myke
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Registered: 7th Feb 01
Location: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
User status: Offline
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was told yesterday about where these phrases come from. thought it was quite interesting so here they are for anyone that doesn't know.
chunder - comes from shipping days where some one on a higher deck who may have been sea sick would yell 'watch under' as he hurled over the edge to warm people on lower decks.
brassic - i never realised this is actually rhyming slang. borassic lint (medical shit) -> skint
arctic/antarctic - greek or latin for bears i arcticus or arcticos. theres bears at the north pole hence arctic, but no bears at the south pole hence antarctic. no bears.
anyone got any more?
i want to know where the term john doe comes from in relation to dead bodies.
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CorsAsh
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Registered: 19th Apr 02
Location: Munich
User status: Offline
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The phrase is older than you might think. "John Doe" dates from the reign of England's King Edward III (1312-1377). A famous legal document from this period labels a hypothetical landowner "John Doe," who leases land to a "Richard Roe," who then claims the land as his own and kicks out poor John.
The names don't have any particular relevance, other than the fact that a doe is a female deer, while a roe is a smaller species of deer. But the land dispute in question became a famous legal debate, and the names survived their circumstances.
The online legal dictionary FindLaw defines John Doe as a "party to legal proceedings (as a suspect) whose true name is unknown or withheld." The female equivalent is Jane Doe or Mary Major. A second male suspect is dubbed Richard Roe, and subsequent ones are referred to as John Stiles and Richard Miles.
Google is king 
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myke
Member
Registered: 7th Feb 01
Location: High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
User status: Offline
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in relation to dead bodies though?
or is it just a generic name for someone possibly annonamous? like joe bloggs.
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