Americanisms are special phrases that are unique to U.S. culture. You probably say them all the time, either in conversation or in your writing (though we would suggest avoiding the latter). If you said these in an international business meeting, the members would have no idea what you meant. Do you have any idea where some of these popular sayings first came from? Here are five common Americanisms and their origins.

I’m just busting your chops

A peculiar fashion for men at the turn of the century was to grow very long sideburns, called mutton chops or lamb chops. They also made a brief reappearance in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Literally, if someone was “busted in the chops,” someone had punched them in the face, especially in the cheek area where their mutton chops would be. Thankfully, men have wised up and shaved those chops, but the term has stuck around to mean “to harass someone.”

In the black/In the red

In accounting, positive numbers are recorded in ledgers in black ink. If someone is operating “in the black,” they have positive earnings and are therefore making a profit.

Negative numbers are recorded in red ink, so if someone is operating “in the red,” they have negative earnings and are losing money.

Red ink was used because it was easily distinguishable from black ink.

(Personally, I never thought it sounded very pleasant to be “in the black;” it sounds so dark and scary. But I have no accounting background, which is why I majored in English.)

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

This one I had to look up, because I know nothing about horses. As it turns out, horses’ gum lines recede as they get older (much like a man’s hairline). Therefore, younger horses have shorter teeth than older horses.

In the olden days, it was common practice to examine a horse’s teeth to determine its age, and by consequence, its worth. If someone gave you a horse as a gift back then, it was considered rude to examine the horse’s mouth in the presence of the giver.

Nowadays, the phrase means to examine a gift and immediately judge it, rather than appreciating the gift because of the thought behind it. Somewhere along the history of our language, this phrase probably linked up with “It’s the thought that counts.”

Knock on wood

Several theories on the origin of this phrase exist. The most common is that in the Middle Ages, pieces of the wooden cross on which Jesus was crucified would be displayed for the public to touch. A touch of the holy wood was thought to bring good luck. The Briticism for this same thought is “Touch wood;” it means the same thing, but stayed closer to the origin. How Americans went from “touch” to “knock” is a mystery.

Let the cat out of the bag

Has anyone ever accused you of revealing a secret, or “letting the cat out of the bag”? Well, go smack them, because they were comparing you to medieval con men. At market, these traders would advertise pigs for sale, but when a customer bought one, the con men would hand them a bag and instruct them not to open it until they got home. When the customer opened the bag, they would find a cat instead of a pig and realize they had been duped.

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