Pure Filth, by Frottery & Fitch

* Mushrooms are the teeth of the earth. When you pull one out, another sprouts up in its place.

* The Big Mac was so named because there was this guy. His name was Mac, and he loved burgers. He ate so many of them that he eventually would tip the scales at 400 pounds. Thus earning the moniker "Big."

* Ever wonder why a cigarette of marijuana is called a "joint"? Well! It's because the first marijuana cigarettes, smoked by the native Peruvians, were made from knee caps. Fun fact -- people smoked them from their own skinned knee caps!

* Like, they were still alive!

A captain of a ship is so called because back in the days of "ship shape and proper" the people of the village would choose the person who could "tain" the boats.
"Tain" is actually an olden day word for "tend".
So the chosen person would tend, or 'tain' to the little jobs. He would be given a cap to wear so people would know he was taining to matters boat-wise.

Hence the word "Captain" was coined.

The English are most direct.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer was so called because he marked 'X's in the grid on the table top, that tallied who paid taxes.

A checker board, and the game of checkers, are named for the same reason.

Any place with the suffix of "sea" in its name, was a landing place for Saxon boats. Hence, Chelsea and Battersea.

In later usage, it was an island (of course, because boats landed on islands). Both Chelsea and Battersea were originally islands on the Themes. Chelsea was another name for Chalk Island.

London originally had two Priests. An East minister and a minister who lived on Thorny Island, the surrounding sloughs of which have since filled in.

He was called the West Minister, which became the capital city of the UK.

You know the phrase "close but no cigar?" Not as old as you might think.

Bill Clinton was adept at getting Monica Lewinsky off with a cigar. She was quite satisfied.

But when he tried using his own equipment, she didn't care for it as much. She told him:

"Close, but no cigar!"

Water was so-called because it was invented by Walter Thirsty Wet. However, he decided to drop the 'l' from the word due to his fear of the letter.

When he died, some say he went to L.

You know why a dessert is called as thus? Well, it's actually one of the few traditions we get from the poor.

Poor Jewish kids never got anything sweet after dinner, so they'd say, with the sarcasm of their people, "Oh wow, thanks for desert!" Even though they'd gotten nothing.

Eventually, their usage of "desert" became "dessert," signifying a place where there were no living things.

You kids been on the happy juice again?

The term "play it by ear" is used in today's conversation to mean "Gosh. Let's see how that goes".

The original meaning of this phrase however, involves a a lucky young fellow named Bob and the famous Van Gogh painter man. Not many know this, but Bob lived next door to the famous painter and was the first to arrive on the scene when Mr Gogh shouted:

"I've cut off me ear, I have!"

Bob was a kind fellow and saw to the bleeding painter man but he pocketed the bloody ear. He hid it in his fridge freezer - he was one of the first to own one back in those days - and when the ear became hard enough, Bob used it as a 'pick' for his guitar. Hence, he would 'play it by ear'.
People flocked from yards around to hear the ear-guitar playing *(and possibly this is how the phrase "air guitar" may have evolved.)
Bob died one day and his cleaner threw the ear away after having a big old spring-clean.


*there are no reputable sources for that piece of filth.

In the town of Bath lived the famous novelist Charles Dickens, who could be the best of writers, but also the worst of writers.

Particularly poorly received was his novel "Bleak House." It did not sell well, it was skewered by reviewers. Dickens did not react to this with much maturity.

He threw tantrums, he wrote angry letters to newspapers, and he went along in a snit all day, earning himself the nickname "The Baby."

Finally his neighbors had enough of his petulant behavior. They tied him up with ropes, put him in a rowboat and set him to drift away down the River Avon, which flows by the town of Bath.

Which is where today we get the phrase, "Throwing out The Baby with the Bath water."

Ben Reilly wrote:You know why a dessert is called as thus? Well, it's actually one of the few traditions we get from the poor.

Poor Jewish kids never got anything sweet after dinner, so they'd say, with the sarcasm of their people, "Oh wow, thanks for desert!" Even though they'd gotten nothing.

Eventually, their usage of "desert" became "dessert," signifying a place where there were no living things.

Now it's a popular term for tax cuts for the wealthy. Even got a special name...just desserts.

A very wealthy tribal chief in deepest Africa, lived in a village of thatched huts.  He was very ostentatious, and one day a throne salesman came into the village, selling thrones to kings,

The king had to have a great throne.  He looked through the catalog.  Finally he selected one, crafted in heavy teak, with inlaid ivory and gold decorations.  The salesman, with an officious smirk, took the order and sent it in.

When the throne arrived, the king had it moved into his thatched hut.  That night, when everyone was sleeping, the immensely heavy throne crashed through the floor of the thatched hut, pulling down the hut and rolling into several huts nearby, pulling them down as well.

The moral of the story: People who live in grass houses, shouldn't stow thrones.

Ben Reilly wrote:In the town of Bath lived the famous novelist Charles Dickens, who could be the best of writers, but also the worst of writers.

Particularly poorly received was his novel "Bleak House." It did not sell well, it was skewered by reviewers. Dickens did not react to this with much maturity.

He threw tantrums, he wrote angry letters to newspapers, and he went along in a snit all day, earning himself the nickname "The Baby."

Finally his neighbors had enough of his petulant behavior. They tied him up with ropes, put him in a rowboat and set him to drift away down the River Avon, which flows by the town of Bath.

Which is where today we get the phrase, "Throwing out The Baby with the Bath water."

That's just some drunken fuckeries right there.

Do you know where the phrase "walk a mile in their shoes" comes from?

In the olden days, shoemakers were really snobby, and they refused to make shoes from anything other than the finest of leathers. Thus, most people couldn't afford shoes, and they just walked around with their bare feet, all stanky.

This fomented jealousy, which petty lords quickly learned to exploit. They would goad their peasants into battle with the promise that any time they killed a rich person, they were free to take their shoes.

But these petty lords had their limits. They didn't want the poor, stanky-footed slobs getting anything really nice. So they set the rule -- once the people with disgusting-smelling feet had walked a mile, they had to give up the shoes.

That must be some damn good whisky y’all are drinking

Cass wrote:That must be some damn good whisky y’all are drinking

I'm officially taking umbrage to your insinuation.

BTW, did you smell smoke all day? We had a strong westerly wind here today in the Greatest Place on Earth, and I thought those western winds might be bringing the smell of those fires in Cali.

Cass wrote:That must be some damn good whisky y’all are drinking

Us? Whiskey? I have no idea what you mean Cass!

"Seeing yourself through someone else's eyes" Ever heard that expression? I can tell you where it comes from!
Years ago, before time began in earnest, people had no idea what they looked like due to there being nothing reflective laying around (this was before water was invented obviously). One day a man came strolling through a village called "Village" with some fresh ideas and a swagger.
Long story short, he invented what we now call a mirror, out of some bits and bobs he found lying around. He wasnt very good with words so he called the Mirror he'd made his "eyes". He told everyone in the village,
"Come see my eyes!"

Once people heard about this fascinating reflection thing they came to see for themselves. It would be the first time they'd ever seen themselves how others saw them, right there in this strangers "eyes".

Hence the saying "seeing yourself in someone else's eyes"

Later of ourse, the name changed but no one really knows why.

I never knew that. So fascinating!!!!

Blowjob. Everybody thinks they know what this means, yet a few decades ago, it meant something entirely different.

During the WWII effort to liberate France, Belgium hosted a lot of Allied preparation work for the fight against the Nazis. But as this predated the automatic air pump, Belgian men and women would orally inflate the tires of military vehicles heading toward the battle -- something the English speakers referred to as a "blow job."

A few American and British soldiers saw these courageous Belgians giving it all with their mouths and got ideas. "I wish you'd do that to me thingy I do," one particularly stupid and deep-voiced British soldier said.

The Belgian tire-inflater responded, "Quoi?"

To which the thick British soldier responded, "I wish you'd blow me, I do!"

And now this is something you know.

Hahahahaha that's just funny. You may win.

Courageous Belgians , thick British Soldiers,load of bollocks. The Belgians surrendered with hardly a shot fired, The British lost thousands dead pushing the Nazi's out. As for your explanation about blow jobs, total fantasy !

nicko wrote:Courageous Belgians ,    thick British Soldiers,load of bollocks.    The Belgians surrendered with hardly a shot fired,  The British lost thousands dead pushing the Nazi's out.    As for your explanation about blow jobs,   total fantasy !

 

Nicko mate, the whole thread is made up and Ben's last post was not made with intent to insult, but in light humour.

I don't like snide remarks about the best Soldiers in the world, and I don't think he was joking !

nicko wrote:I don't like snide remarks about the best Soldiers in the world,    and I don't think he was joking !

Well considering it seems to be a little of bit of competition between Eddie and Ben, to present the most far out and whackdoodle made up claims on something. It clearly was very much a joke and not made to intentionally hurt or insult anyone.

And actually it was very funny.

I really did intend to insult the British soldiers in a thread that's all about humorous and false explanations for the origins of phrases. Because I am a really shitty sort of person.

Ben Reilly wrote:I really did intend to insult the British soldiers in a thread that's all about humorous and false explanations for the origins of phrases. Because I am a really shitty sort of person.

Shut up you Texan frogturd.

I have passed Bens post and details to a friend in the SAS, he says he will find you and wish you a very merry Xmas !

nicko wrote:I have passed Bens post and details to a friend in the SAS,   he says he will find you and wish you a very merry Xmas !

Are you serious?

I was joking, like Ben was. Although I have a friend who is ex SAS,................he's 79 !

nicko wrote:I was joking,   like Ben was.     Although I have a friend who is ex SAS,................he's 79 !

Seventy nine? I could totally kick his arse.

eddie wrote:

nicko wrote:I was joking,   like Ben was.     Although I have a friend who is ex SAS,................he's 79 !

Seventy nine? I could totally kick his arse.

I doubt it Eddie  

nicko wrote:I was joking,   like Ben was.     Although I have a friend who is ex SAS,................he's 79 !

Phew. Ok. I was hoping it was a joke. Everyone’s got their Christmas jumpers in a right twist lately.

Didge, my God i'v got one of those ,dull black steel, i'll have to look for it. Bet it's blunt now !

I reckon if nicko forwarded this thread onto some of his old army mates, they'd probably have it posted up on their FaceBook page this week...

So back in the days of the British colonization of the Americas, King George had a court jester who was a midget -- clinging to the old tradition, as he was wont to do.

This jester actually rose to the rank of Governor of Maryland, despite his total lack of qualifications for anything besides telling jokes.

But telling jokes and being funny was actually what got him where it did. Didn't it?

King George loved nothing more than to stroll around in England Castle (I believe that is its official name) and wear his regal purple royal long robe ting.

And this midget (Bob, his name was) would sometimes sit on the long traily part thingy and allow the king to drag him around England Castle. And King George would larf and larf. Oh, the larfter!!!

And to this day, whenever you get into a high position with no real skill but only because somebody powerful likes you, we call it -- "riding one's coattails."

That took you only three minutes. That was a hard one and it was well funny, wasn’t it?

By the way, England castle really does exist I’ve seen it.

“The hair of the dog” is a saying associated with having an alcoholic drink to cure a hangover but actually this saying comes from long-time-ago-Poland of all places!

Long-time-ago-Poland was once full of polar bears and wild dogs of course and often there was not a lot to do for the polish men folk except hunt the rare animal called “dog”.

When it got boring and they were sick of drinking snow, the polish men folk would get brave enough to assume they could catch the wild dog and the reward was an alcoholic drink, which in those days was a real treat.

And so if you brought back “the hair of the dog” - which was obviously not white like a polar bear - then you would get a well good drink that would get you drunk.

I’m not sure if any of this is factually true but some drunk polish man told me once.
And he had a polar bear so it must be true really.

eddie wrote:“The hair of the dog” is a saying associated with having an alcoholic drink to cure a hangover but actually this saying comes from long-time-ago-Poland of all places!  

Long-time-ago-Poland was once full of polar bears and wild dogs of course and often there was not a lot to do for the polish men folk except hunt the rare animal called “dog”.

When it got boring and they were sick of drinking snow, the polish men folk would get brave enough to assume they could catch the wild dog and the reward was an alcoholic drink, which in those days was a real treat.

And so if you brought back “the hair of the dog” - which was obviously not white like a polar bear - then you would get a well good drink that would get you drunk.

I’m not sure if any of this is factually true but some drunk polish man told me once.
And he had a polar bear so it must be true really.

Under two minutes and totally fucking weird. I love it! I'm sure your Polish friend is a totally reliable source.

1. Everest is not the world's tallest mountain.  Mauna Kea is. If the distance from the bottom of the nearby Pacific Ocean floor to the peak of MK is measured, then MK is "taller" than Mount Everest. [over 10,000 meters  compared to 8,850 meters for Everest ] However Everest has a higher altitude than MK, as altitude measures the distance above sea level. To further complicate matters Chimborazo in Ecuador is the mountain whose peak is furthest away from the earth's centre even though its altitude is only  6,310 meters  because of the oval shape of the earth itself.


2. Strawberries can be yellow, green or white. Courgettes can be yellow, carrots purple,   mangetout yellow,  french beans - purple or yellow, sweetcorn can be multicoloured including blue  > https://www.pinterest.co.uk/eb1787/multi-colored-fruits-and-vegetables/


3. On Feb 2011 Veronique, the 11yo daughter of Peter Eldridge-Smith a specialist in Philosophy and Logic discovered a paradox. She said:  If Pinocchio said "My nose will grow now" he causes a paradox. Because if his statment is correct his nose will grow.  But if he is lying his nose will still grow.  "Basically his nose would have to grow to make his statement not a lie - but then it can't grow otherwise the statement would not be a lie".  Confusing!

When someone “kicks the bucket” we know that this means they’ve died, but no one really knows the origin of this. Well I do!

Mr Maker, of years gone by, would often make people buckets because folk needed them back then for all the water-carrying that took place. Buckets were taken very seriously as no one wanted to spill a drop of water, so to test them out they would often be invited to kick them to see how sturdy they were.

One day, Michael, who had a temper, bought a bucket from Mr Maker and kicked it real hard and the bucket
fell apart. Michael was so enraged, like well enraged innit, that he immediately had a heart attack and dropped dead.

Hence “kicking the bucket” became a way of saying someone had died.


Interesting fact, Mr Maker was shocked at seeing Michael die that he immediatly kicked the bucket himself.

How ironic, huh? Yeah. True say.

WARNING - THIS IS NOT PC. AVERT YOUR EYES!

So a lot of people attribute the origin of the phrase "away with the fairies" to ancient Gaelic and Scottish mythology of the "little people" or fairy folk. But they couldn't be more wrong, stupid or ugly.

In fact, "away with the fairies" originated no earlier than the 1950s, when the occasional straight person would be abducted by people who'd chosen to be gay, and they were whisked away to the magical underworld of gaydom, to take part in all the gaiety. And oftentimes when they came back, they'd seem distracted or to be daydreaming. They totally were, dude! They were daydreaming about the awesome and, no doubt, fabulous world they'd just been introduced to.

Eventually this happened to enough people that they began to compare notes. "Oy, you looked quite distracted just then, didn't you?" one would say to another, and the other would say yeah, and the first one, being prone to using insensitive language, would say, "Was you away with the fairies," to which the second one would say yeah.

Hahahahahaha shit! That was really very good and! you wrote it ultra-FASTLY.

Classy fam. Classy.

So there was this kid named Jacob, who lived in a society of lantern-makers. And Jacob, poor guy, was really bad at it.

His father Jacob would try to teach him how to properly make a lantern, but Jacob (the kid) would never seem to get it. (In Jacob's dreams he danced the ballet, so draw your own conclusions as to whether he was truly suited to the life of a lantern-maker.)

Anyway, when New Lanterns Day came along, Jacob (the kid, not the dad) showed his newly crafted lantern to Jacob (the dad, not the kid). And it was horrible. Just a manky piece of shit.

And Jacob (the dad, not the kid) told Jacob (the kid, not the dad) to hide his lantern away under a nearby barrel, as to not bring shame upon the Jacobson family.

And that's where we get the phrase, "Hide your light under a bushel."

“At the drop of a hat!”  you may cry out if someone asks you if you want a million quid, it means “immediately” as we know,  but do you know where this saying comes from?

Years ago, when people used to die a lot and nurses were rare, some patients would lie in their beds dead, for like, a few days or less, so the big doctor people would often scratch their heads (due to head lice and thinking) and say:

“We need to know when someone has died godammnit!”

Some bloke came up with an idea and shouted loudly
“I’ve got a good idea, I do!”

People from far and wide came to listen and he told them, quite sagely,

“Look, everyone wears hats, don’t they? So what we need to do is get each patient to hold his hat out to the side while he lies in bed...and when he kicks the bucket* he will drop his hat and we will know he’s a goner!”

People clapped and whistled at this idea as ideas were very rare, like nurses.

So that’s what happened and that’s where we now get the phrase “At the drop of a hat” from - meaning “act immediately!”

* see earlier post for “Kick the bucket”

Fun fact! People use this method when having a power nap - but they use pencils instead of hats. As soon as the hand becomes limp in sleep the pencil drops.



Please note: if some drops their pencil it doesn’t mean they’ve died so please don’t put them in a coffin innit.

"Not enough room to swing a cat." Nowt to do with pussies (sorry, felines) but the traditional naval punishment of flogging.

The warships of Nelson's time were pretty cramped and the only place that a flogging with the traditional cat-o-nine tails could be carried out was on deck, because the whip was a total of four feet long - a two foot handle and another two feet at the business end - and the bo,sun could not have drawn his arm back far enough to deliver a damaging blow anywhere below decks where there was literally "not enough room to swing a cat."

By the way, the prescribed punishments were quarrelling = 4 lashes; getting pissed for the first time = 12 lashes; getting pissed again = 24 lashes (careful, Wolfie!); neglect of duty = 12 lashes and for stealing it was anything from 24 to 36.

“The Cold War” was so-called because of the fight over old time global warming.

There was a country called “Fuck it’s cold” back in the day and there was a neighbouring country called “Jeepers it’s chilly”. The people of Fuck hated the people of Jeepers and they constantly called to each other over their country’s fences,

“Oh! Stop saying it’s cold over there! It’s colder over here, isn’t it?!”

Well things got pretty frosty between them eventually - the atmosphere became well icy, didn’t it? So a big old war broke out. Ice picks were thrown as were ice cubes and also ice lollies....weapons of mass destruction!

This Cold War went on for a proper long time, like about a few months until they all got too cold fighting outside and said “Sod it!” and went home for some hot iced water.

The people of Fuck it’s cold and Jeepers it’s chilly never really made up and eventually Frosty the snowman and Jack Frost (who were brothers or something) stopped visiting both places and tings soon warmed up, hence today’s Global Warming.