[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

It is fast approaching the point where I don’t want to elect anyone stupid
enough to want the job.

Erma Bombeck

 

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the
United States, please pay attention.

Molly Ivins

 

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary.

William Faulkner

 

If you ever injected truth into politics, you’d have no politics. 

Will Rogers

 

Automatic simply means that you can't repair it yourself.

Frank Capra

 

She's descended from a long line her mother listened to.

Gypsy Rose Lee

 

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Hail fellow well met

 

This phrase is ancient and is still to be found, especially in the UK:

 

The grieving widow flinched as he approached and the — ridiculously young —
vicar twitched as if he was considering confronting him. Barry grunted,
“Don’t even think about it, lad.” He reached the lectern and Ray, all
conciliatory, hail fellow, well met, said, “Come on, Barry, be sensible.
Take a pew and show some respect.” - Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate
Atkinson, 2010.

 

It means a person, usually male, who is heartily friendly and congenial, or
more often is trying hard to appear so and overdoes it. There’s often an
undercurrent of falseness of the sort that’s associated with the more pushy
type of sales person.

 

It was created by putting together two ancient expressions, hail, fellow!
and well met.

 

The greeting hail is from the same source as hale, healthy, which came into
English from the Old Norse heill, sound or whole. It commonly appeared in
greetings and toasts, such as wæs hæil, good health, from which we get
wassail. In medieval England, you might have greeted a friend with hail be
thou, wishing him good health. This was abbreviated over time into an
exclamation and then became our usual term for a shout to attract attention.
A fellow in medieval English was a comrade, companion or associate (which we
still have in phrases such as fellow worker and fellow citizen) and hail,
fellow! was a way to greet one. However, by about 1580 the greeting had
acquired a negative aspect, describing an over-familiar person, often of the
lower orders. A writer of the seventeenth century warned “Let not your
Servants be over-familiar or hail fellow with you.”

 

Well met was a greeting — roughly “it’s good that we’ve met” — that you
might give a friend when you encountered him unexpectedly or when inviting
him to join a convivial gathering. A fellow well-met by extension meant a
boon companion, a close friend with whom one enjoys spending time.

 

They were combined a lot longer ago than you might expect. The Oxford
English Dictionary has its first example from as early as 1581. In 1589, the
writer Thomas Nashe described it as a “collation of contraries”, since well
met was positive and welcoming, while hail fellow could be two-faced and
false.

 

Hail fellow, well met stayed in the language throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries but only became widely popular after about 1800,
peaking in the middle of the century.

 

This was the case with Mr Phillott, who prided himself upon his slang, and
who was at one time “hail fellow, well met” with the seamen, talking to
them, and being answered as familiarly as if they were equals, and at
another, knocking the very same men down with a handspike if he were
displeased. - Peter Simple, by Frederick Marryat, 1844.

 

Its popularity has fallen away a good deal since but it's still in use:

 

Nick Ferrari, the presenter of the LBC breakfast show, makes for a somewhat
alarming prospect first thing in the morning, his hail-fellow-well-met
manners and his pugilistic confidence coming at you like a triple espresso
with too much sugar in it. - Observer, 20 Apr. 2014.

 

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What is Danish pastry known as in Denmark?

A: Vienna bread--Wienerbrod, in Danish.

 

What is the only essential vitamin not found in the white potato?

A: Vitamin A.

 

Under federal guidelines, how mulch alcohol can there be in beer labeled
"non-alcoholic"?

A: Up to .4999 percent.

 

Under U.S. Agriculture Department guidelines, what percentage of a meatball
has to be meat?

A: At least 65 percent.

 

What popular lunch and snack food did an unidentified St. Louis doctor
develop in 1890 for patients requiring an easily digested form of protein?

A: Peanut butter.  Five years later, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg filed for  a
patent for the "process of preparing nut meal"--a spread of steamed peanuts
that was not very popular with patients at his Battle Creek, Michigan,
sanitarium.

 

What do Eskimos use to prevent their food from freezing?

A: Refrigerators.

 

What is the worlds's largest herb?

A: The banana.