Phraseology Tidbits

[sr71plt]

Or Lit.'s AH

The phrase "Funny Farm," slang for a mental institution (with "funny" being used as weird) doesn't date back too far. One of the first literary uses of it was by John Knowles in A Separate Peace (1959): "You might start to believe it, then I'd have to make a reservation for you at the Funny Farm."

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.

 

[gentledemands]

My primary source for this thread is Barbara Ann Kipfer (PhD), The Definitive Compendium of Phraseology, Naperville, Ill: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2008.

One of the reasons I started this thread was to check out whether anything I posted, no matter how innocuous and directly related to writing--and well sourced--would be attacked by my harassers. Guess we know the answer to that now.

I'll continue posting, using good sources. You can take what interests you and harass me on the rest.

I once helped a friend put up an antenna array on his house. It was a dual beam antenna that tracked amateur radio satellites. It was two parallel beams on a rotator that changed azimuth and elevation. When we got it in place, he took fliers to all his neighbors' houses for two blocks, basically everyone who would notice them, and asked if they were getting any interference from the antenna's to let him know. He had seven people say that his antenna array was interfering with TV and radio reception.

He took the names to city hall and said, "These are the names of the people who will be calling to complain about my antenna's. I'll be hooking up the cables to the antenna tomorrow."