I was still young when I first stayed out too late one evening fucking around with some friends in the neighborhood and my mom grounded me when I got home. Trouble was she didn’t realize that “grounding” someone is an idiom and I thought she was going to bury me alive. Pretty sure she didn’t understand why I was crying.
I grew up with that idiom and understanding what it meant, and then I went to flight school where being grounded has a more literal meaning. So my question: Was the childhood punishment named after disqualification from flight status or was the term in use before 1903 with a different origin?
I was still young when I first stayed out too late one evening fucking around with some friends in the neighborhood and my mom grounded me when I got home. Trouble was she didn’t realize that “grounding” someone is an idiom and I thought she was going to bury me alive. Pretty sure she didn’t understand why I was crying.
“I made you, I can unmake you.”
Do I have a sibling I didn’t know about?
“I brought you in this world, I can take you out of it.”
Pretty common thing to say among white trash moms (and very possibly among non-white trash moms too, but my experience is limited…)
I grew up with that idiom and understanding what it meant, and then I went to flight school where being grounded has a more literal meaning. So my question: Was the childhood punishment named after disqualification from flight status or was the term in use before 1903 with a different origin?