During Yom Kippur, the original tradition was to use two goats in the ritual. One goat, called the Lord’s Goat, was sacrificed, while the other goat, which the priest confessed all the sins of his people, was then set free into the wilderness.
The second was called the Escape Goat, which evolved into Scapegoat.
The term first appeared in the English translation of Tyndale’s Bible
In Latin, sarcophagus means ‘flesh-eater’.
When the Romans would open up the tombs that would store the dead commoners of Egypt, the bodies were so decayed (because they were not embalmed) that the Romans thought that they were meant to be in that condition.
They thought that the bodies were put in the containers to rot, so they called the container ‘flesh-eater’, or ‘sarcophagus’.
According to ancient law, husbands were allowed to beat their wives with sticks that were no wider than the width of their thumb. Hence, the ‘rule of thumb’.
Houses had thatched roofs–thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath.
It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, and bugs lived in the roof.
During a large rainstorm, it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof–hence the saying
The Pinkerton Detective Agency came up with a creative logo for the company.
It was a picture of an eye with the logo ‘We Never Sleep’ underneath it. It was from this logo that the term, ‘private eye’ came to mean private investigators.