What is there origin.

[Carpchasser]

The expression - to pay through the nose origionates from The Roman days. And it involved having your nose split open for some reason.

But what about other expressios such as "taking the P**S.

It must origionate form some where.

[AdeN]

"you're taking the p**s" .....

an ancient expression used by one group of monks accusing another group of monks, which is short for "you're taking our piscatorials, putting them in your pond and claiming them as your own!"

[Big_Rik]

I dunno about taking the pi55,
but taking the micky, is the rhyming slang for it.
Taking the micky bliss (pi55)

[Tiny]

having a mare....

comes from having a nightmare of a time.. now in the days of the good old horse and carriage with dandy highwaymen the stagecoach used to be the only way to get from A to B so just as today there were several companies offering their services... each company would use its best horses during the day so as to look the part but used to put on the less good looking and generally more lively (harder to control) horses at night.. now horses come in three.. yes three guises.. stallion, gelding and mare.. to which the addage of you can ask a stallion tell a gelding and discuss it with a mare can be added.. usually mares were used for carriage work as they had more spirit than the geldings but less heart that the stallions.. hence.. Night Mares

full of useless information!

Tiny

[AndyJ]

'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'

Olden day ships used to fix brass balls onto the mast with wax, when it got cold enough the wax would get hard and the balls would fall off.....

[Carpmad]

Andy mate got it a bit wrong there.

The monkey was a brass plate beside a cannon on which the cannon balls where stacked therefore preventing them roling around the deck.

Being cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey means its cold enough for the brass plate to contract and so the balls used to roll of of it.