phrases/terms the origins of which I do not understand

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1. Naked as a Jaybird
2. Dagnabbit
3. To put one's "two cents" in

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

to put one's "two cents" in

Isn't this a Biblical allusion? Something about a poor woman giving two cents to the Church and her contribution being greater than those of all other townspeople because she basically gave all she had. Could be wrong, though.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:38 (twenty-two years ago)

What does that have to do with its actual meaning? It seems like if that were the origin of it it would mean "giving your all" or somesuch weak sauce.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

1. A reference to the unusual coloring on certain jaybirds in the northern part of the U.S., which makes them appear to be not wearing trousers.
2. A perversion of the phrase "Dog, nab it!" which was a common cry used by settlers in the west when ordering their canines to fetch rabbits in the underbrush along the trails out west.
3. In the very first session of Congress in this country, in lieu of tax collection, senators were forced to put two cents into a large bucket in order to make a point.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:40 (twenty-two years ago)

4. Jackanory

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, thanks gear! Now I really want to see a jaybird. The dagnabit one just creates more mystery for me, though.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Jackanory was a British children's television show, no?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words.html

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

oops, sorry, that's completely the wrong thing. but interesting nonetheless.

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

It was also a fairy tale or nursery rhyme, I know that much.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

4. In England the name 'Jack' was so common that when census takers come across smaller towns that had no citizens with that name, they often cried out, startled, "oi, there's nory a Jack 'ere!" which was later changed into the phrase "jackanory". It is now used not only in its original intent but also when derisively speaking of a man named Jack who is slow-witted.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Tell me you just know all this and aren't looking it up somewhere.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, what about "Persnickity" smartypants?

― andy, Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

You're wrong anyway, Gear! The origins of my first phrase are to be found with this guy:
http://www.blues.ru/BlackCat/PIC/jc.jpg

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I always thought it was pernickety?

― penelope_111, Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Definitely snickety

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I stand by my ramblings.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 13 May 2004 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

What about "the whole nine yards?" That phrase has never made sense to me...

It doesn't seem to be a[n American] football reference given that nine yards certainly isn't the maximum yardage required to make a first down or anything like that.

― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 13 May 2004 21:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I always assumed it was somehow referential to tailoring/fabric/etc.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 21:07 (twenty-two years ago)

great, y'all realize you're summoning William Safire?!?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 13 May 2004 21:08 (twenty-two years ago)

These phrases are the gifts of a benevolent universe and should not be questioned, any more than we must know the origins of a phrase in a song before we can appreciate it -- for example, "pompatus of love."

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 13 May 2004 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I always thought that was "T0m Pappas of love."

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 13 May 2004 21:27 (twenty-two years ago)

what about "cloud nine". where did that come from? some hippy, i bet!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 13 May 2004 22:02 (twenty-two years ago)

"Cloud nine" is actually another funny story, coming from a German phrase. There was a specific group of Germans in a village in the north part of the country who spoke a little English along with their native tongue. Each morning one man from the village would leave his home to check on the weather and report back to his nervous neighbors, who gathered en masse before dawn in a massive church. He would come back, and he would be asked by the terrified masses "Cloud?!" If there was none, he would say "nein!", and the day would be a good one. So it was changed to "cloud nine", meaning you're feeling great, having a good time of it, etc.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 13 May 2004 22:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I would truly like to have some of whatevah it is that Gear! is having!

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 13 May 2004 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

(On second thought, p'haps not...)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 13 May 2004 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought "dagnabbit" was a euphemistic way to avoid saying "goddammit."

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 13 May 2004 23:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I thought so too. Phonetically, it's almost "god damn it" with the first two words reversed. I suspect someone's putting us on.

― antexit (antexit), Thursday, 13 May 2004 23:44 (twenty-two years ago)

'dead as a doornail'
why is it a doornail? as many things are equally dead. Is it purely alliterative?

― robots in love (robotsinlove), Friday, 14 May 2004 01:15 (twenty-two years ago)

In early Scotland, when nails were a scarce and precious commodity, coffins would sometimes be secured shut with nails removed from doors, which were themselves sometimes used to construct the coffins. The doornails were used to keep the dead safe and secure in their eternal rest and this practice predictably turned into the phrase "dead as a doornail".

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 14 May 2004 01:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh damn I was about to ask about the doornail one too! heh.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 14 May 2004 01:23 (twenty-two years ago)

BTW a lot of those "stories" of the origin of weird phrases and weird customs are email folklore. Not that Im saying these ones are.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 14 May 2004 01:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Heh?

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Friday, 14 May 2004 06:22 (twenty-two years ago)

1760 nursery rhyme:

I'll tell you a story
About Jack a Nory
And now the story's begun
I'll tell you another
About his brother
And now my story is done.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Inventing a person's name to make it rhyme c or d (cf. Betty Foy/Idiot Boy)

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:30 (twenty-two years ago)

In the Middle Ages, the doornail was the name given to the knob on which the knocker struck. 'As this is frequently knocked on the head, it cannot be supposed to have much life in it' (Brewer). The phrase occurs as early as 1350 then again in Langland's Piers Plowman (1362). Shakespeare uses it a couple of times, in the usual form and, as in King Henry IV, Part 2 (V.iii.117):

Falstaff:

Pistol:

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Cloud nine is from the 1950's Weather Bureau, it's the cumulonimbus that forms at 30-40,000 feet. If you're on cloud nine, you're pretty high. The reason for it's popularity may be credited to the Johnny Dollar radio show of the 1950s. In one episode, everytime the hero was knocked unconscious - which was often - he was transported to Cloud Nine.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Persnickety: adj. North American term for pernickety.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:41 (twenty-two years ago)

OMG Gear! I bet you are a grand champion at "Balderdash". Remind me never to play against you...

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:43 (twenty-two years ago)

And there's another one for you - origin of Balderdash, anyone?

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:43 (twenty-two years ago)

how bout "you're the bee's knees?"

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 May 2004 07:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I admit that mine are at best unconvincing.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 14 May 2004 13:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, I dont know...

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 14 May 2004 13:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Gear! have you, in fact, been pete baran all along?

whole 9 yards is to do with how much cloth it takes to make an entire 3 piece suit, if i remember correctly.

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Friday, 14 May 2004 13:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Whole 9 yards is indeed referring to fabric. A complete bolt of fabric (in days of yore, not sure about now) was 9 yards long. .. Unless I was lied to....

xpost

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 14 May 2004 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

9 yards to make a suit? That sounds huge! lots of waste, I guess.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 14 May 2004 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

WHERE IS TRUTH

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Friday, 14 May 2004 13:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I went to a restaurant called "Calabash" last night; it's named after not Jimmy Durante's muse, as I'd thought ("good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are"), but a gourd.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 14 May 2004 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 14 May 2004 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I heard that the whole nine yards referred to the length of the ammunition belt in a Spitfire. If you let someone have the entire lot in one go, then you gave it 'the whole nine yards'. Bollocks? I hope not.

― Chorlton (Chorlton), Friday, 14 May 2004 14:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Sure, Gear has been making it all up as he goes, but that is a time-honored practise in this area.

Now, can someone explain me 'fremme neppe venette'?

― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 14 May 2004 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

What is a Bull Session?

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 14 May 2004 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

"Well I'll be a monkeys uncle."

Explain please.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 14 May 2004 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah make that possessive not plural k thx

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 14 May 2004 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

the phrase "bull session" comes from the length and ultimately futile fielding practices Cubs manager Jim Frey would conduct with former Cubs first baseman Leon "Bull" Durham. Frey would often be found lying on his cot between these practices and gametime, moaning "another useless Bull session...." as if seeing ahead and recognizing that Durham's defensive futility would derail the Cubs' title run in 1984, which is sort of did.

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 14 May 2004 18:24 (twenty-two years ago)

"Monkey's uncle" started off in 1880 in Ohio, when soon-to-be President Garfield was asked about his sister's new baby by a friend and he replied "I'm a monkey's uncle!" referring to the child's grotesque countenance. This became commonplace over time as a general cry of surprise as opposed to merely a cry of disgust.

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 14 May 2004 18:29 (twenty-two years ago)

"monkey's uncle" is said when one is surprised to learn that something somewhat unbelievable is in fact true. early in the 20th century, when evolution began to be widely accepted as a theory, people were surprised to learn that humans are in fact the uncles of monkeys. (in a way but not really but it sounds better than saying "well i'll be distantly related to a monkey")

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 May 2004 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

.. so it has nothing to do with that Kurt Russell movie where he was literally a monkey's uncle? I wish I had the theme song (by Annette Funicello) to listen to right now.

I thought "bull session" came from "shootin' the shit" .. of whose meaning and origin I am also unsure. Turns out I was wrong .. well, I'll be switched....

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 14 May 2004 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

That wasn't a Kurt Russell movie, it was Tommy Kirk!

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 14 May 2004 18:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, my lands!

Thanks for the correction. 'sbeen a long time since I've seen it... (Who the hell is Tommy Kirk?!)

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 14 May 2004 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

.. also, I think that movie needs to be remade with an up and coming new teen heartthrob.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 14 May 2004 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

9 yards to make a suit? That sounds huge! lots of waste, I guess.

Depends on the suit... David Byrne to thread.

― martin m. (mushrush), Friday, 14 May 2004 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

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