We have a lot of sayings that just roll off the tongue, but where do they come from?

Here’s a sampling:

To beat around the bush:  to hint at - His Lordship would bring his ‘beaters’ with him on those grouse hunting trips, to flush out the quarry and therefore minimize the chance of getting shot by another hunter..

Saved by the bell:  to be rescued just in the knick of time - a Windsor Castle (London) sentry was accused of sleeping while on guard duty.  To save his skin, he claimed to have been awake, and that he heard the town church bells chime 13 tolls at midnight.  The townfolk collaborated his story, and his life was spared.

Money for old rope:  to make financial gain with little or no effort, or through trickery - in the old days, the executioner was allowed to keep the rope after public executions.  He would then sell pieces of it (or in some cases, what he said were pieces of it) as much sought-after souvenirs.

Pass the buck:  to shift responsibility to someone else -  From early 19th century, when the dealer in a poker game would have a buckskin knife next to him, and when the deal was passed to another in order to keep the game honest, the knife was also passed on; this told everyone who the dealer was in that game.

Winging it: to get by with little or no preparation - From the old days - stage performers who weren’t well prepared could read their lines from large boards held just offstage.  The first mention of this phrase was in an 1885 edition of the theatrical trade magazine The Stage.

Chip on your shoulder: to bear a grudge or behave anit-socially - Comes from the early 1900s, when a man looking for a fight would place a chip of wood on his shoulder and then dare his opponent to knock it off.  One of the first mentions was in the 1855 edition of the Weekly Oregonian:  “Leland, in his last issue, struts out with a chip on his shoulder and dares Bush to knock it off.”