The Bobcat Nation

I don't know about you guys, but there are a number of expressions commonly used (or used to be) that I have no idea where that saying came from. So since it is rather slow on the main board this time of year, I thought I'd start a thread to get to the bottom of some of these.

Post expressions you want answers to, or reply to someone elses with an answer.

WTFs:
"Happy as a clam." Buh?
"Kicked the bucket." What does a good boot to a bucket have to do with dying?
"Bought the farm." Speaking of death, dead people can't buy anything.

Random Question:
Why are plants plural? Why do they come in pairs when there is only one of them? I'm not wearing a pair of sleeves?

I'll take a few lunch-minutes to see what I can get from Google:

Pants:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pai1.htm

Clam:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pai1.htm

Bucket:

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.p ... e=20000218

Farm:

http://plateaupress.com.au/wfw/boughtth.htm

I didn't get a chance to read any of them, so I hope they are relevant. I just wanted to see how long it would take me. It turned out to be about 4 minutes ... I love Google.

I attended a conference about domestics violence and the speaker suggested that people should be more educated on the origin of common phases because many of them have violent beginnings such as

"rule of thumb"

That is an almost passable excuse for pluralizing everything below the belly. Still irks me though.