ETYMOLOGIES *

X means an important person, or boss - sadly not anything really to

do with Y, this popular slang term for a person of importance or
authority probably originated in colonial India, where the Urdu word
Y, meaning 'thing', was initially adopted by the British to mean
something that was good or significant. The slang X' is a fine
example of language from a far-away or entirely foreign culture
finding its way into modern life and communications, in which the
users have very awareness or appreciation of its different cultural
origins.
Big Cheese
____(1)_____ was originally a parliamentary expression derived
from the relative low influence of persons and issues from the
___(2)____ benches (the bench-seats where members sit in the
House of Commons), as opposed to the ___(3)___ benches, where
the leaders of the government and opposition sit.
____(1)___has come to mean to have little or only observational
involvement in something. Contrary to popular belief __(1)__ is not a
car metaphor.






Take a Back Seat

X is a fascinating expression and nothing to do with our normal
association of the word __(2)__ with unpleasantness: X is a
maritime expression, from the metaphor of a rope being payed out
until to the __(1)__', which were the posts on the deck of a ship to
which ropes were secured. When the rope had been extended to the
__(2)__ end there was no more left. X is in fact where the last link
of the anchor chain is secured to the vessel's chain locker,
traditionally with a weak rope link. Nowadays it is attached through
the bulkhead to a sturdy pin.
X means to do or experience something awful up to and at the last,
experiencing hostility.

To the bitter end

X means have you nothing to say? - the most logical explanation
to its origin is that it relates to the ____' whip used in olden days
maritime punishments, in which it is easy to imagine that the victim
would be rendered incapable of speech or insolence. A less likely,
but no less dramatic suggested origin, is that it comes from the
supposed ancient traditional middle-eastern practice of removing
the _____ of liars and feeding them to ____.
CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE?

X means trying to sell the unsaleable - Brewer's 1870 slang
dictionary cites the British MP Bright describing Earl
Russell's Reform Bill as a ___ horse' and all attempts to
make it law like X'. The metaphor alludes to the idea of a
____ horse being incapable of working, no matter how
much and hard it is whipped.
flogging a dead horse

DITLOIDS
13 I A BD
13 in a baker's dozen
T 3 W M
the 3 wise men
4 A 20 B B I A P
4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie
8 F A 2 T O A P O H
8 fingers and 2 thumbs on a pair of hands

S O 69 B B A
Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams

236 E of F
236 Episodes of Friends
REBUSES
A walk around the
block
Mercury Rising
Foreign film
Ship on the high seas
Separated at birth
Off on a tangent
See eye to eye
ANAGRAMS
A Maniac Presides. The Banks Rob
U
President Barack Hussain Obama
Screen Is A Storm
Martin Scorsese
Uncle Sam's standard rot
McDonalds Restaurants
US team swoops. Finds no trace
President Saddam Hussein"
Brunettes mostly, so I watched
The Miss World Beauty Contest
If found alive, abuse, interrogate!
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Talk or airs can not show up deeds
Actions Speak Louder than Words
Darn! Sad Male
Adam Sandler
A rather nosy Sherlock hunts bad evil
hole, routs fiend
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound
of the Baskervilles."
Huge water tale stuns. End had you
tense
"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under
the Sea"