In one of the Little House books, Pa sings a song about "Old Grimes" as he fiddles

(To the tune of Auld Lang Syne)

Old Grimes is dead, that good old man
We ne'er shall see him more
He used to wear an old gray coat
That was buttoned down before

I hadn't thought of that in years. Yesterday I suddenly realized something - when we say that his coat was buttoned down before, we don't mean that it was buttoned at some previous point in time, we mean that it was buttoned in the front.

I found more information on google, if you're interested. Having looked up the original poem, I think the site is correct - only the catchier, more humorous endings saved it from utter obscurity.

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