Idioms
By jacobo, on 2006-5-29 at 11:24, under General
Ana was intrigued by the idiom “to open a can of worms” tonight. There are two English idioms I like, too: “to stir the pot” (when you do it, what used to be in the bottom rises to the surface) and “the shit has hit the fan” (no need to explain what happens when viscous matter gets in contact with an object that revolves at a high speed).
But one word that intrigued me, in turn, was “aftermath”. What’s it? The feeling you get after solving a particularly difficult mathematical problem? Well, no. Apparently “a math” is a mowing (of grass or hay or whatever), and the aftermath is “the grass that grows after the first crop of hay in the same season” (Webster, 1913).
What about “a bone to pick"? Been wondering about that one …
Yes, the “aftermath” originally meant “the second crop".
My own wonders about English, in the corresponding section of my blog:
beranger.org/index.php?categ=12 (currently 21 entries in this section)… and you can learn there how to access for free the M-W UNABRIDGED.