son of a gun!

I've been under the weather for a few days, battling a cold and sore throat. Fascinated with words and phrases, I wondered how this one came about. A quick google search came up with all sorts of phrases and their origins. Many have several possible origins. Here are some I discovered:

Under the weather is a nautical term that was originated in the British navy. When a sailor was ill, he was kept below decks, and thus, under the weather.

Son of a gun. Babies born on ships were often put to sleep in hammocks swung from the cannons. In many cases, the father of the child was uncertain, so a male baby was called a "son of a gun".

It´s raining cats and dogs. Back in the 1500´s, cats and dogs would sleep up in the thatched roofs. This got very difficult when it rained, since the straw would become slippery and they would slide right off the roof, making it appear that it was indeed raining animals.

Sleep tight. From Bob Vila's tour of famous American homes: In Colonial America (and, presumably in Europe as well) the beds were not of the box spring variety that we enjoy today. The mattress laid on top of a web of ropes. There was a tool - an iron type of gadget that looked somewhat like an old clothes pin but larger - which was used to tighten the ropes when they became too slack. Thus, the expression "sleep tight."

Honeymoon. It was the accepted practice in Babylonia 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon".

There are hundreds of others!

My main source is http://www.goodwords.com/.