Phraseology Tidbits

[NaughtyGingerBoy]

Fair enough...
The monetary question has been linked to older foreign notes seen by soldiers(possibly in India) when the British were making their empire...the suggestion being that various animals were on different denominations and became slang for the amount (a monkey is 500). Again I've heard that this isn't the case and that there are other origins.

 

[PennLady]

Here's one

I've never found a satisfactory explanation for the British (I believe) expression "fifteen-stone first footer."

I first heard it in a song by Marillion, "The Uninvited Guest." Part of the chorus goes:

I'm the Banquo at your banquet
I'm the cuckoo in your nest
I'm your fifteen stone first-footer
I'm the Uninvited Guest​

So I get that this is something you don't want or would rather avoid. And I assume "stone" refers to weight, so it's something big that you don't want. But what is it? I've searched before but never got far; I'm not great at searching.

 

[sr71plt]

I've never found a satisfactory explanation for the British (I believe) expression "fifteen-stone first footer."

I first heard it in a song by Marillion, "The Uninvited Guest." Part of the chorus goes:

I'm the Banquo at your banquet
I'm the cuckoo in your nest
I'm your fifteen stone first-footer
I'm the Uninvited Guest​

So I get that this is something you don't want or would rather avoid. And I assume "stone" refers to weight, so it's something big that you don't want. But what is it? I've searched before but never got far; I'm not great at searching.

I'd never heard of it, but this is an explanation from the Internet:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/marillion-faq/part2/section-9.html

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Kipfer isn't helpful on this term. (As has already been noted, she isn't helpful on a lot of terms). She just says, without sourcing, that it's slang for very cold weather.

A ₤25 pony must be totally a Britiscism (in fact, the Internet suggests it's specifically linked to London). I have no idea what it means, and Kipfer isn't any help.

Here's some supposition from the Internet on the origin:

Even though the exact origin of the term is not known, it is generally believed that the pony, slang for 25 pounds, is derived from the typical price one had to pay for a small horse. In those times, however, a sum of 25 pounds would have been an unusually high price for a pony.

http://www.blurtit.com/q274995.html

The expression is well known and documented.

'Brass Monkey weather ' is an abbreviation for the expression, 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'. Try Boston harbor in February.

 

[sr71plt]

It was the pony term I posted that I wasn't familiar with. (You didn't source the origin of the term any better than Kipfer did.)

You really have this obsession thing bad, don't you? And, worse, you can't stop being obvious, obnoxious, and stupid about it--all at the same time.

 

[PennLady]

I'd never heard of it, but this is an explanation from the Internet:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/marillion-faq/part2/section-9.html

Thanks. That's more info than I ever saw before. Still an odd expression but fits in with the song I guess.

 

[NaughtyGingerBoy]

The expression is well known and documented.

'Brass Monkey weather ' is an abbreviation for the expression, 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'. Try Boston harbor in February.

Ok...so what's a brass monkey? Is it indeed some sort of naval cannon(ball?) reference or was this inaccurate?

I still don't know the origin of pony...I've not read the documents others may have.

 

[sr71plt]

There's a Wiki discussion of the origin of "brass monkey" here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_(colloquial_expression)

It seems to lean toward a reference to a monkey figure actually made out of brass, with literary references going to 1845.

It doesn't seem nearly as impressed with the theory that it refers to the naval term of a tray that cannon balls were put on. (Although that use claims to go back as far as the sixteenth century.)

 

[sr71plt]

Tall building tale

The term, "urban myth," also rendered as "urban legend," means a folkloric and often sensationalized tale about modern life that is repeated in the media and by other means, making it more believabel to some, but usually being an exaggeration at best and wholly made up at worst. A version of the term dates from 1960, when it was used by William H. Friedland in a conference paper entitled Some Urban Myths of East Africa. Likewise, the term "urban legend" was put in print as early as 1925, when it appeared in a New York Times feature. (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/urban-myth.html). Kipfer notes that "urban legend" term also is discussed in the 1981 book Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings.

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[ishtat]

There's a Wiki discussion of the origin of "brass monkey" here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_(colloquial_expression)

It seems to lean toward a reference to a monkey figure actually made out of brass, with literary references going to 1845.

It doesn't seem nearly as impressed with the theory that it refers to the naval term of a tray that cannon balls were put on. (Although that use claims to go back as far as the sixteenth century.)

Firstly, I think that the original expression was to freeze the balls on a brass monkey. A monkey was the name in the eighteenth century English metal working industry for a piece of machinery in which objects were placed so that they would run easily, or could be pushed down grooves towards the next stage in the process. The monkey was usually constructed of wood and lined sometimes with brass strips to limit wear. The oldest references are usually to a monkey engine, particularly where a heavy object was used as a crude pile driver between guides.

The term was then adopted by Royal Navy gunners to describe the storage and delivery mechanism of cannon balls to the guns. Given that the balls on the lower decks weighed 32 pounds each, they weren't something you would want to carry too far in a rolling sea. Brass lined monkeys can be examined on a number of restored old ships.

The other delivery system to the guns was for the powder which had to be collected from the magazine deep below the waterline. This task was usually assigned to a nimble boy commonly only 10 or 12 years old. They of course were called powder monkeys, because they delivered the explosive.

 

[NaughtyGingerBoy]

I think it's fantastic that one phrase can have so many varied origins.

 

[PennLady]

Here's a new one, again a Britishism. I'd love to know where this came from. The phrase is "cocking a snook." I found it in an article about Doctor Who (yeah, I'm a geek). Here's the graph:

What you’ll notice right away is that Liz and the Doctor are on a similar wavelength so long as the Brigadier is in the room, and then he asserts his usual scientific dominance as soon as he leaves. It’s as if, as far as a Time Lord is concerned, the brightest brains humanity have to offer are still far too primitive to be considered on an equal basis, but cocking a snook at authority beats all other concerns. And to make matters worse, the Third Doctor appears to love being right far more than either of his forebears.​

I just love that phrase. Also -- sorry if I'm derailing the thread. Just seemed like a good place to put this.

 

[ishtat]

Here's a new one, again a Britishism. I'd love to know where this came from. The phrase is "cocking a snook." I found it in an article about Doctor Who (yeah, I'm a geek). Here's the graph:

What you’ll notice right away is that Liz and the Doctor are on a similar wavelength so long as the Brigadier is in the room, and then he asserts his usual scientific dominance as soon as he leaves. It’s as if, as far as a Time Lord is concerned, the brightest brains humanity have to offer are still far too primitive to be considered on an equal basis, but cocking a snook at authority beats all other concerns. And to make matters worse, the Third Doctor appears to love being right far more than either of his forebears.​

I just love that phrase. Also -- sorry if I'm derailing the thread. Just seemed like a good place to put this.

My plane connection didn't turn up so I cannot cite sources being so far from home, but I'm fairly sure that the older edition of this expression was cocking a snoot or snout, ie placing one's thumb to ones nose and making a suitably rude noise to those in authority.

I would gladly cock a snook, snoot or snout to all airline schedulers at this moment!

 

[PennLady]

My plane connection didn't turn up so I cannot cite sources being so far from home, but I'm fairly sure that the older edition of this expression was cocking a snoot or snout, ie placing one's thumb to ones nose and making a suitably rude noise to those in authority.

I would gladly cock a snook, snoot or snout to all airline schedulers at this moment!

Sorry about the plane problems. No fun. I hope it all works out for you. And thanks!

 

[sr71plt]

Just memorize it

It’s sometimes really hard to figure out whether the verb should be singular or plural when a preposition phrase intervenes between the subject and the verb (and not all grammarians agree with the traditional view that the noun in the prepositional phrase doesn’t matter). But for one of the most affected phrase, “a number of,” you can be assured that any noun in an intervening prepositional phrase should be plural and that “number” calls for a plural verb in any such construction, so the verb should be plural: A number of ships are sailing over the edge.

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

Up down up down

The “daily dozen,” isn't about the recommended intake of donuts. It's used to denote a daily routine of physcial exercises was originally a set of twelve exercises devised by Yale University football coach Walter Camp in the early twentieth century. The U.S. Marine Corps has since established its own daily exercise routine using that name (as have some of the other military services).

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

What she doesn't know

Kipfer seems to think that a “daisy chain” is a string of daisies threaded together by their stems. But we at Literotica know better. (*smile*) It has a lot of meanings and the phrase origin is pretty obvious, but even Wiki doesn’t know what we here know about what it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_chain


These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

Not a scrub job

The phrase “clean as a whistle” isn’t an encouragement to actually spruce up your instrument; it’s used in the same vein as “getting away scot free” (not to be mixed up with anything Scotch: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scott Free) and it’s orgin is in needing to keep whistles clean to keep the sound they produce pure and was said to first appear in a literary sense in an 1786 work by Robert Burns, Author’s Earnest Cry.

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

No stomping

The frequently misspelled “stomping grounds,” should be “stamping grounds.” We use it to refer to the locale where someone usually can be found. It’s origin is in locations where animals frequently returned to, stamping down the undergrowth by their frequent “pawing around.” But, oh well, “stomping” has come so much into use, it’s probably not wrong to use it.

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

Repeat and repeat

The term “part and parcel,” which now is used to mean “a necessary part of some larger containing thing,” original had an “every” in front of it and mean “every part to the smallest part.” The now-lost relevant meaning of the “parcel” element was a repeat of the “part.” So it was a redunancy and now it’s just chipped down a word and means something else entirely. (http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/33480/origin-of-the-expression-part-and-parcel)

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

Dreamtime

The phrase “figment of the imagination,” means something that exists only as an arbitrarily framed notion of the mind and traces back, in literature, to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847). (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/figment+of+one's+imagination)

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

Rough riding

The phrase “loose cannon” (being a phrase that could often be employed on the Lit. forum) is attributed to U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, who, in 1900 dropped the comment “I don’t want to be the old cannon loose on the deck in the storm.”

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

No Violence intended

Being “under the hammer” indicates something is being auctioned, not that it’s being bludgeoned into a pulp. Being “hammered” (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hammered) is closer to that—and sometimes nearly as painful in the end.


These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[sr71plt]

Waiting on the bench

The phrase “second string” didn’t originate with American football. It originated in the Middle Ages, when archers kept a backup replacement string for their bows (so that they would have a second chance at that mounted knight bearing down on them and swinging a mace).

These tidbits are mainly based on Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, Phraseology. Where other sources are used, they will be given. Observations from other sources are quite welcome, preferably with the source identified.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

I've never found a satisfactory explanation for the British (I believe) expression "fifteen-stone first footer."

I first heard it in a song by Marillion, "The Uninvited Guest." Part of the chorus goes:

I'm the Banquo at your banquet
I'm the cuckoo in your nest
I'm your fifteen stone first-footer
I'm the Uninvited Guest​

So I get that this is something you don't want or would rather avoid. And I assume "stone" refers to weight, so it's something big that you don't want. But what is it? I've searched before but never got far; I'm not great at searching.[QUOTE}

Banquo and the banquet is a Shakespearean reference to 'Macbeth' where the ghost of the murdered Banquo haunts a royal dinner.

The female cuckoo pushes other nesting birds out of their nests in order to lay her eggs.

15 stone is equivalent to about 210 pounds, so a bit of a bruiser.

All this is a reference to the Scottish (capital 'S') ceremony of New Year where a dark-haired male stranger must be a 'first-footer' who brings a 'wee drammy' and a piece of coal to each house to celebrate the New Year. Neighbors knock on eah others' doors.

The song is an allusion to the uninvited guest rather than the welcome ' First footer' of the New Year.

So I guess the translation is, "I'm the person you'd least like to see at your door."

Hope this helps.