Who doesn’t use cliches? You probably use one or two every day and don’t even realize it. I once wrote a four-minute speech using nothing but dozens of cliches strung together. I loved the challenge but the thirty people I read it to weren’t the least bit impressed. I really dislike people who can’t take a joke. Anyway, one other thing I love to do is to trace back into history to discover who originally came up with the cliche. Here are a couple just for you.
“By the skin of one’s teeth.”
“By the skin of one’s teeth” specifically is a (slightly misquoted) biblical phrase that means to have suffered “a close shave”.
My bone cleaveth to my skin, and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. Job 19:20
😯😯😯
“A chip on one shoulder.”
There is an ancient proverb, “Hew not too high less chips fall in thine eye.” By the late 16th century, this health and safety warning had become something of a challenge, a dare to a fearless woodcutter to look high up without regard to any falling chips of wood.
😕😕😕
“The hair of the dog that bit you.”
The phrase likely originated in the 16th century. Back then, if one was bitten by a mad dog (which was likely to be suffering from rabies), It was accepted medical practice to dress the wound with a burnt hair of the dog, as an antidote. Amazingly, this cure was recommended for dog bites for about 200 years before its efficacy was finally brought into question.
As someone who’s crazy for limericks of all kinds, I thought I’d introduce a new contributor to this blog. The name is John Ciardi, and he was a close friend of Isaac Azimov, my favorite limerick author. They partnered up back in the 70’s and wrote a book of their limericks. It was a limerick war between the two as part of their competitive friendship. I’ve blogged many of Azimov’s limericks and I think it’s only fair to give Mr. Ciardi equal time. Here are a few of his gems.
I’ve spent most of my life obeying and enforcing the laws of the land. First, as a cop, and then as a private cop for companies throughout the country. I’ve always believed in what I did and felt proud as I dedicated my time and energy to something bigger than myself. That was ‘yesterday’ and unfortunately ‘today’ it’s become something less noble. I can’t praise our law enforcement officers enough because the job has become almost impossible to do. Between the bleeding-heart liberal judges and the thousands of attorneys doing their level best every day to muddy the waters of what’s right and what’s wrong, it’s no wonder the society is suffering.
Everyone seems to complain that the system is broken but no one knows or even tries to fix it. It’s much easier to just send cops out into the streets knowing that if they make one solitary move or say one solitary thing to a citizen, they’ll be ridiculed or worse within minutes. There are times when it’s justified but all cops don’t deserve that kind of ridicule. Our forefathers are a joke to many people these days, but they saw this coming over three hundred years ago. Read on.
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) & James Madison (1751-1836)
“The Federalist Papers”
“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood, if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.”
Over the years I’ve consistently stated that I was not a fan of organized religions. You can disagree or agree, that’s your privilege. I also don’t participate in religious holiday celebrations either. That being said, I know many of you do. Here is my contribution this year to add to your holiday cheer. We always need a little humor thrown into the mix.
Robert just graduated with a degree in Clinical Psychology and opened his first office. After some successful advertising he was astounded to have nearly 200 people wanting to be in group therapy. Robert decided to rent a large hall and invite the entire group. To break the ice, and to get the therapy started, he decided to ask for a show of hands how often the attendees had sex. He first asked for a show of hands of all the people who had sex almost every night. A modest number of hands were raised. He then asked, how many had sex once a week. This time a larger number of hands were raised. Robert then asked how many had sex once or twice a month. Again a few hands were raised. After he polled his group several more times, he noticed John sitting off to the side with this huge beaming grin on his face. He also noticed that John had never raised his hand, so he asked him how often he had sex. John stated proudly, “Once a year!” Robert then responded, “Why are you so happy getting sex only once a year??” John smiling from ear-to-ear responded, “Tonight’s the night!”
Today is the start of a better day than yesterday. Today I’m assured of at least another year before the cancer might return. A good doctor’s report makes for better days ahead. I can stop obsessing over this whole cancer deal until October when I’m due to be scanned again. So, what better way to pass the time than throwing some bad poetry your way. I wrote this many years ago during what I used to call the I-don’t-give-a-shit days. And believe me, I had plenty of them.
❤❤ It’s near in the mist. ❤❤ It watches and waits, as its urges flicker to life. A stroke of the hand, a kiss in the dark, and a seed is spilled near your wife. Some call it desire, others haven’t a clue, I see it near you!
Today is Thursday but it just feels like a dreary Monday. I was awakened at 4:30 am by my better-half who was preparing to leave at 6:00 am for a drive to Florida. She was accompanied by her daughter and two grandsons both under the age of ten (OMFG). She tried desperately to convince me to ride along but fortunately for me I had other plans today. My other plans consist of some quality time with my least favorite doctor, the oncologist. I’ve always thought that being a proctologist might be the worst job on the planet but after the last three years I’ve changed my mind about that. Being an oncologist has to be the worst. Their job is vitally important but dealing with cancer and death on a regular basis is grueling for both the patients, nurses, and doctors. I’m hoping for good news today as always when dealing with them. So while I sit here preparing myself for that visit I thought I’d post a few things about four truly dumb asses.
DEADHEADS A man in Orange County Municipal Court had been ticketed for driving alone in the carpool lane. He claimed that the four frozen cadavers in the mortuary van he was driving should be counted. The judge ruled that passengers must be alive to qualify.
LICENSE TO STEAL Two Kentucky men tried to pull the front cover from an ATM by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling the front panel off the machine, though, they pulled the bumper off the truck. They panicked and fled, leaving the chain still attached to the machine, their bumper still attached to the chain, and their license plate still attached to the bumper.
MADE FOR TV Guns For Hire, an Arizona company specializing in staged gunfights for western movies, got a call from a 47-year-old woman who wanted to have her husband shot. She was later sentenced to four years in jail.
OKAY, SO YOU’RE A MAN A 38-year-old man passed away in Pennsylvania a couple of hours after going to the home of a friend to see his snakes. According to the friend, the man had playfully reached into a cobra’s tank and picked up the snake and was bitten. Refusing a ride to the hospital, the man said, “I’m a man, I can handle it,” and instead went to a bar, where he had three drinks and bragged to patrons that he had just been bitten by a cobra. An hour later, he was dead.
I have to admit that my choice of reading materials is vast. I’ll read just about anything I can get my hands on at any given moment. With that in mind, I stumbled upon a book recently filled with euphemisms of all kinds. I’m going to start posting some of these euphemism lists over the next few months because they are hysterically funny. That being said, me being a man, I thought the first list would contain 45 nicknames for penises. Don’t worry girls the list for women’s vaginas is five times as long as the one for men and I’ll be posting that list as we go forward. Speaking for myself, I’ve never ever named my penis. It amazes me that so many men do. Let’s get started . . .
The Bazooka, A Bit of Hard, A Bit of Stiff, The Bone, A Boner, Captain Standish, The Cockstand, Coleen Bawn, Crack a Fat, The Cunt Stretcher, Fixed Bayonets, A Full, The Golden River, A Hard-on, The Horn, In Ones Best Clothes, In One’s Sunday Best, An Irish Toothache, Jack, A Lance at Rest, The Marquess of Porn, Morning Pride, Old Hornington, Old Horny, Be on the Stand, Be Piss Proud, Be Proud Below the Navel, The Rail, The Ramrod, The Reamer, The Rose in Ones Levi’s, The Roaring Horn, Roaring Jack, The Rock Python, The Spike, The Stalk, The Standard, The Standing Member, Standingware,, Stiff and Stout, A Stiff One, Stiffy, A Toothache, A Wood, A Woody . . . .
I’m pretty sure if I were making this list, it wouldn’t be as lame as these. It’s obvious to me that the guys who contributed to this list weren’t all that proud of their little (no pun intended) friend. One more fact for you. I will not be naming my penis in this post. He already knows who he is and needs no further introduction. I promise that if the day comes when I think it’s necessary to ID him, I’ll post it immediately.
I’m a lover of history, and I’m absolutely crazy about obscure historical trivia facts. I’ve collected quite a few over the years and I’m going to begin today with what I hope will be a number of postings with more of these little tidbits. Enjoy!
“Take this script,” Rudyard Kipling said to the nurse who cared for his firstborn child, “and someday if you are in need of money, you may be able to sell it at a handsome price.” Years later, when the nurse was actually in want, she sold the manuscript of the first Jungle Book and lived in comfort for the rest of her life.
After writing the runaway bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe was bombarded with hate mail. Out of one package that she received fell the ear of a slave.
The author of the best-known document in the United States, and perhaps in the world, published only one book. Thomas Jefferson’s answers to a set of 23 questions about the American continent, circulated in 1780 by the French emissary François Marbois, appeared as Notes on the State of Virginia.
Walt Whitman was dismissed from his clerical post in the Indian Bureau of the Department of the Interior when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, read a portion of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and deemed it “pernicious poetry”.
Heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney lectured on Shakespeare at Yale University.
The electric automobile self-starter, which was perfected in 1911 by Charles F Kettering, made it possible for women to drive without the companion previously needed for cranking the engine.
In the early 1860s, a New York firm offered a prize of $10,000 for a satisfactory substitute for ivory in the manufacture of billiard balls. The prize was won by an American inventor, John Wesley Hyatt, who devised for the purpose what came to be known as celluloid. It was the first synthetic plastic.
Somewhere out there in space, amid all of the junk, is the Hasselblad camera dropped during a spacewalk by the United States astronaut Michael Collins. It will orbit the earth indefinitely.
A manned rocket reaches the moon in less time than it took a stagecoach to travel the length of England.
In 1930, Ellen Church recruited seven other young nurses to work 5000 feet above the Earth. They were the first airline stewardesses, flying on Boeing’s San Francisco to Chicago route, a trip that, in good weather, took 20 hours and made 13 stops.
As everyone is probably aware, I absolutely love limericks. I will present a few today but for those of you of German heritage and anyone who can speak German, this first one is for you. I have to admit that Germany is not known for its limericks but here is one in German with a translation. I think if the translation is accurate (and I’m not sure it is), it’s one of the worst limericks ever written. If anyone out there can translate it properly, please do, and sent me the corrected version by email to everyuselessthing2@yahoo.com.
Ein dicklicher mann in Peru
Der traumte mal von einer kuh;
Und alse r erwacht
Da ha ter gelacht:
Seine frau stand am bett und macht
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A plumpish chap in Peru
Was dreaming about a cow.
When he awoke,
He couldn’t help laughing,
His wife was standing at the bedside saying “Moo!”
😷😷😷
Now that that silliness is over let’s get on with a couple of limericks written by children. After previous posting of kids’ limericks, I received a number of requests for more. Here are a couple.
everyuselessthing.com 