[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has
to be us.

Jerry Garcia

 

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people
wouldn't obey the rules.

Alan Bennett

 

Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a
very comforting thought-- particularly for people who can never remember
where they have left things.

Woody Allen

 

If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire
looked like.

Phyllis Diller

 

There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs
there'd be no place to put it all.

Robert Orben

 

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.

Rita Rudner

 

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Duck soup

The expression duck soup has been used several times as a synonym for ‘an
extremely easy task’. It’s getting more than a little old-fashioned, though
it is still common enough to be included in American dictionaries. The first
recorded use, according to Prof Jonathan Lighter in the Random House
Historical Dictionary of American Slang, was in a Tad Dorgan cartoon in
1902, in reference to a man juggling a set of miscellaneous items. It means
some action that was easy or presented no challenge, a cinch to complete,
like rolling off a log.

 

It’s a weird phrase. Nobody has the slightest idea where it came from or
what it refers to. The cartoon is no help, as it shows a man in a Police
Court, juggling a bottle, pitcher, plate and salt shaker, with the caption
“Duck Soup”. Nobody has managed to make much sense of it. It’s not even
certain that TAD Dorgan actually meant by the phrase that it was something
easy — it might just as well refer to something that looks easy, but is
actually difficult.

 

Could the image be of a sitting duck, one that was on the water and easy for
a hunter to shoot? Could it be that duck soup was especially easy to
prepare? Might it even refer to a pond with ducks floating on it, which
figuratively was already duck soup? All these have been tentatively put
forward by various writers who were feverishly exercising their imaginations
in the absence of solid fact. 

 

If anybody ever finds out, pass it on.

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Wild goose chase

 

This phrase is old and appears to be one of the many phrases introduced to
the language by Shakespeare. The first recorded citation is from Romeo and
Juliet, 1592:

 

Romeo: Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.

 

Mercutio:            Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done,
for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I
have in my whole five.

 

Our current use of the phrase alludes to an undertaking which will probably
prove to be fruitless - and it's hard to imagine anything more doomed to
failure than an attempt to catch a wild goose by chasing after it. Our
understanding of the term differs from that in use in Shakespeare's day. The
earlier meaning related not to hunting but to horse racing. A 'wild goose
chase' was a race in which horses followed a lead horse at a set distance,
mimicking wild geese flying in formation. The equine connection was referred
to a few years before Shakespeare's usage, in Gervase Markham's equestrian
instructional manual A Discource of Horsmanshippe, 1593. Markham describes
the rules of the race at length, the essential point being that the horses
follow each toher like geese in flight:

 

The Wild-goose chase being started, in which the hind|most Horse is bound to
follow the formost, and you hauing the leading, hold a hard hand of your
Horse, and make hym gallop softly at great ease, insomuch, that perceiuing
your aduersarie striue to take the leading from you, suffer him to come so
néere you, that his Horses head may wel nye touch your Horses buttocke,
which when you sée, clappe your left spurre in your horses side, and wheele
him suddainlie halfe about on your right hand, and then take him vp againe,
till such time that he be come to you againe: thus may you doo of eyther
hand which you will, and in neuer a one of these turnes, but you shall throw
him that rides against you, at least twenty or thirtie yardes behind you, so
that whilst you ride at your ease, he shal be forst continually to come vp
to you vpon the spur•es, which must wearie the best Horse in the world.Also
in thys match, gette your law in the Wild-goose chase, which is most vsually
twelue score to bee twentie score, that if your aduersary chaunce to haue
more spéede then you, yet with your truth and toughnes, you may reco|uer
him: for that Horse that lets another ouer-runne hym twenty score at the
first in a wild-goose chase, it is pyttie he should euer be hunter.

 

That meaning had been lost by the 19th century. In Grose's Dictionary of the
Vulgar Tongue, 1811, he defines the term much the way we do today:

 

"A tedious uncertain pursuit, like the following a flock of wild geese, who
are remarkably shy."

 

The 1978 film 'The Wild Geese' alluded to the phrase in its title. This
refers back to Irish mercenaries who 'flew' from Ireland to serve in various
European armies in the 16th to 18th centuries. The plot of the film involved
a group of mercenaries embarking on a near-impossible mission. Of course,
the near-impossible is no problem for action heroes and they caught their
prey.

 

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How many bathrooms are there in the White House?

A: 34.

 

Who was the president when running water was first installed in the White
House.

A: Andrew Jackson.

 

In which White House room did President Monroe play cards, Mrs. Theodore
Roosevelt receive visitors, and President John F. Kennedy's casket lie in
state?

A: The Green Room.

 

In 1973 what convicted felon was given a free half-hour of airtime on the
three major television networks to declare his innocence?

A: Just-resigned vice president Spiro Agnew, who had pleaded nolo
contendere--co contest--to charges of tax evasion on bribes paid to him.

 

Which American president turned over 40 years of government paychecks to
charity?

A: Independently wealthy Herbert Hoover.

 

Who was the first president to throw out the first ball of the season at a
baseball game?

A: William J Howard Taft, in 1910. The Washington Senators beat the
Philadelphia Athletics in the one-hit shutout pitched by baseball great
Walter Johnson

 

John Tyler had more children than any other American president. How many did
he have?

A: Fifteen. Married twice, he had a total of eight sons and seven daughters.