Nose to the Grindstone
Where does the phrase “nose to the grindstone” come from, anyway? Was there ever actually a profession where in order to really get work done, you had to give yourself massive nasal abrasions? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Today I guess it is more like “nose to the hard drive platter”. Lots of work to get done, almost no time to do it in. The workday yesterday was spent creating new software for securing the network, and the evening was spent working on a very large re-write of software that’s been responsible for handling people’s domain names.
Oh, to knit. I don’t feel like I’ve really got time for it, but I’m going to take a break this afternoon and work on some knitting during lunch. I think I’ll take the final sleevel of the Café Bastille Cables sweater and do a couple of rows on that.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:37 pm
From phrases.org.uk:
“Before the mechanisation of the metalwork trade the standard method for knife grinders when sharpening blades was to lie flat on their fronts with their faces near the grindstone in order to hold the blades against the stone.”
Ask and ye shall receive. = )
June 29th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Good question.
I’ve always wondered about “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”. It seems to me that if you are pulling your bootstraps, you would have to bend over to reach them and wouldn’t that make standing up more difficult?
June 30th, 2005 at 10:02 am
Did you delete my earlier comment?
June 30th, 2005 at 11:31 am
Kaetchen,
No! I only delete the posts you make when you’re really drunk.