Your education for the day...

There are several phrases that I say and I was wondering today- “So where does that come from?” I know what context to use them and what they mean, but who was the 1st person to say it. Yes- I am bored at work today. I have a million things to be doing, but I don’t feel like doing them. So anyways- here are some sayings and their origins according to a website I found…

Pound Sand (one of my favorites)
The origin of the expression go pound sand is from a longer expression, not to know (have enough sense to) pound sand down a rathole. Filling rat holes with sand is menial work, and telling someone to pound sand down a hole is like telling them to go fly a kite. The expression dates to at least 1912 and is common in the Midwestern United States.

Three Sheets to the Wind
The phrase dates to 1821. The sheet is a reference to a rope on a sailboat. To have a sheet loose in the wind is bad seamanship, to have three loose means you are not capable of controlling the boat. Occasionally you will see one sheet to the wind meaning half-drunk.

Brownie Points
This term derives from the girl scouts. That organization had (has?) a system of points that the girls would accumulate toward advancement.
The phrase entered the general language from WWII in military slang. Uniforms, the army's tendency to have soldiers do things that seemed silly and child-like, and evocation of brown-nose all contributed to the popularity of the phrase.

Rain Cats and Dogs
A hard rain in London would drown many stray cats and dogs, making it seem as if they had fallen from the sky.
In Norse mythology, cats had an influence on the weather, and Odin, the sky god, was attended to by wolves.

Balls To The Wall (not at all what I thought this one was!)
The phrase balls to the wall, meaning an all-out effort, comes from the world of aviation. On an airplane, the handles controlling the throttle and the fuel mixture are often topped with ball-shaped grips, referred to by pilots as (what else?) "balls." Pushing the balls forward, close to the front wall of the cockpit increases the amount of fuel going to the engines and results in the highest possible speed.