Born from nature

Don’t back the wrong horse: The origins of common idioms explained

Image: Florian van Duyn

Nature gives us so much, even some words and phrases we use to express ourselves. Many sayings and idioms we use every day are inspired by landscapes, plants, animals, oceans, and more. But what do they really mean, and where did they come from? Discover all this and more in our article on 10 nature-related idioms!

Image: Gala Iv

He was between the devil and the deep blue sea: either tell the truth and risk the consequences, or lie and face guilt.

Sometimes life puts you in tough situations where no choice seems easy, satisfying, or pleasant. Choosing between two chores you don’t want to do, or two dishes you don’t want to eat, is like being "between the devil and the deep blue sea." The phrase comes from the world of sailors: the ‘devil’ was a rope on the ship’s deck that was hard to reach, leaving sailors caught between it and the dangerous, stormy sea.

Image: Todd Cravens

She had a whale of a time at her birthday party with all her friends.

We may not all be whale experts, but one thing is clear: they are huge creatures. That’s likely why the word "whale" was used as slang for something enormous back in the 19th century. Over time, the meaning evolved to describe something grand or extraordinary, giving rise to the idiom "a whale of a time," used to refer to incredibly fun, enjoyable, or memorable moments and experiences.

Image: Kirsten LaChance

I think you’ve backed the wrong horse by supporting that candidate in the election.

"Backing the wrong horse" can be frustrating and discouraging. Originating in the world of horse racing, this idiom is used when you support something that doesn’t work out or trust someone or something that ends up letting you down. Whether it’s a personal choice, financial decision, or political issue, the phrase can be applied to all sorts of situations in life.

Image: Csaba Gyulavári

When he forgot our anniversary after months of neglect, that was the last straw.

Some days just don’t go right: your alarm doesn’t go off, you step in some water with your socks on, and you miss your morning coffee. At the office, it turns out the coffee machine is broken, so you grab a cup at a café. And just when you think the bad luck is over, someone bumps into you and spills the warm infusion on your clothes. No wonder you lose your temper; this was "the last straw." The phrase comes from an old proverb: "Is it the last straw that breaks the camel’s back," meaning a small event can push a situation over the edge.

Image: Susana Bartolome

After their argument, she offered an olive branch by inviting him to lunch.

Have you ever sent or received flowers after an argument? Classic, right? Offering or extending "an olive branch" is a gesture of peace, a request for a truce, or a show of goodwill. As you might guess, this idiom dates back to ancient times, when olive branches symbolized peace, harmony, and even victory.

Image: Kevin Albrich

Stop beating around the bush and tell me what really happened at the meeting.

If you ask your family whether they ate the dessert you left in the fridge, and they start avoiding the question or changing the topic, you can say they’re "beating around the bush." The idiom comes from medieval English hunting, where hunters would beat bushes to flush out birds or small animals, rather than going straight for them. Today, it’s used to describe someone who avoids the main point and speaks indirectly.

Image: Anton Atanasov

If you think I’m the one who broke the plate, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

What if, after getting upset with your family, you find out it was the dog who ate your dessert? In that case, you could say you were "barking up the wrong tree." This common idiom is used when you blame the wrong person or make a wrong assumption. Like the previous one, it comes from hunting: in 19th-century America, raccoon hunters used dogs to track their prey, but sometimes the dogs would simply bark at the wrong tree.

Image: Polina Zimenkova

The weekend started off peacefully, but it was just the calm before the storm of holiday traffic.

Ask a meteorologist what usually comes before a storm, and the answer is simple: calm. Everything seems quiet and peaceful, but trouble is on the way. This pattern in nature inspired the widely used idiom "calm before the storm," which warns that periods of tranquility can be followed by sudden chaos.

Image: Kellice Chua

Their argument about who would do the dishes was really just a storm in a teacup.

Do you remember the last time you got really upset over something that wasn’t all that important? Chances are you were making "a storm in a teacup." You don’t have to be English to know that teacups are usually small, so how could a storm possibly break out inside one? It’s this very irony that gives the idiom its meaning.

Image: Charlotte Coneybeer

With your talent and dedication, the world is your oyster.

When opportunities are endless, when the best is yet to come, or when you have the power to achieve your goals, you can say that "the world is your oyster." This widely used idiom comes from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), where the line reads, "Why then the world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open." The oyster represents the world, and the pearl inside symbolizes the opportunities to discover.

Creative repurposing

From trash to burnt toast: 12 works of art made with bizarre materials

Image: Maryam Tello

They say that creativity is all about finding opportunities where others don’t. The artists on this list must have taken that definition very literally because they all use highly unconventional media to create their work. From Post-it notes and stamps to fruit and trash, these 12 artistic visionaries are game for any kind of everyday material. Keep reading to learn more about them!

Image: Ali Bakhtiari

Is "Post Pop Art" a thing? This artist from Staffordshire, England, seems to think so! Pete Mason combines pop art and graphic design to create portraits of famous people out of recycled postage stamps. He sorts the stamps by design, color, and pattern and then applies them to a previously sketched canvas. Each of Mason’s pieces, which include portraits of Princess Diana and Martin Luther King, takes up to 20,000 stamps.

Image: CordMediaDigitalServices

Don't throw away that burnt slice of toast; you can make art with it! Or at least that's what New Zealand artist Maurice Bennett did. Using thousands of pieces of toasted bread, burnt to varying degrees, he created billboard-sized mosaic portraits of well-known personalities, from Elvis Presley to the Mona Lisa. Bennett preferred to use white bread, but sometimes experimented with multi-grain to achieve different shades. Clever, huh?

Image: Chris Blonk

Who would have thought that junk mail could be turned into something beautiful? Well, a New York-born artist decided it was time to take action. A pioneer of the Green Fine Art movement, Sandhi Schimmel creates mosaic pictures out of all kinds of unusual materials, from junk mail to catalogs and old greeting cards. She was first inspired by a process called "upcycling," which she discovered while in Venice, Italy. Most of her artworks are portraits, like a piece featuring Madonna called "All American Blonde" and a re-creation of the famous The Birth of Venus.

Image: Era Saputera

Franz Spohn is a multifaceted artist based in Pennsylvania. He’s a sculptor, illustrator, art professor, and even TV host! For the past 25 years, he has created over 200 mosaic murals made from plastic tubes filled with hundreds of colorful gumballs. His pieces usually portray popular icons like Barack Obama and Rosa Parks. Spohn’s masterpieces have been exhibited in several museums around the world. Talk about eye candy!

Image: Arnór Ingi Júlíusson

Who said you had to be good at drawing to be an artist? A 20-year-old art student from Leavenworth, Washington, created a 25-foot-high portrait of Jimi Hendrix made from more than 8500 Bicycle playing cards. With the help of a computer program, David Alvarez mapped and divided a picture of the great American musician into parts. After deciding where each colored playing card would go, he meticulously placed them on a styrofoam board. He completed his masterpiece in just 21 hours!

Image: Sahand Babali

Did the world need another Mona Lisa? Probably not, but this version is noteworthy because of the materials used to create it. In 2006, a group of computer engineers presented a re-creation of da Vinci's masterpiece made out of random computer parts at an art exhibition in Beijing, China. To make this collage, they used computer chips, circuits, and old motherboards. This piece of "geek art," titled "Technology Smiling," fascinated audiences. What do you think the Italian Renaissance artist would think of it?

Image: Georg Eiermann

Those sticker labels that come on fruits and vegetables are sometimes so cute that you feel bad throwing them away. Barry Snyder of Erie, Colorado, probably wanted to prevent these design gems from going to waste when he came up with the idea of creating his amazing mosaic artworks. He uses around 4,000 labels for each of his four-square-foot creations. People even send him stickers from all over the world, so he doesn’t run out. His pieces are so popular that they can sell for up to $10,000. Who would have thought that something destined to become trash could be so lucrative?

Image: Claudio Schwarz

British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster use different objects and materials, mostly trash, to create people and animal shadows. They arrange the objects in such a way that, when light is projected onto them, a recognizable silhouette can be seen on the wall. They have even managed to create identifiable portraits! For their contributions to British contemporary art, Noble and Webster received an honorary doctorate from Nottingham Trent University in 2009.

Image: Kampus Production

Inspired by the Y2K computer scare in 2000, American artist Scott Blake began creating artworks out of bar codes. He started with circles and squares and soon switched to designing digital portraits of icons such as Elvis Presley, Andy Warhol, and Marilyn Monroe in Photoshop. Many of his pieces are interactive; if scanned with a cell phone, you can hear Blake’s subjects telling their stories.

Image: Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto

Since 1988, artist Helge Lundstrom and his daughter Emma Karp have been creating apple mosaics for the annual Kivik Apple Festival. Known for being an important fruit supplier in Sweden, this town celebrates the end of the harvest with these works of art as its centerpiece. Each piece is made from up to 75,000 apples of different varieties, from bright green Granny Smiths to duo-toned McIntoshes. What do you think of this juicy approach to art?

Image: Michael Maasen

This particular material is as bizarre as it is abstract. Yet, it still achieves impressive results. Iranian artist Hamid Naderi generates digital images from mathematical formulas. How does he do it? He finds the mathematical equation that corresponds to each color he wants to represent in a pixel. Through his work, Naderi proves that math doesn't have to be boring; it can be a vehicle for creating art and beauty.

Image: Kier in Sight Archives

The Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville, Utah, holds several world records—probably more than any other school in the country! Many of their record-breaking attempts were even featured in the Guinness World Records and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. One of its most incredible feats so far was creating the world’s largest Post-it note mosaic. In 2009, 151 students created a 60-by-40-foot work of art using 38,400 colorful sticky notes. The construction took three hours, and after the event, the Post-it notes were recycled.