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Post by SUVFan on Apr 28, 2020 7:58:56 GMT -5
Cool your heelsI just used the phrase this morning in my daily GB post, referring to the impact on my barber of Ohio's Governor's announcement yesterday for how he was going to start reopening the state after the CVC shutdown. My barber had been making plans to reopen his shop but will now have to "cool his heels". In other words, the Governor's decision will force my barber to wait a while longer to reopen. It appears the phrase was first applied to horses in 1606 though a similar usage involving "feet" dates back a half century earlier. The first recorded use relating to humans came in Chapman's translation of The Iliad not long afterward.
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Post by SUVFan on Jun 20, 2020 9:36:27 GMT -5
Off the schneid To finally end an unpleasant or undesirable streak, such as losses in sports. I'm weight loss dieting (and exercising!) and recently plateaued at a figure that became annoying after about 10 days and after about 10 more, I finally got "off the schneid" a few days ago, dropping below the weight at which I'd been stuck. Another example:
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Post by SUVFan on Jul 1, 2020 10:42:04 GMT -5
Baloney As in, "That's a bunch of baloney" or, "You're full of baloney." I used, "That's baloney!" today in response to someone being too humble in refusing to take credit for something, and point to others instead. Basically, it's used to call something out as nonsense. It got it got its start back in the 1920s, as baloney had grown as a replacement for the Italian sausage, bologna (boloney competed for a while but yielded), and really found it's feet as a cover for a package someone was carrying out of a known speakeasy during prohibition. They couldn't admit it was a package of liquor but the shape of the package was consistent with a roll of baloney.
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Post by SUVFan on Aug 6, 2020 18:35:43 GMT -5
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Post by VanIsleRover on Aug 23, 2020 16:10:49 GMT -5
Jiffy
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time, 1/100th of a second.
If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast,
the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
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Post by VanIsleRover on Aug 26, 2020 8:53:38 GMT -5
Nincompoop
It's definitely not a compliment. Calling someone a nincompoop is like calling them a fool, idiot, bonehead, or dope. Nincompoop is a silly-sounding word that's also kind of old-fashioned, like ninny.
Nincompoop. For such a colloquial word, nincompoop actually has a very learned past. Samuel Johnson, the compiler of England's first proper dictionary, claims the word comes from the Latin phrase non compos mentis (“not of right mind”), and was originally a legal term.
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Post by VanIsleRover on Aug 26, 2020 9:06:22 GMT -5
www.mentalfloss.com/article/50449/origins-9-great-british-insultsThe Origins of 9 Great British Insults BY CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER MAY 15, 2013 THINKSTOCK/BRYAN DUGAN For as long as people have been speaking the English language, they’ve been deploying it to poke fun at one another. Let's dig a little deeper into the grab bag of insults that language has bequeathed us throughout history, and find out where those terms come from. 1. Wazzock Wazzock was a particularly prevalent—and particularly loutish—insult in the 1990s. At the time, "lad culture" ran throughout British music and television, and wazzock, a North-England accented contraction of the sarcastic wiseacre (a know-it-all) became a powerful tool to shoot people down in an argument. 2. Lummox Though the etymology of lummox is heavily disputed, one thing is for certain: It came from East Anglia, the coastal outcrop of Britain above London. There, around 1825, someone threw out the word as an insult, and it stuck, becoming a typically British go-to term. Some linguists believe it comes from the word lummock, which typified a lummox: it means a clumsy oaf. 3. Skiver Skivers and shirkers are one and the same. Someone who manages to duck under any responsibility and loaf around, doing very little, is a skiver. The origins of this particular insult are contested: some think it’s from an Old Norse word—skifa—meaning “slice,” whereby the worker slices off as much work as possible. 4. Minger Often hurled at the opposite sex, to call someone a minger is to say they are objectively unattractive. Though etymologists struggle to agree where the word came from, it seems likely that it stems from the Old Scots word meng, meaning “sh**.” We didn’t say it was pretty. 5. Nincompoop For such a colloquial word, nincompoop actually has a very learned past. Samuel Johnson, the compiler of England’s first proper dictionary, claims the word comes from the Latin phrase non compos mentis (“not of right mind”), and was originally a legal term. 6. Pillock As words are used more regularly, the laziness of pronunciation can often warp them slightly. So it was with pillock. Originally pillicock (a Norwegian slang word for penis), the word has since been condensed to plain old pillock—though its meaning remains. 7. Clod hopper According to the brilliant Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, dating back to 1811 and compiled by Captain Francis Grose, a clod hopper refers to a country farmer or ploughman—with the implication nowadays that you’re slow witted and bumbling. 8. Dunaker Grose’s Dictionary of vulgarities is a rich seam of overlooked insults. In the 200 years since it was published, there have been several terms that have fallen out of favor. One of them is dunaker, a common thief of cows and calves. 9. Git By calling someone a git, you’re invoking the old Scots word get, which means "bastard." When it came down south of the border, it lost its harsh vowel sound and became something softer, albeit with the required spikiness in.
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Post by VanIsleRover on Aug 26, 2020 21:50:56 GMT -5
I visited my elderly (97) friend today. She was relating what her school teacher had called her. She left school at age 12 Oh dear.... Flibberty-gibbet. A silly, scatterbrained, or garrulous person. . An irresponsible, silly, or gossipy person . fool, muggins, saphead, tomfool, sap - a person who lacks good judgment www.thefreedictionary.com/Flibberty-gibbet#:~:text=n.,chattering%20or%20flighty%2C%20lightheaded%20person.
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Post by SUVFan on Sept 4, 2020 7:08:24 GMT -5
Take a ganderI used the phrase, "take a gander" this morning in a post over at GB and immediately thought to post it here. It is an expression meaning “take a look”, “get a peek”, “check it out”, etc.According to what's reported at that link, the phrase dates to "the late 19th / early 20th century. It is based on the “male goose” definition of “gander”. “Gander”, meaning “male goose”, derives from the Old English “gandra”, which ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *ghans-, meaning “goose”. There are quite a few "bonus" facts about geese at the end of the link!
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Post by SUVFan on Sept 27, 2020 10:53:14 GMT -5
Can You Dig It?On my walk this morning I was listening to the SeriusXM 70s on 7 replay of Casey Casem's American Top 40. This week, they featured this week from 1971. In Smiling Faces by the Undisputed Truth (#7), the phrase, "Can you dig it" is repeated twice in rapid succession and I made a note to post the phrase here. While I dig the phrase, in 5 minutes, I found nothing truly definitive ( they've struggled with it on another message board!) and Yahoo! Answers was also helpful. "Dig it" it appears to date to the 30s, meaning to understand a concept. By the 60s, the hippie movement adopted the phrase to be asking, "Do you understand me?", along with the response, "I dig it" to confirm mutual understanding. I sense "I dig it" has evolved further today to point that contextually, it can mean "I like it".
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Post by SUVFan on Oct 4, 2020 19:10:59 GMT -5
Something/someone is/was/will be "a gas"
I still hear this term used by folks in their mid 50s and up. It means the thing or person is/was/will be a lot of fun or a great time! The link in the next paragraph traces the first use to a 1957 short story and also a novel issued the same year. Where it came from is a different story. This link pursues the suggestion that it evolved from the reaction to laughing gas (nitrous oxide) but concludes that it's doubtful. About the best that blog could do is speculate that it evolved from a slang term, "gasser", which had approximately the same meaning.
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Post by SUVFan on Nov 13, 2020 19:47:29 GMT -5
Hunker down
I used this term in a post yesterday. When it was repeated back to me approvingly today, though I knew what I meant by it, I stopped and realized I really didn't know where it came from? Tracing the history, I learned that "hunker" is Scottish and thought to evolve from an Old Norse word, huka, that basically means "to squat." Of course, when a weatherman tells us we need to "hunker down" to ride out a storm, he's not suggesting that we literally squat all the way down. That would get very old very fast! My use of the term is exactly what the website Quick and Dirty Tips says it means: T o dig in or settle in to ride out troubled times. Such as a storm, a brutal winter -- certainly a pandemic! This use of the term is apparently distinctly American, with the popularization starting in the mid 60s attributed to LBJ.
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Post by SUVFan on Dec 14, 2020 19:16:28 GMT -5
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Post by VanIsleRover on Jan 7, 2021 20:25:39 GMT -5
Have you ever watched Jamie Oliver while he cooks? www.jamieoliver.com/videos/He comes up with some beauts Noun. wazzer (plural wazzers) (Britain, derogatory) a stupid or annoying person; a wazzock.
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Post by SUVFan on Jun 28, 2021 9:15:37 GMT -5
With flying colors
With flying colors means (follow link in quote, below) with easy and outstanding success. To succeed at something extremely well.
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