History of "heeled"

[Professor Marvel]

Professor Marvel,
let's not forget the always solicitous refrain:

"Don't go out tonight,
They're bound to take your life.
There's a bathroom on the right!" - Credence Clearwater Revival

RCJ

Indeed! It was so often misheard that CCR actually sang it that way once in concert!

Then there is the famous "outtake" by Ringo (Starr, not Johnny)
"Jojo was a man who thought he was a toaster
But he was a frying pan"

yhs
prof marvel
(it's a Marvel he hears anything right at all)

[Will Ketchum]

I recall and English professor telling us that the phrase "bringing home the bacon" was originally "bring home the baking"  in other words the bread because for many English families that was their main stale and bacon was a luxury.  I never was sure if I believed that.

Will Ketchum

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Then there is the Yuletide one ....

It happens so often that the PBS radio deejays were laughing about the number of times the Pachelbel Cannon was requested, as, "Could you please play the Taco Bell Cannon?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachelbel's_Canon

Merry Christmas All!

[ChuckBurrows]

I am concerned when the populace makes use of a phrase without really understanding it's meaning - and when further the phrase has been mangled. I am reminded of those who use the phrase "icut and dried", when in fact the original phrase is " cut and try" - referring to an unskilled carpenter who is unable to correctly measure and cut a board "in one go" ; essentially he would cut the board and try it for fit several times before getting it right.
yhs
prof Marvel 

Well Prof - nowhere in my library or online did I find evidence for your claim that cut and dried should be cut and try???
In fact the idiom cut and dried was used as early as 1710 and then by that great word smith Jonathan Swift in 1730

"The first known use of the expression is in a letter to a clergyman in 1710 in which the writer commented that a sermon was "ready cut and dried", meaning it had been prepared in advance, so lacking freshness and spontaneity. The next recorded use is in a poem by Jonathan Swift in 1730 which speaks of "Sets of Phrases, cut and dry, / Evermore thy Tongue supply" — clichés, in other words.

Something that is cut and dried (sometimes cut and dry) is prearranged or inflexible, completely decided in advance, so it lacks freshness, originality or spontaneity. So much is known, but the expression itself often exercises the ingenuity of people who try to find a rationale for it.

A common American story, harking back to frontier days, is that it comes from meat that has been turned into jerky by cutting it into strips and drying it in the sun so that it will keep on long journeys. An alternative story is that it refers to timber cut and left to season by drying. One problem with these is that neither quite fits the idea of the idiom. Another is that the expression never turns up anywhere in the context of either timber processing or pioneering times in North America, as it ought to if there's a link.

The true story is likely to be as prosaic as the expression itself. Though we can't prove it, the saying is almost certainly from the cutting and drying of herbs for sale."

The above quoted info is from the site http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-cut3.htm which is only one of several etymology sites that include basically the same info as does the Encyclopedia Britannica.........

[Skeeter Lewis]

These false derivations are often called 'popular etymologies'. It's sometimes said that the British word 'posh' is an acronym of 'port out, starboard home', which would have been a description of the best cabins on the long sea voyage to and from India. But lexicographers say that it's a popular etymology.

[St. George]

And the popular misinterpretation of song lyrics or stanzas are called 'mondegreens'.

The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term 'mondegreen' in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," which was published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954.[3] In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Murray." She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl A' Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". As Wright explained the need for a new term, "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original".

Or better explained -  'Tape It to a Biscuit...'

Actual lyric:  'Taking Care of Business' - (Bachman-Turner Overdrive -  "Takin' Care Of Business")

Or:  'Scuse Me While I Kiss this Guy'.

Actual lyric:  'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky...' - (Jimi Hendrix - 'Purple Haze' )

Believe me, 'that' one gave cause for pause...

Here are a couple of real time-wasters for your amusement.

www.kissthisguy.com

www.amiright.com

Don't say I never give you anything...

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[blackriverbart]

They do become archaic, such as "hoist with his own petard".

Now you gotta "spill the beans" on what the tarnation THAT phrase means

[St. George]

And perhaps the best way to find 'that' out is to read from the beginning of the thread...

Scouts Out!

[northwestgrizzly]

Now you gotta "spill the beans" on what the tarnation THAT phrase means

And perhaps the best way to find 'that' out is to read from the beginning of the thread...

Scouts Out!

Now thats a derailed locomotive right there!

[kflach]

My beloved mamma asked me one day why the Beatles sang that song about "hate you." I had to explain to her that that wasn't what they were saying. They were saying, "Na na na nanana na, *Hey Jude*."

[Texas Lawdog]

What about "There's a bathroom on the right"! by CCR.

[Guns Garrett]

"Watch the head lice on the highway..." (Hold Me Closer Tiny Dancer - Elton John)

I have heard the following both proven true and damned as a lie, and don't know what to believe anymore:

"Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"

Supposedly, this refers to a brass plate, mounted in a ship's deck, near each of the Big Guns.  The plate, nick-named "monkey" had a checker-board pattern of holes or hemispherical depressions in it, to allow cannon balls to be stacked in a pyramid near each gun.  The holes/depressions would allow the bottom of the balls to "nest" (like eggs in a carton), forming a stable base for the balls above, and not roll around the deck.  In cases of extreme cold, the iron balls and brass monkey would contract at different rates and amounts, causing the balls to pop out of the holes they nested in.  Sounds feasable, in theory, but can anyone indubitably (love that word) confirm or deny this?

I doubt the expression has anything to do with an actual brass statue - no amount of cold would cause anything like that to happen.  Now a LIVE monkey - well, they could just shrink up really small . . .

[FriscoCounty]

According to the US Navy Historical Center, it is fiction :
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq107.htm

If you think about it - how unstable the deck of a tall ship at sea would be - you would realize that any container so shallow that contraction from cold weather would allow its contents to spill out would be useless in any weather.  It might work on a battlement, but not on a ship.

[kflach]

My how times have changed. When I was in the Navy I *never* heard that. Now it's made the list of Frequently Asked Questions.

;-)

[Doc Cuervo]

How about,"lock the cashbox", for, "Rock the Casbah",?

[Stillwater]

A Petard was a small bomb.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hoist%20by%20your%20own%20petard.html

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

Bill