A Morbid Sense of Language

I was racking my brain for something less weighty to discuss here when it occurred to me to question that turn of phrase.  Why should the verbage that comes to mind draw from an English form of torture?  (Even turn of phrase could have such connotations....)  Why should I not rather say I was watering my brain or fertilizing the ol' grey cells or some more fruitful idiom?

Of course the obvious answer is that I inherit the language of my predecessors.  But what language that is!  For racking our brains is only the beginning of it....

If we want to hear someone's idea, we might say, Fire away!

If we find something hilarious, we could say, You're killing me!

Sometimes if someone has done something excellently, we say, You murdered it!

We even draw an arrow to indicate which direction to go.

If someone has a good argument, we say, You have a good point (in other words, no button on the end of your sword, so you could actually kill someone with it).

When someone looks good, we say said person looks sharp.

We execute a plan.

And those are only the ones off the top of my head (does that remind anyone else of scalping?)....