Anybody ever wonder where this phrase came from?
Carnival games give out stuffed animals as prizes nowadays,
but in the late 19th century, the games targeted adults, not kids.
Instead of getting a stuffed animal, winners would get a cigar.
Therefore, if they almost won but didn’t earn that prize, they’d be “close, but no cigar.”
By the 1930s, this phrase extended beyond fairgrounds to every day close shots.
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Cool fun fact. Somehow I thought it only went back as far as the Clinton administration.
"When I have found intense pain relieved, a weary brain soothed, and calm, refreshing sleep obtained by a cigar, I have felt grateful to God, and have blessed His name." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon12 -
Keep 'em coming Sleddog46, that was cool.1
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The other day my wife educated me as to the origin of graveyard shift and saved by the bell.
Back in Europe some time ago they were running out of graveyard space. So they proceeded to dig up the old coffins to reuse the plot. They found scratch marks on the interior of many coffin lids meaning people had been accidentally buried alive. So a new procedure was adopted of tying a string to the wrist of the newly interred, which led up above ground to a bell. If someone woke up, their frantic movement would ring the bell and alert the person whose job it was to listen for such a thing. The person on the graveyard shift would then dig up the person who was saved by the bell.
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@Captain_Call @Sleddog46 thanks for the knowledge
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....0 -
Cool info, thanks.
I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves livesIt'll be fine once the swelling goes down.
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Pubs served beer in pints and quarts. If a person was causing trouble, the bartender would warn them to mind their P's and Q's.
Bandy was a medieval bat-and-ball game, similar to hockey. To ‘bandy’ words is to knock them back and forth as one would bandy a ball.
Unwelcome guests were given "the cold shoulder" of mutton.
In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.2 -
The phrase mad as a hatter came about because old time hat makers used compounds containing mercury. These compounds severely degraded cognitive function.
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Droppin' some knowledge!0
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Sabotage - "the practice by striking French railway workers of cutting the sabot [metal shoe] that held railroad tracks in place. The word appears in English in 1910 and early use specifically refers to the French railroad strikers."
bells and whistles - "The Central Pacific company had thirty locomotives gayly decked ranged on the city front, and at the signal of a gun announcing the driving of the last spike on the road the locomotives opened a chorus of whistles, and all the bells and steam whistles in the city joined." May 10, 1869.World War II Fighter pilots received a 9-yard chain of ammunition. Therefore, when a pilot used all of his ammunition on one target, he gave it “the whole 9 yards.”
In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.6 -
Flash in the pan refers to something that fails to come to fruition. It comes from the time when firearms were flintlocks. These used a muzzle loaded powder charge and shot, with a pin hole drilled in the breech that led to the "pan" which contained a secondary charge of powder used for ignition of the main charge. Attached to the "lock" or hammer of the gun was a piece of flint which would strike the "frizzen", a metal cover for the pan. This strike would cause a spark intended to ignite the charge in the pan. But it didn't always work as intended and the main charge didn't ignite leaving the shooter with nothing more than a flash in the pan1
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Going off half cocked came from the same thing.Captain_Call said:Flash in the pan refers to something that fails to come to fruition. It comes from the time when firearms were flintlocks. These used a muzzle loaded powder charge and shot, with a pin hole drilled in the breech that led to the "pan" which contained a secondary charge of powder used for ignition of the main charge. Attached to the "lock" or hammer of the gun was a piece of flint which would strike the "frizzen", a metal cover for the pan. This strike would cause a spark intended to ignite the charge in the pan. But it didn't always work as intended and the main charge didn't ignite leaving the shooter with nothing more than a flash in the panIn Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.2 -
My wife would disagree0patience said:
Going off half cocked came from the same thing.Captain_Call said:Flash in the pan refers to something that fails to come to fruition. It comes from the time when firearms were flintlocks. These used a muzzle loaded powder charge and shot, with a pin hole drilled in the breech that led to the "pan" which contained a secondary charge of powder used for ignition of the main charge. Attached to the "lock" or hammer of the gun was a piece of flint which would strike the "frizzen", a metal cover for the pan. This strike would cause a spark intended to ignite the charge in the pan. But it didn't always work as intended and the main charge didn't ignite leaving the shooter with nothing more than a flash in the pan
"I drink a great deal. I sleep a little, and I smoke cigar after cigar. That is why I am in two-hundred-percent form."
-- Winston Churchill
"LET'S GO FRANCIS" Peter7 -
Going off "Half Cocked"back in the middle to the eighteenth century, was to the musket which, if the hammer was cocked halfway, was supposed to be locked, safe against accidental discharge. But sometimes the mechanism was faulty, the hammer would be released, and the gun would be prematurely discharged, with the musketeer wholly unprepared.In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.1 -
"The real McCoy" came from the invention of Elijah McCoy's oil drip cup in the 1870's. These were fitted on steam locomotives to oil the various bearings and wedges, grealty reducing the need to stop and service the locomotive (something that previously had to be done every 10-15 miles). Engineers would remark that nothing was superior to The real Mccoy when it came to keeping their engine lubricated.
“Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman – or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.” – George Burns3 -
"Balls to the wall"
Thought to originate from centrifugal governed steam engine. More power applied moved bearings to the outside thus letting out or limiting steam production1 -
That's actually where the phrase 'Balls Out' originated.Nitronostril said:"Balls to the wall"
Thought to originate from centrifugal governed steam engine. More power applied moved bearings to the outside thus letting out or limiting steam production"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis4 -
^ do you mean bawls out?
Middle English, to bark, probably of Germanic origin
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Actually, Balls to the wall was from fighter pilots.
The throttle controls were round knobs and would hit the firewall at full throttle.
@peter4jc is correct.
Balls out refers to the centrifugal governor on engines, that were balls that would spin and move out to limit the rpm of the engines.
Hense, balls out meaning as fast as it would go.
In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.2 -
^^^^ Quite the set of brass balls you've got there, 0Patience..3
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Which brings us to "Freeze the balls off a brass monkey".
I do not vouch for the veracity of the following information.
I learned/ heard, somewhere along the way, that cannon balls were stacked on platforms made of brass, which were somehow dimpled to accommodate the balls, and these were called "monkeys", for whatever reason. As the balls were made of iron, they changed in size at a different rate than the brass monkey and rolled out of the depressions in the temperature dropped sufficiently.
Seems possible."If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain0 -
I got cigars from the carnival games! They were rubber and when you squeezed it a accordion like worm would pop out.0
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A friend of mine told me this story, I found this version of it on the net:
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore be incapable of fighting in the future. This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").
Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waved their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! "PLUCK YEW!"
Over the years some 'folk etymologies' have grown up around this symbolic gesture. Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say (like "pleasant mother pheasant plucker", which is who you had to go to for the feathers used on the arrows for the longbow), the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F',and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute are mistakenly thought to have something to do with an intimate encounter. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird".
And yew all thought yew knew everything!
Pretty sure none of it's true...
I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves livesIt'll be fine once the swelling goes down.
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@IndustMech I'm fairly certain that is where the English "up your's" gesture came from. See diagram below.
“Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman – or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.” – George Burns0 -
Has anybody used Shinola? If not, then you "don't know chit from Shinola".
WW2 barracks slang for a dummy that might choose the wrong product to shine his shoes.A little dirt never hurt0 -
Great stuff guys...
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Except that the phrase 'the whole nine yards' was already in use in the early 1900's.
"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis0 -
Interesting. I found a couple of examinations of its origin here:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-whole-nine-yards/
and
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-whole-nine-yards.html0 -
@peter4jc said:
Except that the phrase 'the whole nine yards' was already in use in the early 1900's.@silvermouse said:
Interesting. I found a couple of examinations of its origin here:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-whole-nine-yards/
and
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-whole-nine-yards.htmlEvidently, no one knows for sure.
That's interesting. LOL!In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.1 -
Everyone knows that it was invented in the movie with Matthew Perry...
I am the Troll Jesus. Follow me, my children, or clutch your pearls tightly.
@ScotchnSmoke still sux lots of large wéiners. And tons of small ones.1
