Proverbs and sayings

Technology is found in every aspect of life. Therefore it's no surprise that different techniques have left traces in our daily language. Technical principles and comparisons are used in our language and tend to develop a broader or figurative meaning.

Nowadays, many of those of techniques are part of our past and are no longer common knowledge. Because of this there are plenty of proverbs and sayings we no longer fully comprehend, even though we still use them.

The general idea of this webpage is to collect and explain different sayings that have their roots in the history of technology. They're roughly divided up into the following categories: Household - Agriculture - Animals - Crafts - Transport.

Similar proverbs are found in all languages, but each language has it's own typical sayings, therefore you will find the chosen dutch proverbs and their explanation only on the Dutch version of this site. Click here to see the page in Dutch.

We hope in time to gather enough typical English sayings and proverbs and their origins to do the same on the English webpages. Suggestions are always welcome! Here is a start:

"(Dumb as a) bag of hammers"
Stupid, oriented toward illogic

"To toss (throw) a wrench (spanner) into", "To put a spanner in the works"
To sabotage something, to pause a process to stop, to cause something to fail

"To have an axe to grind with someone"
To have a grievance, a disagreement with someone that justifies confrontation