Like the phrase “peeping tom” is used to refer to a creep trying to see somebody else using the bathroom. What on Earth did this Tom character do to become the definition of such a creep?
Why are women who do not have traditionally feminine traits sometimes called tomboys? Why Tom?
And why do people say “Bob’s your uncle”? Was this Bob a super helpful and reliable guy, so much so that his name is used for the definition of something being finished and done?
And the playing card representing an aristocratic / upper class man is called Jack, who is this Jack? Why do people say a “jack of all trades”, was this Jack character incredibly talented? Or is it related to the playing card, where they are good at everything but not the best (i.e. a king or queen)
I know of a few that are of religious origin, like the Achilles’s heel after Greek mythology, and the bumpy bit of your throat is called Adam’s apple is biblical.
I’ve always wondered (but not hard enough to google it) about “Petered out”. Who if this Peter that failed to finish things so often that he became a phrase?!
That one’s got two competing theories. Either from Petre, the Latin word for ‘rock’, or Peter (that is, St. Peter).
One goes that ‘peter’ most likely referred to saltpetre, the main ingredient in gunpowder, which was the explosive of choice in early gold mining. Seems the term ‘peter out’ was first widely used by US gold miners in the 1800s describing veins that had run dry.
On the other hand, there is some colloquial evidence to trace it back further, and to England, and a type of fishing boat called a ‘peterboat’ (which picked the name up from St Peter). Those were long low boats that once oft plied the Thames, and were narrow and pointed at both ends so they could easily go either way in the current. ‘Peter out’ referred to the thin sharp double-taper of the boat-ends.