10/10/2026
These 15 phrases are featured on VoiceMap tours around the world, and most of them started out far stranger than they sound today.
In St. Augustine, “saved by the bell” comes from the string that was tied to a corpse's wrist and attached to a bell above ground – in case someone had been buried alive and needed rescuing. In Venice, medieval bankers worked from wooden tables called "banca" at the Rialto Market, and if one couldn't pay his debts, his table was smashed, giving us "bankrupt." And in London, Admiral Nelson, already blind in one eye, would hold his telescope up so he could ignore orders he disagreed with – which is where we get "turn a blind eye."
Download VoiceMap and find out what you've actually been saying this whole time, in cities around the world. 🎧