I’ve never understood the expression “Possession is nine tenths of the law.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? What law? Possession of what?
If you are in possesion of something, then it is very hard to disprove you do not have a legal claim to it. “The law” in this case, is legal concepts in general. It is simply a saying, and not a statement of any real laws.
No, just the exclamation “Snap!”
Bord is right, it basically means when some bit of data is keyed in incorrectly, whether or not the data entry person actually has fat fingers. When I worked for a telecom company for awhile, they also used it for situations where sales reps deliberately entered incorrect values, such as promotional codes for promotions that had already expired…
“Shizle” is a Snoopism, from the talented and odd rapper Snoop Dog. He has whole songs where he just throws z’s into words, and I think there was a short-lived TV series called “Doggy Telivizle” for awhile.
Fo shizle.
Or the other way around? But I get it, thanks Scott–this is something that has bothered me for over a decade!
Is that going to be Ken Lay’s defense?
A good example of Iambic Pentameter (near perfect) is Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. It’s one of my favorites.
Die the death of a June bug . 
I have heard this all my life when something is ending , but … why a June bug ? Just what makes the demise of a June bug so much more spectacular (or not , as the case may be) than the death of , oh , say a praying mantis or a ladybug ?
Although I have to admit , there was a whole new meaning added to the phrase roughly 15 years ago , when my Gordon Setter Corey (who is now waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge 
) caught a June bug in his mouth . I had no idea what was happening , he was standing , mouth open , head down , shaking his head , saliva dripping . I thought he was having a seizure ! :eek: Turns out he had picked up a June bug , and it was clinging to the roof of his mouth . I flicked it out onto the gound , laughing till I cried , and Corey went after it , stomping it with his front feet until it was dead .
Now *THAT’S the death of a June bug ! 
Actually, no. Count the feet per line.
whose WOODS/these ARE/i THINK/i KNOW
It’s iambic tetrameter–four iambs per line.
I stand corrected.
But you have very good taste! 
I have another one. You don’t hear it every day, but listening to Tom Waits just reminded me to ask: what is a “woof ticket” or “wolf ticket”?
Watershed and benchmark seem to mean more or less the same thing (a high point or standard of excellence) when used metaphorically. (“1932 was a watershed year for Duke Ellington”; “The Roseville Pottery set a new benchmark for quality in ceramics.”)
Thing is, I don’t know what a watershed or a benchmark actually are, non-metaphorically. I’m going to guess a benchmark is a mark applied by a craftsperson to his work before it leaves the bench.
“Watershed” has two meanings. Technically, it’s the area which is drained by a particular river and its tributaries, and can be defined at any scale (from the area around the creek behid your house, to the entire Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio drainage area).
The second, informal meaning is the drainage divide that separates two or more watersheds – again, at any scale, from the low rise in front of your house, to the “Continental Divide” which follows part of the Rocky Mountains, etc. It is this secondary meaning that has given rise to the metaphorical meaning, of a “high point” in one’s career, etc., or the point at which things could have gone one way or the other.
“Benchmark”, at least in geography, is a fixed object of known elevation above sea level and known location in coordinate space that is used to map features around it, by fixing their locations relative to it. Thus, metaphorically, it is the “fixed point” in time from which we “measure” a person’s career path. Loosely speaking, about the same as a “watershed”.
[QUOTE=JKellyMap]
Thus, metaphorically, a “benchmark” is the “fixed point” in time from which we “measure” a person’s career path.
[QUOTE]
Or, as your example shows, the “fixed point” from which we compare the work of others.
At the risk of being seen as silly, here goes.
I don’t understand “ad hominem” or [sic], either. And it seems that analogies are not “kosher” in debates because that leads to cries of “strawman”–huh? Color me clueless and out of crayons on alot of this.
I must have missed the Latin class or something. Ipso facto and et al, ie, etc(haha)–I have a sense of what they mean, but a working definition–nope. Yes, there is the dictionary, but I don’t want precise and exact–I want commonly accepted reference and usage.
And I have never understood “the exception that proves the rule”–Cecil did a column on that and it still doesn’t make sense!
and is it, “I couldn’t care less” or “I could care less”? The former makes more sense logically, unless one is being ironic with the second.
And what the hell is a hat trick in soccer? And why is it called that?
I’ll just go sit in a corner-felling very stupid now. Sorry if these ahve been discussed already–didn’t read entire thread d/t lateness of hour.
JKellyMap, I stand enlightened. Your explanations were glowingly succinct. Thanks!
Be careful when using your Snoopisms.
Ad hominem - personally attacking the arguer, rather than addressing their argument.
[sic] - means “the apparent error in this quote really was like that in the original, it’s not an error in my transcription of it”
Strawman - constructing a false representation of your opponent’s argument and arguing against that.
Analogy - perfectly kosher in formal arguments, but you have to be able to justify that it is relevant to the argument at hand. Only if your analogy mischaracterises your opponent’s position would it be a strawman.
Ipso facto - literally, by that fact; “winning an argument does not ipso facto mean your position was correct”
Et al - and others of a similar type; “Goering, Himmler, Goebels, et al …” refers to Hitler’s henchmen as a group. There’s not much difference between this and etc, except et al usually refers to people rather than objects.
In this case *proves *means puts to the test, not confirms. That is, if a rule has an exception then there had better be a good explanation or the rule is invalid. However this saying is frequently misused in the confirms sense, which is of course silly - an exception to a rule can never in and of itself (ipso facto, in fact!) confirm that rule, obviously.
In soccer it is one player scoring three goals in a match, in cricket (the oldest reference) it is a bowler getting three batsmen out in successive balls (roughly the equivalent of a baseball pitcher getting three batters out in three pitches). Why, no-one knows exactly; there have been explanations such as a bowler achieving this was awarded a hat as a prize, but these sound like folk etymology to me.
A quick return to iambic pentameter: Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote GREAT blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). I find him very restful to read:
Example from Ulysses:
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea:…