I spend (or waste, depending on how you look at it) an extraordinary chunk of time thinking about words and phrases. It's annoying, but if I can't sleep it's usually because I'm tossing and turning over some pointless internal debate about words. For example last night I just kept mulling over the phrase, "By the skin of my teeth". Hours are wasted (or spent) just staring in the dark in vexed frustration about phrases just like that. Seriously...
By the skin of one's teeth?
By the skin of my teeth.
By the skin of your teeth.
By the skins of your tooth.
By the skins of our teeth.
Who came up with that phrase and why do we use it? TEETH DON'T HAVE SKIN. Unless "skin" is some kind of reference to something else......... And then I spend more time considering all the options of what "skin" could be referencing. In case you are wondering about the etymology of this particular phrase, I found it. "By the skin of one's teeth" is a biblical phrase from Job 19:18-20. It's debut can be found in the Geneva Bible from 1560, translated from the original Hebrew
"Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me. All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth."
So this tells us where it is from, but not really what it means. That part is still completely ambiguous. Maybe the "skin" are his lips or gums. Maybe Job is saying after everything (sickness, death, destruction) he has barely escaped Satan's attacks with his teeth still in his head. This gives me a little teeny bit of satisfaction, but not nearly enough to secure my future sleeping habits.
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