixin' to have a cup of coffee'.

Did "stupid is as stupid does" really originate with Forrest Gump?

Nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

I like the ones that conjure an image. I think that several like this are around because the image is humorous and descriptive.

Colder than a witches tit in a brass bra.

Can't you just almost feel the cold? The imagary is very well done with minimal words.

Deader than a mackeral.

If you have ever seen a fish that's been dead for a while you can relate to this one.

Harder than Chinese arithmetic.

Heck, Chinese writing is beyond most of us, just imagine how hard the math would be.

Ugly as the south end of a north bound mule.

Self explanatory isn't it?

I havn't even heard of most of those.

This one is heard around my workplace a alot...

I'm busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.

My Favourite: Best thing since sliced bread. I can't help but think of what the best thing was before sliced bread any time I hear someone say that.

One most of you from Dixie will know...

The devil's beatin' his wife.

If you don't know...ask someone with a real southern streak in 'em.

like my grandfather used to say, "We're going to hell in a handbasket..." meaning, i suppose, that the bar is getting lower and lower...

I've heard "Say what you mean, mean what you say" recently. Makes me think about reporting them to the department of redundancy dept.

no there isn't anything redundant about "say what you mean, mean what you say". the first part means to fully explain yourself, the second part means to stand behind it.

And a little PS to that is...

Don't say it mean :)

Re: I often wonder
 

There was a common expression in the 1860's and later--"to hell and gone." It meant that things were in total ruin. Around the 1890's, expressions such as "hellbent for election(or leather or breakfast) were common.
It has been argued that the phrase had its origin in dice games, since dice have been called bones since the fourteenth century at the latest, for the good reason that they were originally carved from bone.

The more probable origin is from the dinner table. The oldest version of the expression is to find bones in something, meaning to find a difficulty or objection in some course of action. The first example is from one of the Paston letters of 1459. It seems to have been linked especially with soup: to have a bone in that certainly presented difficulties in eating it. To find no bones in something meant that you had no problems or difficulties. The idiom seems to have grown out of that.

I wouldn't piss in his mouth if his teeth were on fire -or-
She don't know her ass from a hole in the ground

These are popular in my family. We're originally from the South, mean and sarcastic. I don't know where they come from but most of my life I just assumed we made 'em up. I suppose some of 'em we did.

Oh.. my dad always said, " <blank> is hotter'n a skunk's ass fried in coal oil"

Has anyone ever heard that one before? I've never heard anyone but him say it.

Thanks for the info JadziaDax! :D

Dumber than a box of rocks.
or
Dumber than a box of hammers.
I know i have more than just those 2... my family is rooted in west virginia, so i know theres some more colorful ones floating through the family

I like "More useless than tits on a Bull." It's kinda funny to me.

My dad likes to say during a heavy rain, "It's like a cow pissing on a flat rock."

Raining cats and dogs
That dog won't hunt
Dead as a doornail

Hmmm, somehow those seem to be pretty self explanatory. Maybe I'll be reminded of some more opaque ones later.

Heavy rain here is a Toad Strangler.

Lets see:

Hornier than a 2 dicked monkey
Hotter than a 3 peckered billygoat in a pepper patch
About as useful as tits on a boar hot
About as useful as a condom with a pee hole in it

My grandfather used to say when he was really pissed "shitfire in a whirlwind"

others I've heard:
like a fart in a skillet
harder than a skillet handle
didn't know whether to shit or wind my watch

Faster than a cat with turpentine on his ass.

Evidently this happened more in the olden days as I have heard some of my older relatives refer to this measure of speed.

I guess it kicks in some cat 'Passing Gear".

Oh, and, "More fun than a basket of kittens"

My grandmother would always say "Land a Goshen" as an exclamation. I'm not sure about the meaning but I think it came from the Bible.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

The easiest way to determine a horse's age is to look at its teeth. It was considered rude to try to find out the age of a horse recieved as a gift, it made the recipient look like he thought the giver would give him a cheap gift. Looking a gift horse in the mouth was a sure way to make it look like you expected more than what you were given.

"Come hell or highwater"

To go through with something no matter how bad things get. Biblical: hell we all understand, not a good place to be. Highwater, I'd guess a reference to the Flood, when it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and the water covered all the surfaces of the earth. Also not a good situation, and one which God promised never again to create.