Origins of Expressions

  Where the Rubber Hits the Road  Watch this on YouTube here - Car Video - YouTube Video Meaning: Where the Rubber Hits the Road means the truth about facts or realities, where theory is put into practice. Origin: This phrase has not been around for long, and it started out with good cars and how well they would work once they were driven. However, the term quickly turned into an idiom. The phrase is also associated with males more than females. It was first written in 1956 in an article in the  Minneapolis Morning Tribune , After Last Night , by Will Jones, it read: “How to Talk like a man in a very dark gray flannel suit  “Let’s get down where the rubber meets the road.”” This phrase is from the jargon of the advertising business—jargon in which  let’s get down (to) where the rubber meets the road  meant  how much is it going to cost? Example: Today we still use the phrase where the rubber hits the road to say, let’s stop talking about things...

  Kick the Tires  Watch this on YouTube here - Car Video - YouTube Video Meaning: Kick the Tires means to check for good quality, to be diligent and check every angle.  “Did you kick the tires?” Origin: This phrase has had a lot of references about where it started, but no one knows for sure. I have heard it was from unethical wagon wheel dealers a long time ago who would sell wheels that had rotten wood on the axles, so any buyer should kick the wagon wheel, It was also said that Kicking tires were a way to vent in the early years of motoring when tires would often go flat and delay your journey, or that the rubber from tires was very thin on cheap cars and kicking it was a way to see if you had a good car, and the other idea of where this phrase started was that derived from Latin, E tira kikium, which means "a kick for good luck." The first written history that I can find was from 1929, in the publication Marketing Used Cars, it reads: "If the dealer or his used car...

  Riding Shot Gun  Watch this on YouTube here - Car Video - YouTube Video Meaning: Riding Shot Gun Means traveling in a vehicle in the front passenger seat.  “Oh, I got shotgun” Origin: This phrase is not that old, and it started out with a bit of a different meaning. Many people think it started out in the wild west with the use of stagecoaches, it is said that the stagecoaches had guards armed with shotguns to protect the drivers from bandits. Whoa, their partner, there is no evidence supporting that, it is all based on hearsay and from old movies, in fact, the earliest reference was from 1919 in the newspaper The Ogden Examiner, in an article titled "Ross Will Again Ride Shotgun on Old Stagecoach" it reads: “A. Y. Ross, famous in railroad circles as a fearless express messenger and who on several occasions battled with bandits on the plains, will probably ride "shotgun" as he did in the past.” Example: Today we use this phrase to say “I want to ride in the fr...