Have you ever had the pleasure of talking with someone who has mastered the art of speaking in clichés? ? I’ve met one or two over the years and it’s actually pretty funny. We all use clichés everyday but almost no one knows how they originated and what their original meaning was. Here are just a few examples . . .
BAKER’S DOZEN
This phrase dates back to medieval England. Henry III (1216-1272) instituted a law, The Assize of Bread and Ale, that called for severe punishment for any baker caught shortchanging customers. English bakers developed the habit of including an extra loaf of bread when asked for a dozen to ensure that if one were stolen, dropped, or lost, they wouldn’t be accused of shortchanging their customers.
BY THE SKIN OF ONE’AS TEETH
By the narrowest of margins. By a hairs breath. There are several metaphors emphasizing the physical danger of a given situation from which one might just have escaped. “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
COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE THE BALLS OFF A BRASS MONKEY
This means that the weather is extremely cold, and although the expression sounds delightfully vulgar, it was not originally a reference to a monkey’s testicles. A brass monkey is a type of rack in which cannonballs were stored. Being brass, the “monkey” contracted in cold weather, resulting in the cannonballs being ejected. The expression has also mutated into a shortened form, again commenting on the temperature, as “brass monkey weather”.
EVERY DOG HAS IT’S DAY
This is a commonly used phrase that seems to have appeared in an English writing of R. Tavener in 1539 and subsequently by Shakespeare:
“Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew, and the dog will have his day.” Hamlet (1600;5:1)
Well, there you have it. These three clichés have been used by millions of people and now you’re one of the few that knows the actual story behind them.
I love the English language. There are so many strange and interesting euphemisms that I could spend the rest of my life searching through. I recently stumbled onto a list of 228 euphemisms for sexual intercourse. Of course, I won’t be listing them all but here are ten you might find interesting or humorous.
Dance the Buttock Jig
Do a Dicky Dunk
Do a Grumble and Grunt
Buzz the Brillo
Peel Your Best End
Play Pickle-me, Tickle-me
Take a Trip Up the Rhine
Pray With the Knees Upward
Trade a Bit of Hard for a Bit of Soft
Make the Chimney Smoke
And last but not least, here are ten euphemisms for sexual arousal: To Be Hot in the Biscuit, To Be Dripping for It, To Be Rooty, To Be in Season, To Be Constitutionally Inclined to Gallantry, To Have Peas in the Pot, To Be Hunky, To Be Affy, To Be Mashed, and finally To Be Primed.
WELCOME TO THE SEXUAL SIDE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
How about I just throw a little of everything your way on this fine Friday morning. I’ll start with a few apparently unedited newspaper headlines. I certainly hope the editors that approved these don’t get paid too much.
War Dims Hope for Peace
Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges!
Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile
Next on my list for today are a few retro bumper stickers. They seem to make more sense than these headlines did.
I Don’t Break for Pedestrians
Learn From Your Parents Mistakes-Use Birth Control
I’m Not a Complete Idiot-Some Parts are Missing
He Who Laughs Last Thinks Slowest
See, I told you they were better than the headlines. And last but not least, a quote you should be glad you didn’t make. I’m not a fan of either Nancy Pelosi or Barabara Boxer but the award for the stupidest quote goes to Barabara. She won by a nose.
“Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, “Thank God I’m still alive.” But of course, those who died – their lives will never be the same again.”
The Connecticut Court of Appeals upheld the kidnapping-robbery convictions of Michael Carter, thus rejecting his claim that witnesses’ identification of him should have been suppressed at his trial. At the time of arrest, according to New Haven police officer Dario Aponte, Carter had proclaimed his innocence but resisted being returned to the scene of the crime so witnesses could see him, asking Aponte, “How can they identify me? I had a mask on.”
David Posman, 33, was arrested recently in Providence, R.I, after allegedly knocking out an armored car driver and stealing the closest four bags of money. It turned out they contained $800 in PENNIES, weighed 30 pounds each, and slowed him to a stagger during his getaway so that police officers easily jumped him from behind.
Clever drug traffickers used a propane tanker truck entering El Paso from Mexico. They rigged it so propane gas would be released from all of its valves while the truck also concealed 6,240 pounds of marijuana. They were clever, but not bright. They misspelled the name of the gas company on the side of the truck.
The judge rose from the bench. “Madam, I have waited years for a schoolteacher to appear before this court,” he smiled with delight. “Now sit down at that table and write ‘I will not pass through a red light’ five hundred times.”
A judge in Louisville decided a jury went “a little bit too far” in recommending a sentence of 5,005 years for a man who was convicted of five robberies and a kidnapping. The judge reduced the sentence to 1,001 years.
We should all thank these geniuses for helping to make law enforcement easier.
As I’ve stated on many occasions, I am not a religious person. But as I do my homework for this blog, I discover many things that I didn’t know before about religion. While I disagree with most organized religions that currently exist, I found that there are a few that I had no knowledge of at all and that being said, I thought I’d pass along their information to all of you.
The first group is the Universe People. They live in and around the Czech Republic and believe that ancient non-earthly beings operate a fleet of spaceships orbiting the earth. The Universe People followers are waiting to be transported into another dimension. I hope they have a really nice trip!
The second group is named after Bhagwan Shee Rajneesh. This gentleman was an India-born mystic who settled in Oregon in the 1980s. The group’s claim to religious fame is that Rolls-Royce’s are a sign of holiness. He owned dozens of them. He also tried to poison nonbelievers by introducing salmonella into the salad bars of several Oregon fast-food restaurants. Take no communion wafers from these folks.
The third group is called the World Church of the Creator. It’s a white separatist movement advocating a white-only religion called Creativity. Ironically, despite their name, group members do not believe in God. They are atheists! They are also idiots, pure and simple.
Number four is called Nuwaubianism. It’s a loose term referring to the religion founded by Dwight York, a black supremacist leader and convicted child molester (currently serving a 135-year prison sentence). These people believe all humans have seven clones living on different parts of the planet. Humans were bred on Mars as part of a Homo erectus breeding program gone awry, and famed scientist, Nikola Tesla, was born on the planet Venus. Let’s have a big AMEN here!
Number five is one I’ll only mention briefly because they’re all dead. And that was Heaven’s Gate. A cult founded by Marshall Applewhite, whose followers believed that once they were free of their earthly bodies, a spaceship would take them away to a celestial paradise. In 1997 with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet they were assured their spaceship had arrived. In March of that year all 36 members of the cult were found dead in a mass suicide. Problem solved!
What more can I say about organized religions. My only
comment is that “You just can’t make this shit up.”
This day requires only a short posting since I too am independent. I plan on enjoying this day of celebration by drinking more than I should and misbehaving when I can. With that thought in mind, enjoy these tidbits of independent American thought.
“So, lead your life that you can look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell.”
An anonymous quote repeated by John D Rockerfeller Jr. at Dartmouth College
🎇🎇🎇
“I don’t give a damn for any damned man that don’t give a damn for me.”
Anonymous American Saying
🎆🎆🎆
AND FINALLY
DANIEL WEBSTER
“It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment – independence nowand independence forever.”
Daniel Webster’s eulogy for John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, 08/02/1826
I’m normally not one to celebrate holidays on this blog but I think celebrating the 4th of July is important. So let me climb up on my “soap box” for a few minutes. I’m a former vet who enlisted in the army in the 60’s and served two and a half years overseas. It changed my life forever, for the better I might add. Independence Day is celebrated as the day we forced our independence on the Brits. Without servicemen that would never would have happened. I celebrate this day by honoring the men and women who served this country in the past and the men and women of the future.
For the last 4 days I’ve been watching a Netflix special called Dateline World War II. The program is 80 short episodes chronicling the war from the 1930’s to the final day with the surrender of Japan. This documentary is a collection of films taken by photographers from both the Allies and the Axis countries. It’s impossible to spend this many hours and see the murderous, hateful, destruction and loss of life without being affected. Numerous times while I was bingeing the series I had to stop and to take a time out. I made it through the 80 episodes in 5 days and have an even greater appreciation of this country than before.
For those generations like mine that came into existence because of World War II (the baby boomers), it’s a reminder of what our parents and their generation went through to ensure our independence. I come from a proud family that had a grandfather seriously injured in France during WW I, my father and uncle serving on destroyer escorts fighting U-Boats to get supplies to England in WW II, and I’m the third generation.
I would hope some of our generation and members of the generations that followed would take the time to watch this documentary. It’s hard to know where your country’s headed unless you have some idea of where it’s been.
ENJOY YOUR INDEPENDENCE – WE’VE PAID A HEAVY PRICE TO KEEP IT
As always, I offer up more questionable poetry. Some people like this style and some do not. To me that makes for what I call “bad poetry”. If everyone loves and understands it, then it’s “good poetry”.
😞❤️😞
I rush down the highway of my life. Hoping that things I need and desire, will follow. To feel, see and experience, the love, hate and strife. Hear words that mean something and nothing, hollow.
The need to experience and taste it remains key. The search for the reverse of me continues, can never cease. Passing years and people have changed how I am able to see. My mysterious other self demands fairness, the ultimate release.
A quantity known but not known comes to me after flirting. Near hopes end a miracle occurs and love blossoms, smell the flowers. Feel intense love, caring and gentleness, no more hurting. That for which we all search is now mine and hers, ours.
The years of love and caring release me from my chains. My life quest finally realized, my soul with its mate. Melting together, love and tenderness growing my heart can’t explain. My lover has taught me, what counts is love, not hate.
YOU’VE JUST RECEIVED YOUR DAILY DOSE OF BLAHHHHHHHH!
I just found out that the White House appears to be haunted and has been for some years. I love thinking about the Carters, Clintons, and Bushes being visited in the wee hours. Oh, if it were only true. Here are a few reported incidents that truly tickle my funny bone.
You as we’ve learned in our history lessons in school, Pres. William Henry Harrison became ill at his inauguration and died from pneumonia on April 4, 1841, just one month after taking office. Harrison’s translucent ghost has been seen throughout the White House but primarily in the residential areas. It appears to be looking for something and walks through closed doors.
If you like to hear about a happier ghost, go to the Queen’s bedroom the White House where President Andrew Jackson’s ghost can occasionally be seen. Since in life he was known as quite the ladies’ man, the Queen’s bedroom at that time was reserved for female guests of honor.
During World War II that same Queens bedroom was called the Rose room and was where Winston Churchill once stayed. He encountered the ghost of Abraham Lincoln standing in front of the fireplace with one hand on the mantle, staring down at the hearth. Always a quick wit, Churchill said, “Good evening Mr. President, you seem to have me at a disadvantage”. According to Churchill, Lincoln smiled at him and disappeared.
When Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands stayed in the Queen’s bedroom in 1945, she was awakened by noisy footsteps in the corridor outside her room. When the Queen finally opened her door, she was face-to-face with the specter of Abraham Lincoln. She said he looked very much alive and was dressed in travel clothes including top hat and coat. The queen gasped, and Lincoln vanished.
It appears that Abraham Lincoln refuses to leave the White House. His apparition has been seen clearly by hundreds, including Eleanor Roosevelt’s maid, sitting on a bed, removing his boots. Calvin Coolidge’s wife saw Lincoln’s face reflected in the window in the Yellow Oval Room. I thought it was tough to get rid of the Clintons but Lincoln’s just being ridiculous.
Abigail Adams did her laundry and hung it out to dry in the White House’s East Room. Her ghost appears regularly and is wrapped in a shawl.
Dolly Madison was the designer of the Rose Garden. When Woodrow Wilson’s second wife Edith, ordered gardeners to dig up the garden for new plants, Dolly’s apparition appeared and allegedly insisted that no one was going to touch her garden. You should know that to this day those roses remain exactly as they were when the Madisons lived in the White House in the early 1800s.
Well, all of these entries should tell you something but I’m not quite sure what. The White House is either filled with dozens of ghosts that refuse to leave or everybody that hangs out in the White House is delusional. I’m not a big believer in ghosts but to hear all these stories makes me wonder more than I usually do about politicians and their vivid imaginations.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FOR HILARY TO RETURN? . . . OOOOOOH, SCARY!
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