Does Anyone Know Where We Got This Phrase??

[ILS1]

'Still wet behind the ears'. I used that phrase today describing a younger co-worker and he just looked at me and stared. He said 'Where did you get that from?'. I couldn't answer him back. I just told it was an old saying describing young and inexperienced people. Does anyone know the real meaning behind this saying??


:D :D :D

[Phil C]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=still+wet+behind+the+ears

[44INAROW]

Origin

The allusion is to the inexperience of a baby, so recently born as to be still wet.

[pirate4state]

Originally posted by 44INAROW
Origin

The allusion is to the inexperience of a baby, so recently born as to be still wet.

:thinking: Shouldn't it read "still be wet" .... not "be still wet"? Or are both ways correct? It just reads weird. :crazy1: LOL :D

[crzyjournalist03]

Originally posted by Phil C
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=still+wet+behind+the+ears

how often do you peruse urban dictionary Phil???

[Phil C]

Originally posted by crzyjournalist03
how often do you peruse urban dictionary Phil???

Not very often. Just once in a while.

[Texasfootball2]

Originally posted by 44INAROW
Origin

The allusion is to the inexperience of a baby, so recently born as to be still wet.

This is excatly what it refers to. Total inexperience of a new born who comes out all slimey and wet. The behind ears part of that phrase?????????? who knows, it does seem to make an easy flowing sentence out of it though.

[Gobbla2001]

maybe the "behind the ears" was the last area to dry back in the day?

or maybe it just sounds better than "you're still wet all over like a baby that just crawled out a va-jay-jay"????

Here's a saying/phrase I just heard that I LOVVVE... maybe you've heard it before

A friend used this in reference to another friend who seems to reward his girlfriend for cheating on him:

"Hell, ya can't give a dog a bone every time it pisses or craps on the floor and expect it to start goin' outside"...

[Trashman]

Wet behind the ears

Meaning

Naive.

Origin

The allusion is to the inexperience of a baby, so recently born as to be still wet.

This phrase was in circulation in the USA in the early 20th century - twenty years before it was first recorded elsewhere. The converse of the phrase - 'dry back of the ears', was also known in the USA from around the same date. That was recorded in the American Dialect Society's Dialect Notes IV, 1914:

[bobcat1]

Originally posted by pirate4state
:thinking: Shouldn't it read "still be wet" .... not "be still wet"? Or are both ways correct? It just reads weird. :crazy1: LOL :D Never heard it wit BE in it at all. :p