| onzedge |
09-05-2014 05:43 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by DEpointfive0
(Post 2954972)
Don't get on the wagon, or off it or whatever the hell!!!
And... If your mom is that bad... Why did I agree to dinner?
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My mom is great. In small doses. You'll be fine. She's actually quite amusing, just a bit tiring when there is no escape.
And, no -- no even she can get me off the wagon.
That is an interesting expression, by the way.
The following is plagiarized:
"The original version of this expression, 'on the water wagon' or 'water cart,' which isn't heard anymore, best explains the phrase. During the late 19th century, water carts drawn by horses wet down dusty roads in the summer. At the height of the Prohibition crusade in the 1890s men who vowed to stop drinking would say that they were thirsty indeed but would rather climb aboard the water cart to get a drink than break their pledges. From this sentiment came the expression 'I'm on the water cart,' I'm trying to stop drinking, which is first recorded in, of all places, Alice Caldwell Rice's Mrs. Wiggs of the Caggage Patch [1901], where the consumptive Mr. **** says it to old Mrs. Wiggs. The more alliterative 'wagon' soon replaced cart in the expression and it was eventually shortened to 'on the wagon.' 'Fall off the (water) wagon' made its entry into the language almost immediately after its abstinent sister." |
