Monday, October 07, 2019

Turn of phrase


Doing the rounds on the inter-webs at the moment is a lovely little video of an elderly woman giving her opinion to a TV interviewer about our Prime Minister, the phrase she used was "filthy piece of tow-rag" which seems to have amused many observers. The term "tow rag" is an interesting one, it emanates from the Royal Navy where in olden days a piece of rag was attached to a rope and trailed behind the ship. The purpose of this rag was to provide sailors defecating over the side of the ship with a handy arse-wipe that could be pulled up, used, and then dropped back into the sea; where you would probably hope that its movement through the water would clean it before the next customer came along. What an interesting, economic and historic "turn of phrase"..

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