An urban legend has it that the phrase refers to an old English law under which a man could legally beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb ( though no such law ever existed ).

However, the story may well be apocryphal, as it can only be traced to the 16th century, and, in the time of Edward I, the English aristocracy spoke Norman French, not English ( some versions of the legend include lack of knowledge in both languages as a requirement, and one reported version has the very specific phrase " born on Welsh soil and speaking no other language ").

According to historical legend, the phrase stems from a meeting in about 1680 between the powerful French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and a group of French businessmen led by a certain M. Le Gendre.

Nowadays, there is an erroneous local legend that the name of the river comes from an Indian phrase meaning " mile wide, foot deep ".

War photographer Robert Capa noted a use of the phrase at Bastogne in December 1944: " On the black, charred walls of an abandoned barn, scrawled in white chalk, was the legend of McAuliffe's GIs: KILROY WAS STUCK HERE.

" However, the rumour was discredited by Efteling: one of the causes of the rumour was an off-hand remark by a PR person for Efteling, who had dropped to reporters that Disney could well have visited Efteling — the reporters accordingly dropped the hypothetical from the phrase, and a legend was born.

In another legend, the hut does not reveal its door until it is told a magical phrase: " Turn your back to the forest, and your front to me.

Tufts himself parodied this legend in frequent appearances on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In: seated in a director's chair with his name printed on it, he would turn around to face the camera and utter a word or phrase relevant to the previous bit, in mock contempt.

According to legend, they identified the French by asking them to pronounce a Dutch phrase, ( shield and friend ) and everyone who had a problem pronouncing this shibboleth was killed.

The phrase () (" Wu Gang chops the tree ") is sometimes used to refer to endless toil, analogous to the legend of Sisyphus in Greek mythology.

The phrase " fairy saddle " arises from the legend that Pembroke Welsh Corgis were harnessed and used as steeds by fairies.

The opening line ' Libraries gave us power ' was inspired by the legend above the entrance to the former Pillgwenlly Library in Newport, near the band's home town of Blackwood in Wales: ' Knowledge is Power ', whilst the phrase ' then work came and made us free ' refers to the German slogan Arbeit macht frei that featured above the gates of most of the Nazi concentration camps and which was earlier referred to by the band on " The Intense Humming of Evil " from The Holy Bible.

The phrase stuck, and that, according to legend, is how the area got its name, Olongapo.

The title comes from the Latin phrase " Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant " (" Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you "), a salute that according to popular legend ( although not academically agreed ) was uttered by Roman gladiators before battle in the arena.

Country and bluegrass legend John Hartford parodied the distinctive style of WSM DJs on the album Aereo-plain, humorously changing the station's call letters to the phrase " Dorothy S.

The phrase " Don't tread on me " was coined during the American Revolutionary War, a variant perhaps of the snake severed in segments labelled with the names of the colonies and the legend " Join, or Die " which had appeared first in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754, as a political cartoon reflecting on the Albany Congress.

Auburn has had seven numbered " War Eagles " birds, but the first of these only appeared in a legend about the history of the phrase " War Eagle ".

" McCoy's legend grew as his quality liquor and fair-dealing perpetuated the phrase: " it's the real McCoy.

The phrase became something of a cult legend and was even featured in an O ' Reilly computer book.

The legend may be the origin of the phrase ' cutting off the nose to spite the face '.

According to legend, Constantine I adopted this Greek phrase, " εν τούτῳ νίκα " ( in this, win ) as a motto after his vision of a chi rho in the sky just before the Battle of Milvian Bridge against Maxentius on 28 October 312.

" The game of chase was then also a legend as it is used in literary phraseology as " putting KHO to someone's active chase meaning putting an effective block and stopping the progress ," like we use the phrase " it isn't Cricket " meaning it is unfair and so on.

* Rose, in a running gag tries time and again to trick the queen to utter the famous phrase " We are not amused ", and makes a triumphant gesture when she finally succeeds ( History says Queen Victoria actually never said this, but urban legend does ).

But it is characteristic of him, we are told, `` his little artifice '', to be able to introduce `` into a fairly vulgar and humorous piece of hackwork a sudden phrase of genuine creative art ''.

Dominant stress is of course more than extended duration, and normally centers on syllables that would have primary stress or phrase stress if the words or longer units they are parts of were spoken alone: a dominant stress given to glorify would normally center on its first syllable rather than its last.

It is natural that he should turn for his major support to a select and dedicated few from the organization which actually owns the university and whose goals are, in their opinion, identified with its highest good and ( to use that oft-repeated phrase ) ' the attainment of excellence ' ''.

There are brain-wracking searches for the right word, the best phrase, the most helpful idea.

" American shot " is a translation of a phrase from French film criticism, " plan américain " and refers to a medium-long (" knee ") film shot of a group of characters, who are arranged so that all are visible to the camera.

The phrase " branched-chain amino acids " or BCAA refers to the amino acids having aliphatic side-chains that are non-linear ; these are leucine, isoleucine, and valine.

The people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase " Big Brother is watching you ", which is the core " truth " of the propaganda system in this state.

" The phrase catalysed processes was coined by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1836 to describe reactions that are accelerated by substances that remain unchanged after the reaction.

Clitics do not always appear next to the word or phrase that they are associated with grammatically.

In linguistics, some authors use the term phrase structure grammar to refer to context-free grammars, whereby phrase structure grammars are distinct from dependency grammars.

The phrase " in anger he turned back to his own " probably indicates that this annal is drawn from saga material, as perhaps are all of the early Wessex annals.

Class actions are commonly referred to as class action suits ; however, this phrase is redundant as the historical distinction between " actions " at law and " suits " in equity is no longer recognized.

The phrase in question reads " et Dunenaldus filius Ede elig < sub > 7 </ sub >".</ ref > Finally, the deaths of Flann Sinna and Niall Glúndub are recorded.

Among these choices, Gaussian units are the most common today, and in fact the phrase " CGS units " is often used to refer specifically to CGS-Gaussian units.

The Old Castilian language was also used to show the higher class that came with being a knight errant .- This last phrase is not completely accurate-In Don Quixote there are basically 2 different Castillian: Old Castillian is only spoken by Don Quixote, while the rest of the roles speak a much modern version of Spanish, pretty much understandable by the actual reader.

The Hebrew title is taken from the opening phrase Eleh ha-devarim, " These are the words ..."; the English title is from a Greek mis-translation of the Hebrew phrase mishneh ha-torah ha-zoth, " a copy of this law ", in, as to deuteronomion touto-" this second law ".

Almost half of the Psalms are headed " A Psalm of David ", although the phrase can also be translated as " to David " or " for David ", but no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty.

But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits ; properly with limits that are strict and even small .” Chesterton summed up his distributist views in the phrase " Three acres and a cow ".

The logical inconsistency of a Cretan asserting all Cretans are always liars may not have occurred to Epimenides, nor to Callimachus, who both used the phrase to emphasize their point, without irony.

Much as in a sunset, the atmosphere tends to more strongly scatter light with shorter wavelengths, so the illumination of the Moon by refracted light has a red hue, thus the phrase ' Blood Moon ' is often found in descriptions of such lunar events as far back as eclipses are recorded.

The patient is also instructed to use the left hand to tap the syllables of the phrase while the phrases are spoken.