[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

Parents be like don't believe everything you see on the internet then
believe everything they see on Facebook. 

Unknown

 

Hustle until your haters ask if you're hiring.

Steve Maraboli

 

If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100
million, that's the bank's problem.

J Paul Getty

 

If you would like to know the value of money, try to borrow some.

Benjamin Franklin

 

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you
aren't.

Margaret Thatcher

 

We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and
good for them. 

Molly Ivins

 

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Big shot

 

People in the US started to use big shot for a celebrity or for an important
or influential person around 1926-7. Within a year it had blossomed into a
fashionable slang term with examples appearing everywhere, especially to
describe the bosses of criminal gangs - in April 1930, the Lincoln Star of
Nebraska remarked, "Unless the memory plays us a trick, Al Capone is the
'big shot' of Chicago gangland."

 

Where it comes from is a surprisingly long story. From about 1400 on, the
newly invented gun was divided into two types: small guns that could be
carried by soldiers, such as the early types of musket, and the big guns or
great guns, which were the heavy wheeled pieces like cannon. Though the
terms are long since obsolete in formal terms, the phrase "big gun" remains
common for a large piece of ordnance.

 

Around the 1830s, again in the USA, big gun began to be applied to men whose
power and influence metaphorically rivalled that of these weapons - an Ohio
paper in 1837 referred to the big guns of Tammany Hall in New York (this
usage survives, of course, especially for a pre-eminent person in some
field, especially in sports, indeed any substantial resource, even horses:
"We will be relying on Kerrin to ride all our big guns and when we have more
than one in a race we will go for the best available" - London Evening
Standard, 5 June 2005).

 

The related term big shot came along around the middle of the nineteenth
century, but to start with it was a literal description of a large bullet or
shell. Around 1900 it starts to be recorded as a mining term. In July 1905,
the Washington Post ran a story under the headline "BLAST KILLS EIGHT Hurled
to Their Deaths by Premature Explosion", on a railway construction accident
near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It reported that a foreman had gone to the
scene "to personally superintend the preparations for what is called a 'big
shot' to be fired to-morrow morning. A 'big shot' consists of a series of
blasts, the holes having been drilled in a row, and the charges being set
off simultaneously by an electric spark." Other reports of the time show
that this was a standard term, not a one-off, and it was used figuratively
as early as 1911 in an advertisement in an Ohio paper promoting a clearance
sale: "It is now past the middle of May and we are going to take one 'BIG
SHOT' at the remainder of the Stock at HALF and LESS."

 

The next stage occurred sometime in the 1920s, when big shot began to be
used for a crucial sporting contest, particularly in boxing. A good example
- though not by any means the earliest - appeared in a Texas paper in 1926:
"The first 'big shot' - as the boys call 'em - in Gene Tunney's ring life
was his battle with Georges Carpentier, the Frenchman." By then it had
shifted to also mean the opponent in such bouts ("He was having trouble
making the weight and he was running out of big shot opponents" - Mexia
Daily News, March 1925) and also to star performers, such as Jack Dempsey:
"Not once since he became a big shot in the knuckling industry has he failed
to show a heavy beard as he climbed through the ropes for an important
battle" (Appleton Post Crescent, September 1926).

 

The move out of sports into mainstream life came soon after.

 

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

 

Jesus H Christ

 

There have been various theories, but the one that seems most plausible is
that the H comes from the Greek monogram for Jesus, IHS or IHC. This is
formed from the first two letters plus the last letter of His name in Greek
(the letters iota, eta, and sigma; in the second instance, the C is a
Byzantine Greek form of sigma). The H is actually the capital letter form of
eta, but churchgoers who were unfamiliar with Greek took it to be a Latin H.

 

The oath does indeed seem to be American, first recorded in print at the end
of the nineteenth century, although around 1910 Mark Twain wrote in his
Autobiography that the expression had been in use about 1850 and was
considered old even then. Its long survival must have a lot to do with its
cadence, and the way that an especially strong emphasis can be placed on the
H.

 

Nineteenth-century Americans weren't the first to take the Greek letters to
be Latin ones - since medieval times the monogram has often been expanded
into Latin phrases, such as Iesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus Saviour of Men, In
Hoc Signo (vinces), in this sign (thou shalt conquer), and In Hac Salus, in
this (cross) is salvation.

 

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George Washington trivia

 

He was the only president to die in the 1700's

 

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 in Westmoreland County,
Virginia. It has been argued by historians that his actual birth date was
February 11, 1732. The British Parliament replaced the current Julian
calendar in 1752 with the Gregorian calendar. They say that the new calendar
moved his birthday back 11 days.

 

Unfortunately for Martha, George Washington was a very loud snorer.

 

George Washington, in fact, never chopped down a cherry tree. It was made up
by a man named Mason Weems shortly after his death to show people how honest
Washington was as a child.

 

It is also said that George Washington threw a silver dollar across the
Potomac River. First of all, the Potomac is too wide and second, there were
no silver dollars when he was a boy.

 

George Washington is called the "father of our country" yet he never
biologically fathered any children. However, he was a father for Martha's
two children from a previous marriage as if they were his own.

 

In addition to having our nation's capital named after him, George also had
the following named after him as well:

33 counties

7 mountains

9 colleges

121 post offices