1404: The Birds and the Bees Oct 15, 2018

Just because a phrase like "the birds and the bees"—as it relates to sex—does not have one definite origin does not mean the information we do have is useless. There are a plethora of theories as to where this expression comes from, but while the written sources date from the 17th to the 20th century, none of them use the phrase as it is said today, and instead may include ideas of birds or bees separately, or very vaguely; this is the nature of euphemism after all. But this is still useful because it is likely that this phrase, and many others, did not come from thin air, but would have developed gradually over time anyway.