Know your onions
Posted by ESC on May 30, 2003
In Reply to: Know your onions posted by Gary on May 30, 2003
: I can't find a definitive source for this. Any ideas?
I've heard it before and feel pretty confident that it's a Southern (U.S.) expression. "He really knows his onions." Meaning he is an expert in something.
From the archives:
ONIONS - (plural noun) business, affairs. 1954. W.G. Smith South St. 297: You just sit here, tend to your onions, let me handle the people what cross me. From the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 2, H-O by J.E. Lighter, Random House, New York, 1994.
Why onions? Mr. Lighter doesn't say. Another definition for "onion" in the same reference is "the head" as in "off one's onion."
While I was looking for "knows his onions" I found this phrase. Doesn't have anything to do with onions, but interesting still:
KNOW ONE'S CANS - "Cowboys on the range in the 19th century were usually starved for reading matter and often read the labels on the cook's tin cans, learning them by heart. A tenderfoot could always be distinguished because he didn't know his cans." From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).
- Know your onions ESC 05/30/03
- Know your onions James Briggs
05/30/03
- Know your onions ESC 05/31/03
- Know your onions James Briggs
05/30/03