Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1904 — Water's Part In Colloquial Terms. [ARTICLE]

Water's Part In Colloquial Terms.

“How many of our ‘expressive expressions’ are built around some reference to water!” said a writer. “Take a few brief examples for consideration. If we tbink a scheme isn’t very strong or a statement decidedly weak, we invariably say ‘it won’t hold water.’ Do we infer that more wisdom lurks in an individual’s head than he Is ordinarily given credit for, what do we say? ‘Still waters run deep.’ When a person gets into some kind of difficulty, we say he is in ‘hot water.’ “When a proposition of any kind is rejected, especially a proposal of marriage, it is a case of having ‘cold water thrown on our hopes.’ Fortune has its ‘tides,’ and blessings or riches are ‘rained’ down on us. If a speaker exhausts his topic and still tries to talk, we say that he has ‘about run dry.’ “Rumors are always termed ‘afloat,’ and when a business enterprise goes down we call it ‘swamped.’ A man struggles to ‘hold his head above water,’ according to our colloquialisms, and when he doesn’t know what plan to pursue in order to accomplish certain ends It is said of him that he is ‘all at sea.’”—St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat. 5 Per Ce\t Farm Loans made by Austin & Hopkins.