I was typing the phrase “bearer of bad news” today, and realized how it related to the title of the movie “The Bad News Bears”.
I didn’t figure that out until… right now.
I think I posted this in the similar thread in Cafe Society a long time ago, but similarly, it took be decades to realize the word play in the title Sister Act. I finally learned that a sister act is a musical act made up of women who are sisters, such as The Andrews Sisters.
Huh. I never make my bed, except right after washing and changing the sheets.
Except… when I sleep in a bed that doesn’t have fitted sheets, I do make it. And I do that about once a year. So… I guess I kinda knew that, I just never thought about it.
I had a TR6 back in the late 70s. The jokes about British cars are not exaggerated.
It was a super fun car to drive and I learned a lot about electrical systems from working on it. I was also in the best shape of my life because I pushed it so much, but whatever…
My attitude towards sports cars is that, all of the enjoyment I get from them, I get by just looking at them. And I can do that without owning one.
A friend of mine back in the 70’s had a matching pair of TR6’s in chocolate brown. He’d drive one while the other one was getting fixed, then swap when #2 broke. That’s where I learned about how the British still don’t really understand electricity.
The etymological relationship between Punic and Phoenician is reflected by the p-n-c sequence in both words.
I figured that out on my own (far later than I should have), but here it is nicely summarized by someone else:
If these were wars between Rome and Carthage, why are they called the Punic Wars?
The word “Punic” derives from the word “Phoenician” (phoinix in Greek or punicus in Latin), and refers to the citizens of Carthage, who were descended from the Phoenicians.
“Lucas, the Lord of Darkness”
I live within walking distance of a fall line, that line around the edge of a continent where the flat continental shelf and the hilly piedmont meet. I have for decades. There are places I go at least weekly where you can locate the fall line to a few dozen feet, which is actually quite rare. But I wasn’t clear on the gist of the piedmont. It seemed to mean the hilly or mountainous part of a continent, but then there were things specifically indicating it did NOT mean the mountains. Eventually I wondered if it meant the foothills.
The other day it occurred to me that “pied mont” is “foothill” translated.
Likewise, I didn’t know that Kiribati was the transliterated version of “Gilberts” (as in the Gilbert Islands) for a long time.
I took a year of classical Greek in high school (along with three years of Latin). I have a BS degree in mathematics. So I’m very very familiar with the Greek alphabet. But it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that it dawned on me that “omega” means “big O” (Greek mega=big) and “omicron” means “little O” (micron=small).
I’ve never learned Greek, but I also know the Greek alphabet well from math/physics (I’m an electrical engineer), and I also had the same kind of late revelation about omicron/omega, though I didn’t figure it out myself, but read about it on some website or maybe newspaper article.
It just dawned on me that BS is a bachelor of science. Thanks to a search engine. Because BS degree in mathematics didn’t sound right with the meaning I assumed.
Thanks for enlightening me on that one.
Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana.
I must have first heard that in my early teens (1970 or so). I just assumed the joke was arrows fly straight and fast and fruit, well, fruit doesn’t fly very well at all, particularly bananas.
I must have been nearly 60 years old before I finally figured it out. I laughed when I did.
Yes! What it feels like to me is that I’m perpetually sitting in a chair that someone just got out of and still has a lot of residual butt heat. Which isn’t a horrible experience for a few seconds, but not one that I want to last forever.
My friend (and now I) call it the Rump Roaster.
Too bad ol’ Lucas never learned.
“Prince”
Ahhh… I remember working on a friend’s MGB that had one of those Lucas electrical systems.
The joke was “Why do the British drink warm beer?”
“Because Lucas wired their refrigerators.”
Damn, that’s a revelation. I’ve been shopping for my dream car for a decade now:
“Ok, so someday when I’ve saved enough… I’ll get a Toyota GR Supra with modern tech. Wait, no, now I want a totally low-tech Miata, first generation…”
And it hasn’t cost me a penny!
Oh yeah. I had a friend who rode a Triumph motorcycle. Once he was in charge of bringing the beer to a party and suddenly lost his headlights due to electrical failure. He walked to the nearest payphone and called me to come and get him. When I got there and the beer was transferred to my trunk, my starter failed.
We both just sat there and drank warm beer and agreed that we were having much more fun by ourselves than at a stoopid party.