Phrase for the Day: toot suite

Toot suite means: quickly, immediately, at once. As with many foreign language phrases, it is a corruption of the origin phrase from the French ‘tout de suite’, which literally means ‘all at once’.

In a sentence: When his ex girlfriend arrived, he got out of there toot sweet!

Source:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=toot+sweet

Dead as a doornail….just how dead is it?

My Phrase for the day is “dead as a doornail” which brings to mind “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. But in fact, the saying is much older than that,  from the 14th century. There’s a reference to it in print in 1350, a translation by William Langland of the French poem Guillaume de Palerne:
“For but ich haue bote of mi bale I am ded as dorenayl.”

Langland also used the expression in the much more famous poem The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman, circa 1362:
Fey withouten fait is febelore þen nouȝt, And ded as a dore-nayl.
[Faith without works is feebler than nothing, and dead as a doornail.]

For the whole citation see:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-dead-as-a-doornail.html

Word for the day…tuck in

Word for the day… tuck in!

As I reread my Harry Potter books, I am fascinated by the (largely British) expression of “tucking in”, meaning to eat a large amount of food, and it got me wondering how that expression came about.

The online dictionary didn’t help with where it came from, but here is the definition:
tuck in
vb (adverb)
1. (tr) Also tuck into to put to bed and make snug
2. (tr) to thrust the loose ends or sides of (something) into a confining space tuck the blankets in
3. (intr) Also tuck into Informal to eat, esp heartily

n tuck-in
(Cookery) Brit informal a meal, esp a large one

Source cited: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tuck+in

Do you have any favorite expressions that you’d like to share with us? If so, feel free to add to this thread!

The Mothers of Invention- not just another rock band

Frank Zappa may have named his rock band “The Mothers of Invention” but the original phrase “Necessity is the Mother of Invention” was first printed in 1658 in  Richard Franck’s ‘Northern Memoirs, calculated for the meridian of Scotland‘. The frontispiece of the reprint states that the original was “writ in the year 1658“. It contains this: “Art imitates Nature, and Necessity is the Mother of Invention.”  The phrase denotes that difficult situations inspire ingenious solutions.

Source cited- www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention.html

 

 

Famous last words….General John Sedgwick

Famous last words of General John Sedgwick….never though about it before, but sometimes people say the most curious things as they die (or right before they die).

John Sedgwick was a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War. He saw many engagements and was wounded by bullets three times – but was seemingly immune to fear. In his last moments on earth, he said:
“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”

But he was wrong!

Source cited:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/quotes/last-words/index.html

I am at your beck and call…down by the river!

I thought I’d combine a phrase for the day…being  at one’s “beck and call” (meaning at another’s complete disposal) and the various words for a beck or a stream!

A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, “crick”, gill (occasionally ghyll), kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or runnel. (This reference is from Wikipedia at:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream)

Fun with words isn’t as fun alone, so if you want to post a newfound word, a lyrical word, a weird word or an old fav,  please join in the fun!

 

 

Word for the day…..what’s a pukka?

Ever wonder why Autumn is called Fall?

‘Fall’ is indeed a pukka Tudor word, deriving from the phrase ‘fall of the leaf’, which is first found in print in Toxophilus, 1545, an archery instruction manual by Queen Elizabeth’s tutor Roger Ascham,  in which he lists the seasons as:  “Spring tyme, Somer, faule of the leafe, and winter.”

This became shortened to ‘fall’ a century or so later, as in this example in the first known text on forestry, John Evelyn’s Sylva, 1664: “His [the Oak] leaves becoming yellow at the fall, do commonly clothe it all the winter.”

‘Fall’ traveled to North America with the early settlers and established itself there as the common name for autumn. The word died out in the UK but has begun to re-colonize now due the the take-up of the US expression ‘spring forward, fall back’ which we all use toward the end of October when, using the old English parlance, ‘the clocks go back’.

Source:
http://www.phrases.org.uk

PS. Pukka (adj.) 1. Genuine; authentic.   2. Superior; first-class.

Etymology: [Hindi pakk, cooked, ripe, from Sanskrit pakva-, from pacati, he cooks;  see pek^w- in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Some people just won’t take “NO” for an answer!

Some people just won’t take “No” for an answer!!

I just had the strangest thing happen to me. I was leaving a professional building dressed in business attire, walking along with a smile on my face and basically minding my own business. A young man (probably between 25- 30) complimented me, saying “you look very nice in that black suit this morning”. Hold on, that’s not the weird part.

I replied “thank you” and smiled, but continued to walk on.

“Are you looking for a boyfriend?” he asked.

“Oh, no, I’m married.”

“A black boyfriend?” he persisted.

“No. I’m happily married, but thank you for asking!”

I was surprised at his persistence; he was obviously much younger than I am, is good-looking and seems in good health. I’m beginning to wonder at this point why on earth he would want to pick up on me? I’m dressed fairly conservatively, and obviously haven’t skipped any meals lately, could he be looking for a sugar mama?

He had on a Lakers T-shirt, so in an effort to distract him from his current line of questioning, I asked him what he thought about the Lakers rejecting Phil Jackson as their new head coach, instead, choosing Mike D’Antoni.

He started explaining what he thought had happened, and why their new choice was a good match for the current Lakers lineup, which seemed to derail his attempt to pick up on me. I was floored when he claimed “I’m not racist, but all white people go for the money. That’s why they didn’t choose Phil Jackson, he wanted too much money”.

Wow, I wonder what he’d have thought if I came out with a comment like “I’m not racist, but all black people (fill in the blank here)”!!! I mean, the very definition of racism is making a sweeping generalization about an entire group of people, and that’s exactly what he did. He didn’t even seem to realize it.

I thanked him for his take on the Lakers, and started moving off down the sidewalk.

He flipped open his cell phone and said “just let me get your cell number”.

I shook my head, smiled and kept on walking. Some people just won’t take “No” for an answer!!

Phrase for today…(doesn’t have a thing to do with Mick Jagger!)

Being under one’s thumb…..means being under the influence or power of another.

“The earliest reference I can find for this expression in print is from the 18th century English politician Arthur Maynwaring in The Life and Posthumous Works of Arthur Maynwaring, 1715, which, as is strongly hinted at in the title, was printed after his death: “The French King, having them under his Thumb, compell’d them to go at his Pace.”

The phrase was well enough established by the 19th century for it to spawn the verb form ‘thumbing’. This was defined in James Halliwell’s Dictionary Of Archaic And Provincial Words, 1847, as: “Thumbing: A Nottingham phrase, used to describe that species of intimidation practised by masters on their servants when the latter are compelled to vote as their employers please.”

I got this from the good folks at: www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/under-the-thumb.html

Phrase for the day- the real McCoy

Do you ever wonder where certain sayings came from? The “real McCoy” is used to mean, an authentic item, not a fake or a copy. But where did it hail from, you may ask.

“The real MacKay,” is a Scots phrase that first appeared in print in 1856 as “A drappie o’ [drop of] the real MacKay,” according to the Scottish National Dictionary; the same work says that the phrase was later adopted as a slogan to promote G Mackay & Co Ltd’s whisky. The Webster’s Dictionary also quotes Robert Louis Stevenson from 1883 in a letter saying “He’s the real Mackay.”

Read more on the subject at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_real_McCoy