Now that Valentines Day is over and done, we can talk about rejection and breaking up. A hundred years ago, "handing someone a lemon" was a slang term for just that. There were greeting cards and postcards that would convey the message in an obvious way. Of course that message isn't at all obvious now, and Chantel Tattoli thought it was very nice idea to hand someone a lemon until she researched the history of the gesture. Lemons figured in all sorts of metaphors over time, and idea of using it for romantic rejection in the first part of the 20th century was one of those things everyone understood at the time, but seems rather obscure now. Read about the sour business of handing someone a lemon at The Paris Review. -via Nag on the Lake