Status Updates From A Hog on Ice and Other Curi...

Almost done with this book. I'm sure I won't remember all of the expressions. But it sure is good to learn how they came about.

So many expressions that we use are in this book. Surprisingly, some of these go back centuries that they have been used.

My favorite expression, so far, is "straight from the horse's mouth". A horse's permanent teeth, in the lower jaw come in a specific pattern: 2 1/2 years, the first pair; a year later, the 2nd pair; the 3rd pair in 4-5 years.
So an experienced person can know how old the horse is, no matter what the owner may say about the horse's age. This was true in race horse world.

More of the same....curious expressions. Most of the expressions I know about, I have heard them in one way or another. What I like about this book is the revelation of how they came about.

I have never heard the expression 'a hog on ice', thus I am very interested in reading this book. It should be a quick, interesting read of expressions in our everyday language.

"Another, of the same category, is that it was a warning to young apprentice printers who might be readily confused in picking out type, because the face of a type letter is just the reverse of the printed character. But here, again, the explanation is weak because the reverse of p is d, not q" (199). I paused a good 10 min trying to figure out how p could be the reverse of d, not q. It's...not.

"...just as we use tilde, a corrupted form of tittle, for the wavy line over an nin some Spanish words, like cañon" (193). Had never considered that canyon has an eñe in it, but of course it would.

"In rehearsal, [the director of a radio program to be broadcast] noted the exact intervals for each bit of the performance" (187). I never thought about the fact that this must have happened, but of course with live foley you'd have to

"to take French leave
... But, despite the fact that the French counterpart of the expression is, 'to withdraw as the English (filer à l'anglaise), the origin of the expression is attributed to a custom that originated in France in the eighteenth century" (185).

"with a grain of salt
Because this expression of skepticism, doubt, or distrust is so familiar to us in its Latin form, cum grano salis, we sometimes assume that it has great antiquity" (172). Yes, ever so familiar in its Latin form.

"But in an old issue of Chamber's Cyclopedia, we find a more interesting reason for the fact that 'sent to Coventry' is equivalent to having no notice taken of one. This account states that the people of the town became so annoyed with soldiers who were harbored among them that fraternization with them was forbidden" (171).

"to be on the beam
By this very modern expression we mean 'to be on the right course'; hence, right, accurate, correct" (170). Alas, poor "to be on the beam", you were too modern to last till 2019.

"Of course, it was nothing but a bribe, hopefully offered to one whom he secretly considered a lantern-jawed harridan, with a silent prayer that she would overlook any peccadilloes that day" (163) re: the term "apple-polishing"

"[T]hose charged with showing her the falsity of her beliefs were themselves converted to her faith. This so aroused the emperor that he condemned them to be burned at the stake and Catherine to be torn to pieces upon an especially devised wheel, a wheel armed along its rim with curved spikes which, as the wheel revolved, would tear the flesh from its victim" (145). That is...not an origin I expected for a firework

" 'razzle-dazzle,' meaning to bamboozle, banter, or deceive. And this latter verb, it may be recalled, came from the American invention in the 1880s of the razzle-dazzle, a kind of merry-go-round with an undulating platform, thus giving its passengers the combined pleasure of dizziness and seasickness" (110). [2/2] this was a real razzle-dazzle of etymological hypothesizing.

"It has been gravely suggested that the use of 'raspberry' as the name of the sound arose from the resemblance to the noise produced by a rasp grated over metal. I don't think so. I think the word should be written 'razzberry,' that it was a humorous extension developed from the slang, 'to razz,' to mock at or make fun of; and that the latter term was originally a contraction of 'to razzle-dazzle..." (110) [1/2]