[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

Funny that all of Nixon's crimes - anonymous campaign cash, wiretapping,
undeclared wars - are all legal now.

Bill Maher

 

Statesmen tell you what is true even though it may be unpopular. Politicians
will tell you what is popular, even though it may be untrue.

Anonymous

 

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the
most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly
every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself
puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.

Charles Krauthammer

 

Tell the truth and you won't have so much to remember.

Abraham Lincoln

 

If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con' what is the opposite of 'progress'?

Paul Harvey

 

That's the trouble with a politician's life - somebody is always
interrupting it with an election.

Will Rogers

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Square

 

We don’t know the reason why the word square took on the meaning of somebody
who is boringly conventional or old-fashioned. It seems to have been in use
first in the jazz world from the 1920s onward, with the first written record
said to be in a 1938 jazz catalogue. At first it referred to people who
didn’t appreciate jazz; only after the Second World War did it branch out
into the wider world with the more general meaning we now know. It’s
probable that it’s an appropriation of the figurative sense of “square”,
which has been around for many years, of something which is properly
arranged and in good order, or which is honest or straightforward (as in
“square deal”, or “square shooter”). To move from this idea to a sense of
“boringly conventional” is not such a large step, at least from the
perspective of speakers who don’t consider themselves to be part of the
mainstream.

---------------------

Faux Pas?

 

On being criticised by Kermit in a long-ago edition of The Muppet Show, Miss
Piggy flounced, tossed her head, rolled her eyes, placed one trotter on her
ample bosom and cried, “Pretentious? Moi?” In the system of flagging, moi is
often given the highest possible pretentiousness rating of three exclamation
marks.

 

The idea behind this helpful little guide by Philip Gooden, is firstly to
explain puzzling expressions from other languages that have made their way
into English, and then in many cases to warn prospective users of the risk
of sounding like a pompous prat.

 

Many of the book’s entries are straightforward explanations of words and
phrases that may puzzle or confuse you: arcanum, coup de foudre, de jure,
encomium, femme fatale, idiot savant, kowtow, memento mori, nota bene,
picayune, reductio ad absurdum, shtum, ukase.

 

But a high proportion are attached to warnings about potential misuse: don’t
use words like perestroika, glasnost, or gulag outside their historical
Russian contexts; karma is too often used sloppily to mean just fate,
whereas in Hindu and Buddhist belief it refers to actions in this life that
will affect your status in the next; only use Götterdämmerung if you really
mean the world is to end in smoke and flame; never describe a lady as being
d’un certain age when you mean she’s middle-aged; do avoid canaille, the
rabble or the mob, Mr Gooden points out, since it comes “with an in-built
aristocratic sneer” that you will almost certainly wish to avoid.

 

Miss Piggy’s usage is in a select group of only four expressions that get
the top pretentiousness rating. Even moi, he noted, is most often used in a
mocking, self-deprecatory way to defuse a preceding statement that might be
thought to be pretentious. The others are dégringolade, decline or fall into
decadence, rarely found in English and which Mr Gooden points out is more or
less the preserve of a single (unnamed) newspaper columnist; au contraire,
on the contrary, disparaged because of “the slightly camp context in which
it’s usually found”; and quartier for a district in a (French) town or city,
which he argues deserves the full raspberry because it sounds ridiculous or
precious if used about a district of a British city (“We have suburbs.”)

 

 

In the world of food, what is pluck?

A: An animal's heart, liver and lungs.

 

What would you get if you ordered a Mae West in a diner?

A: A figure-eight cruller.

 

Which fruit has a variety known as Winter BWhat beverage was advertised as
"good to the last drop" in 1907?

A: Coca-Cola. The slogan was long forgotten by the time the line was adopted
by Maxwell House coffee.

 

How long would a 130-pound person have to walk at a leisurely pace to burn
off the calories in a McDonald's Big Mac? How about a Burger King Double
Beef Whopper with cheese?

A: Two hours and one minute for the Big Mac; three hours and twenty-six
minutes for the Double Whopper.

 

How did the croissant get its name?

A: From the crescent design (creissant in Old French) on the Turkish flag.
Viennese bakers created the crescent-shaped rolls to mark their city's
successful stand against Turkish invaders in 1683.anana?

A: The apple.

 

What percentage of whole milk is water?

A: 87 percent.

 

What recipe did Texas ice-cream maker Elmer Doolin buy for $100 from the
owner of  a San Antonio cafe in 1933--and use to make a fortune?

A: The recipe for tasty corn chips that he marketed as Fritos. He made them
at night in his mother's kitchen and peddled them from his Model-T-Ford.