1. In the Middle Ages, umble pies were large pies filled with the less appetizing parts of a deer, such as the hearts, brain, liver, and entrails. The lord of the manor and his family and guests dined on venison in the banquet hall, while the huntsmen and servants ate umble pie in the kitchen.

2. When slot machines came onto the American scene in the early part of this century, a lemon, in combination with any other symbol, always signified that the player lost. It didn't take long for the lemon, a sour-tasting fruit to begin with, to acquire the sense of "defective, disappointing."

3. Except for sound, crabby has nothing to do with the crustacean. Crabby actually refers to the sour crab apple.

4. Grapevine , meaning "news mysteriously conveyed," is a shortening of "grapevine telegraph," a telegraph line between Placerville, California and Virginia City, Nevada constructed during the Civil War. The loose, trailing wires were thought to look like a wild grapevine.

5. The cold shoulder was actually a unheated shoulder of mutton served to unwelcome or no-longer-welcome guests of a household. When you received such a culinary cold shoulder, you were to take the hint and vacate the premises.

6. Fed up.

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