First of all, I dropped my ipod in the bath this week. It was fully submerged for around 2 to 3 seconds. Bottom line is, after an evening in the airing cupboard contained within a Tupperware box full of rice, it revived and is now as good as new. Far from this being the main news of the week, I nevertheless thought that after 6 years and counting of exemplary service, my ipod deserves some recognition.
But to business. This week's task was to investigate phrase origins and had a great response from some of you, requesting investigation into several common phrases. Pretty interesting reading it was as well. For instance, the phrase 'to have a field day' developed from 18th century military exercise in fields, unsurprisingly. And the phrase 'with bated breath' is simply an adaptation from the original 'abated breath'. In other words to bring down, lower or depress your breathing in response to an exciting situation.
As was pointed out to me, a great deal of these phrases come from falconry - under the thumb, wrapped around your little finger and fed-up. But there are plenty of other ones. A selection of these are as follows...
Hang fire - Comes from when guns used gun powder to ignite the spark from the iron plate when a gun is fired. Sometimes, the powder didn't fully ignite straight away and could go off a few seconds later or sometimes even longer. This became known as 'hang fire'.
Bootleg - From when cowboys used to keep illicit materials such as guns and alcohol literally inside the long legs of their boots in the wild west.
Let the cat out of the bag - Shady origins for this one but the most widely recognised one refers to when people used to sell pigs. Crafty farmers would replace the pigs with cats in bags to act like a pig. Presumably the buyers, too stupid to look in the bag at the time would get home, looking forward to unwrapping their pig and would get a great surprise when a cat popped out.
Someone did ask me the origin of 'never pat a rabid dog on the head'. Now I'd never heard of this one but I looked it up dutifully. I couldn't find much, but to be honest with you, it's pretty self explanatory - don't pat a rabid dog on the head because it might bite you and you'll get rabies. That's just good advice.
Anyway in the process of looking at these a special mention should go to William Shakespeare for making loads of stuff up. All of a sudden, sorry sight, good riddance, in a pickle (my personal favourite) and in stitches were all courtesy of the big man as were a few words... bandit, assassination, blanket, bump, scuffle and puking.
If he can simply make up words, I see no reason why I cannot. I have been trying to get my own word - frell - to stick in peoples' minds for many years now. It means 'fridge smell' and can be used as a verb, adjective and noun. (to frell, frelly and frell). Simply put, it refers to the unpleasant smell that builds up in fridges, causing innocent fridge items to become sullied, or frelled. Let's all start using it.
I'm aware that this is becoming quite an essay so to tie things up, a few little bits of news before I go. I have finally managed to secure residency in London. Moving into a nice house in West Acton before the week is out! Tremendous! Also I have joined the gym finally which is just as well because I've signed up to the Wokingham Half Marathon in February. I must be mental.
Big it up to Alan Davies by the way who was awesome on saturday. And one final plug... Gun Hill Riffs have a gig on the 21st October at Facebar in Reading. Tickets are £5. If anyone wants to come let me know!
Next week's task.. How to tie a bow tie.
W
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