Below are the results of my exhaustive research into the origins of our most colorful expressions and phrases ....

BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL

As one might suspect, this expression derives from the game of pool, in particular the version called Eight Ball in which all other balls must be sunk before the "8" Ball. What most folks aren't aware of is that the game has become miniaturized. In ancient times the game was played with mammoth sized balls that were pushed around an arena and deposited in deep wells by trained elephants. The rules back then allowed a player to position one of his slaves directly in the path of the "8" Ball as a semi-effective obstacle. Among the slaves, this was considered an undesirable and hazardous assignment, especially after the outbreak in 1500 B.C. of elephant glaucoma.

THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND

This term is relatively recent, originating in Chicago during Prohibition when wives of bootleggers used the laundry they hung from their third-story clotheslines as secret signals. According to the code, one sheet meant they had run out of grain alcohol, two sheets meant the bathtub was full of gin and they had run out of bottles to put it in, and three sheets meant someone had fallen into the tub.

Legend has it that the practice was abandoned after one housewife, who happened to live next door to the family of Elliot Ness, in her flustered state of mind got the lines mixed up and pinned her three sheets to the line of her neighbor.

When a clean up goon arrived at the door carrying a large empty valise and pushed his way past her, heading toward the bathroom, Mrs. Ness assumed he was an overzealous Fuller Brush man anxious to demonstrate his wares.

Whatever he expected to find in the tub, it was certainly not the formidable aspect of the treasury agent's mother-in-law wielding a razor like an inexperienced Rabbi on the eighth day.

His hasty exit was attended by a trail of toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Which greatly facilitated his being tracked to a local speakeasy, where he was already on this third boilermaker. The subsequent raid and arrests yielded several convictions and history tells that the goon in question spent the rest of his days folding linen in the prison laundry.

WEAR YOUR HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE

In early Medieval times members of the Butchers Guild would attend meetings in their aprons as evidence that their businesses were thriving: the bloodier the apron, the prouder the owner. This got out of hand to the extent that they put aside special aprons for the meetings, on which their wives would sew an assortment of abdominal organs, such as livers and kidneys. Such a garment eventually became the accepted formal wear; a young butcher who was courting a bride would wear one when he came calling as an indication of his ability to provide for her. By the late thirteenth century, the practice had evolved to such a degree that it was mandatory for any young man asking for a maiden's hand in marriage to approach her father wearing the heart of a chicken sewn on his right sleeve.