# A headline you would never see about the US: **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 16, 2013, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-headline-you-would-never-see-about-the-us/668998 "2013-09-16T19:45:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2013, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-headline-you-would-never-see-about-the-us/668998/21 "2013-09-21T06:29:47Z")
Evidently, the guys at the convenience store are _ **very rarely stable.** _ ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-headline-you-would-never-see-about-the-us/668998/22 "2013-09-22T05:23:48Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > In Russia, philosophy shoots holes in you! Not bad, Comrade! ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-headline-you-would-never-see-about-the-us/668998/23 "2013-09-22T16:24:02Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I think the song describes him as a “pissed ant”. The song as a whole is about philosophers being drunks, and the word “pissant” has nothing to do with drunkenness, but simply means a worthless, contemptible person. However, in Britain (as many Americans probably do _not_ know, even if American Dopers do), “pissed” is a common slang word for _drunk_. Furthermore, I believe “pissant” is primarily an American word, with relatively little currency in Britain. ([Collins Dictionary](http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pissant) flags it as a US word, and my Firefox spellchecker does not recognize it as a word at all.) > > The fact that many internet lyric sites say “pissant” probably just reflect the fact that they are based on transcriptions by Americans, who can make no sense of “pissed ant” and so substitute something similar sounding that makes a sort of sense to them, despite being at odds with the theme of the song. > > I admit I can’t very satisfactorily explain why he is referred to as an ant (apart from the fact that they needed a rhyme). I am prepared to entertain the hypothesis that the Pythons themselves (or Eric Idle in particular) were somewhat confused, perhaps having heard the word “pissant” somewhere, and having misunderstood it to be an idiomatic expression, “pissed ant”, used to describe a drunken person. All those words, too bad you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-headline-you-would-never-see-about-the-us/668998/24 "2014-01-15T21:56:11Z")
It may not be philosophy but apparently the Irish and Italians take chess pretty seriously: > **[Man in court over Thomas O'Gorman killing in Dublin](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25709414)** > > A man appears in court in Dublin charged with the murder of a man allegedly following a row over a game of chess. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-headline-you-would-never-see-about-the-us/668998/25 "2014-01-17T20:44:07Z")
Funny people, those Russians. The original report reminds me, in an oblique way, of a passage in Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag”. Said passage tells of a time at the peak of one of Stalin’s various terror periods: two Moscow academics, arbitrarily seized and accused of God-knows-what, are in the back of a KGB vehicle, being taken off to the KGB’s most feared torture prison, in the Moscow suburbs. The two guys have got into a passionate argument about details of court dress in the reign of Peter the Great, and are going at each other verbally hammer-and-tongs, about that subject – oblivious at least for the moment, to what shortly awaits them… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-headline-you-would-never-see-about-the-us/668998.md?page=1)