[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[gthewlis at comcast.net]

The horse I bet on was so slow, the jockey kept a diary of the trip.
Henny Youngman

A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.
Groucho Marx

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.
Clint Eastwood

I've noticed that worrying is like praying for what you don't want to happen.
Robert Downey, Jr.

Gags die, humor doesn't.
Jack Benny

Business is the art of extracting money from another man’s pocket without resorting to violence.
Max Amsterdam

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Heebie-jeebies

It seems pretty certain this was invented about 1923 by the American cartoonist Billy De Beck. Its first appearance, in a slightly different spelling, was in one of his Barney Google cartoons in the New York American on 26 October 1923: “You dumb ox — why don't you get that stupid look offa your pan — you gimme the heeby jeebys!”.

Within a few months it started to be seen everywhere. From the Iowa Davenport Democrat And Leader of 21 May 1924: “One man who saw Black Gold win the derby Saturday saw Aristides win the first Kentucky derby 50 years ago and has seen every one since. He is Matt J. Winn, general manager of the Kentucky Jockey club. To see half a hundred derby finishes and never have the heebie jeebies argues a wonderful constitution, even for a Kentuckian.” By 1927 at the latest, it had reached the UK, as witness this comment from Punch magazine in February that year: “It is interesting to observe that in spite of artificial sunlight, television, winter sports and the heebie-jeebie there are still some stalwarts who stand by the old traditional amusements of the English people.”

Where it came from, apart from his fevered imagination, is open to question. There was a dance at about the same time, and a song in 1926, both said to have originated from Native American witch-doctor chants before human sacrifices. But the dance and the song both seem to be later than the first appearance of the phrase.

Mr De Beck, by the way, is also known for other bits of now obsolescent or obsolete slang, such as hotsy-totsy and horsefeathers. But heebie-jeebies has survived to become part of the standard language.

Start from scratch
Scratch has been known since the middle of the eighteenth century as a sporting term for a line scratched on the ground that acted as a boundary line or starting point. The first example in the Oxford English Dictionary actually relates to cricket and indicated the crease, the line drawn in front of the stumps where the batsman stands. But the term is much better known from boxing, or rather from bare-knuckle fighting, in reference to the line drawn across the ring to which the boxers are brought to begin their bout. This gave rise to expressions like to be up to scratch, to meet the required standard in something.
This phrase appeared a century later, by which time scratch had also come to mean the starting line for a race. Competitors who began from this line had the least favorable handicap and so were given no advantage. To start from scratch meant you had been allowed no odds in your favor. It has been generalized from that.
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On Good Friday in 1930, the BBC reported, "There is no news." Instead, they played piano music.

A 1913 New York Times article included the word "alcoholiday," which describes leisure time spent drinking.

While many believe Hydrox cookies are an Oreo knock-off, Hydrox actually came first in 1908, four years before the Oreo.

Duncan Hines was a real person. He was a popular restaurant critic who also wrote a book of hotel recommendations.

Alaska is the only state that can be typed on one row of keys.

Why did the FBI call Ted Kaczynski "The Unabomber"? Because his early mail bombs were sent to universities (UN) & airlines (A).

That thing you use to dot your lowercase "i" is called a tittle.