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societies. People voted you into these clubs by putting a white bean or a black bean into a jar (white = yes; black=no). The beans were supposed to be counted in secret, but if somebody accidentally (or purposefully) knocked over the jar and spilled the beans, the secret vote would be revealed. Another theory holds that this is an example of American slang from the early 1900s that combined two old words, spill (meaning talk) and beans (meaning information), into a new phrase. A related expression is to let the cat out of the bag. spit and polish надраить / начистить до блеска M E A N I N G : smart appearance; perfect presentation; cleaning and rubbing All it needed was a bit of spit and polish and we got it looking as good as new. ORIGIN: This term derives from the military where superiors tell their men to clean and polish their boots and their shoes for inspection. Traditionally this was done with spittle and rubbing. spitting image of someone точная копия; как две капли воды похож; вылитый M E A N I N G : a strong likeness of someone; a perfect resemblance You must be David’s father. He’s the spitting image of you. ORIGIN: Originally the saying was spit and image. Spit was an old word that meant likeness, but the original word might have been spirit, shortened into spit. As the years went by, spit and was pronounced spittin and later became spitting. split hairs мелочиться по пустякам (в споре, дискуссии) M E A N I N G : to argue about small, unimportant differences 120