[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked.

Peter de Vries

 

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem
worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will
believe it.

Bertrand Russell

 

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past,
only far more expensive.

John Sladek

 

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.

Truman Capote 

 

I go to the gym religiously. About twice a year around the holidays.

Demetri Martin

 

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

G. K. Chesterton

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

Fair to middling

 

The phrase is common for something that's moderate to merely average in
quality, sometimes written the way people say it, as fair to middlin'.

 

With an initial capital letter, fair to Midland is a Texas version of the
phrase, a joke on the name of the city of Midland in that state. A Texas
rock band called themselves Fair to Midland after what they described as "an
old Texan play on the term 'fair to middling'". American researcher Barry
Popik has traced it to May 1935 in a report in the New York Times, "Dr.
William Tweddell ... is what might be called a fair-to-Midland golfer."

 

But we do occasionally see examples of fair to midland in American contexts
without a capital letter and without any suggestion of humor:

 

While overall attendance was fair to midland - the championship session drew
about 800 - the Bartlett student section was outstanding. - Daily Herald
(Arlington Heights, Illinois), 31 Dec. 2011.

 

This lower-case fair to midland version is recorded in Massachusetts in
1968, which suggests that even then it had already lost its connection with
Texas. It might be folk etymology, in which an unfamiliar word is changed to
one that's better known. But it's an odd example, as middling isn't so very
uncommon. It may be that people tried to correct middlin' to a more
acceptable version that lacked the dropped letter but plumped for the wrong
word.

 

All the early examples of fair to middling found in literary works are
similarly American, from authors such as Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott and
Artemus Ward. To go by them, it looks as though it became common on the east
coast of the US from the 1860s on. However, hunting in newspapers found
examples from a couple of decades before, likewise from the east coast. This
one was in a newspaper review of the current issue of The Ladies' Companion:

 

These three articles are the best in the present number - of the rest, most
are from fair to middling. - Boston Morning Post, 6 Feb. 1841.

 

The earliest of all so far found comes from an article in the July 1837
issue of the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond, Virginia: "A Dinner on
the Plains, Tuesday, September 20th. - This was given 'at the country seat'
of J. C. Jones, Esq. to the officers of the Peacock and Enterprise. The
viands were 'from fair to middling, we wish we could say more.'"

 

So the phrase is American, most probably early nineteenth century. But where
does it come from? There's a clue in the Century Dictionary of 1889: "Fair
to middling, moderately good: a term designating a specific grade of quality
in the market". The term middling turns out to have been used as far back as
the previous century both in the US and in Britain for an intermediate grade
of various kinds of goods - there are references to a middling grade of
flour, pins, sugar, and other commodities.

 

Which market the Century Dictionary was referring to is made plain by the
nineteenth-century American trade journals I've consulted. Fair and middling
were terms in the cotton business for specific grades - the sequence ran
from the best quality (fine), through good, fair, middling and ordinary to
the least good (inferior), with a number of intermediates, one being
middling fair. The form fair to middling sometimes appeared as a reference
to this grade, or a range of intermediate qualities - it was common to quote
indicative prices, for example, for "fair to middling grade".

 

The reference was so well known in the cotton trade that it escaped into the
wider language. Some early figurative appearances in newspapers directly
reflect the market usage:

 

Twenty-five cents a line, then, may be quoted as the present commercial
value of good poetry ... fair to middling is probably more difficult of
sale. - New York Daily Times, 29 May 1855.

 

I have only the opinions of some who patronized her entertainments, who
profess to be judges of such things. Verdict, as the Price Current says,
"fair to middling with downward tendency." - The Wabash Express (Terre
Haute, Indiana), 18 May 1859.

 

The figurative term starts to appear in Britain in the 1870s, but early
examples are all in stories imported from across the Atlantic. Even that
seemingly most home-grown British composition, Austin Doherty's Nathan
Barley: Sketches in the Retired Life of a Lancashire Butcher of 1884,
written in local dialect, includes it in the speech of an old school fellow
who had emigrated and made his money in Michigan. So it was known but
labelled as an Americanism. It took until the twentieth century for it to
begin to be used unselfconsciously.

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

The quarries where the Romans extracted travertine for the Colosseum and
other great structures are still being mined today. 

 

The Republic of Israel was established April 23, 1948. 

 

The seven wonders of the ancient world were: ... 1. Egyptian Pyramids at
Giza ... 2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon ... 3. Statue of Zeus at Olympia ...
4. Colossus of Rhodes - or huge bronze statue near the Harbor of Rhodes that
honored the sun god Helios ... 5. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus ... 6.
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus ... 7. Lighthouse at Alexandria. 

 

The shortest war on record was fought between Zanzibar and England in 1896.
Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. 

 

The standard U.S. railroad width (4 feet, 8.5 inches) is directly derived
from the width of Roman war chariots. This is because the English
expatriates who designed the U.S. railroad system based their measurements
on the pre-railroad tramways built in England. Those tramways were built
using the same tools used to build wagons, which were also that width. The
reason wagons were built to that width is because otherwise, they would
break during long treks across the old English roads. Those roads--built by
the Romans--were full of ruts carved out by Roman war chariots. All Roman
chariots were built to a standard width of 4 feet, 8.5 inches, and so
English wagons were built so that their wheels would fit into those ruts. 

 

The supersonic Concorde jet made its first trial flight on January 1, 1969. 

 

The Titanic was believed to be the first ship to use the SOS signal. It was
adopted as the international signal for distress in 1912, and the Titanic
struck the iceberg in April of that year. In reality, another ship, a Cunard
liner named Slavonia, first broadcast the SOS signal on June 10, 1909, a
full 3 years before the Titanic. Also, the SOS became the official distress
signal in 1906, replacing the old CQD code.