Who Put The Butter In Butterfly

In some variations of tag (called both “wood tag” and “tree tag”), if you touch a tree, you are “free.” The English say “touch wood” rather than “knock wood,” and tag might be the source of the English variant.

Knocking on wood (i.e., on a tree), then, was an attempt to wake up the spirits and enlist their help

Backing and filling means alternating having the sails “filled” with wind and then allowing the wind to escape by hauling “back” on the stays.

As someone who uses words for a living, I have long wondered why I so effortlessly spew words or clichés whose origins I know nothing about.