[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

You can build a throne with bayonets, but it's difficult to sit on it.

Boris Yeltsin

 

That low down scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass - and
I'm just the one to do it!

Texan congressional candidate

 

Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer
relevant.

Henri Queuille

 

Traditionally, most of our imports come from overseas.

Australian minister Keppel Enderbery

 

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith

 

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making
decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no
price for being wrong.

Thomas Sowell

           

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Adam's apple

 

Bulge in the throat caused by the cartilage of the larynx, 1731,
corresponding to Latin pomum Adami, perhaps an inexact translation of Hebrew
tappuah haadam, literally "man's swelling," from ha-adam "the man" + tappuah
"anything swollen." The reference is to the legend that a piece of the
forbidden fruit (commonly believed to have been an apple) that Eve gave Adam
stuck in his throat. It is more prominent in men than women. The term is
mentioned early 15c. as the name of an actual oriental and Mediterranean
fruit, a variety of lime with an indentation fancied to resemble the marks
of Adam's teeth.

 

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Red tape

 

Legal and official documents have been bound with red tape since the 17th
century and continue to be so. The first reference discovered to this
practice is the 1696-1715 Maryland Laws:

 

"The Map upon the Backside thereof sealed with his Excellency's Seal at Arms
on a Red Cross with Red Tape."

 

We now usually mean fussy or unnecessary bureaucracy when we refer to 'red
tape'. The first record found of it being used in that sense is from The
pleader's guide, 1796. This spoof verse, purporting to be the work of John
Surrebutter (a deceased barrister) was a satire on the fussiness of English
law. It includes the lines:

 

Nor would the Fates... Cut the red-tape of thy years.

 

This is part-way towards a metaphorical usage of the term, albeit still
clearly referring to actual lawyer's red-tape. The first entirely figurative
usage of 'red-tape' found is in Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Alice, or the
Mysteries, 1838:

 

"The men of more dazzling genius began to sneer at the red-tape minister as
a mere official manager of details."

  

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When the going gets tough, the tough get going

 

might be expected the inspirational motto 'When the going gets tough, the
tough get going' originated as a coaching mantra in American Football
circles. It joins other similar motivational phrases that use wordplay for
effect - 'Failing to plan is planning to fail' and 'Better to die on your
feet than live on your knees', etc.

 

The first example found in print comes from the Texas newspaper The Corpus
Christi Caller Times, September 1953, which reports on a speech made by John
Thomas, the coach of the Green Hornets football team:

 

John Thomas, who has been coaching the Green Hornets for 17 years, tore down
the house as he mixed philosophy with wit, in as fine a speech as the
Quarterbacks will hear all year.

 

The article then lists several uplifting slogans that Thomas had coined to
encourage the team, finishing with:

 

As Thomas said: "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going."

 

Given the context it is plausible that Thomas coined the slogan himself.

 

The phrase is found in US newspapers throughout the 1950s, mostly with
reference to sports. By the 1980s it had become common enough in the wider
community to spawn the parody version 'When the going gets tough, the tough
go shopping', as here in this advice to teenagers from Len Albin, writing in
Seventeen Magazine, December 1980:

 

Take in an upbeat movie, get a change of scenery, find a new hobby to occupy
your attention, or follow the popular adage, "When the going gets tough, the
tough go shopping."

 

More recently there are as many jokey variants on the original as there are
rhymes for going - 'get sewing', 'go rowing' and so on...

 

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What is the literal meaning of the Italian word Linguine?

A: "Little tongues."

 

What food product, marketed as Elijah's Manna in 1904, was renamed because
of objections from the clergy?

A: Post Toasties cereal.

 

What name is shared by a citrus fruit and the citizens of an African
capital?

A: Tangerine (Tangiers is the summer capital of Morocco.)

 

What is Bombay duck?

A: Dried, salted fish. It's both a snack and a flavoring used in Indian
cooking.

 

Where did the pineapple plant originate?

A: In South America. It didn't reach Hawaii until the early nineteenth
century.

 

What was margarine called when it was first marketed in England?

A: Butterine.

  

What member of the British nobility received a special award from America's
National Pickle packers Association in 1956 in recognition of an ancestor's
invention?

A: The Earl of Sandwich, whose eighteenth-century ancestor--the fourth
earl--is credited with having invented the sandwich. The pickle packers gave
the award in appreciation of the sandwich's contribution to the consumption
of pickles.