Did you know that people used to bathe their babies in water so dirty they couldn’t see through it? They might even loose their baby in the bathwater, and that’s where the phrase “Don’t throw out the baby . . .”
Or not. Read this list of stories supposedly explaining why we have certain phrases today. As far as I know, all of them are bogus.
That’s becoming a pet peeve of mine. Cutesie little word explanations. I don’t know why I care, but I do for some reason.