Photograph by Alaskan Dude
Q: Where did the expression “bite the dust” come from?
A: We probably all heard “bite the dust” for the first time while watching an old Western B movie when a cowboy hero does away with a pesky varmint to impress the schoolmarm. The phrase was first used in English literature in 1750 to imply wounding or killing by satirical novelist Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) in Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, his translation of the original French novel by Alain-Rene Lesage: “We made two of them bite the dust and the others betake themselves to flight.” The inspiration for the expression can be traced back to the Bible in Psalm 72: “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him and his enemies shall lick the dust.”
Since we’ve all probably had enough of the office and work (unless you’re on vacation already), let’s do a little travelling! Where would you like to go first? Ever given thought of sailing the seven seas?
Q: What are the Seven Seas?
A: “The Seven Seas” is a figurative reference to all the waters of the world. Rudyard Kipling popularized the phrase for modern times as the title of an 1896 volume of poems. He acknowledged that some would interpret the meaning as the seven oceans — the Arctic, the Antarctic, the North and South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian — but the expression circulated long before these oceans even had names. In the ancient world, the seven seas were the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the China Sea, and the East and West African seas.
