Number 75
Sonny Robertson tells me that "jitter" means a young person, girl or boy.
Sambro sent this in response to last week's "phat" mention:
Some months ago a female coworker that I knew only casually remarked on being the recipient of some windfall or good fortune. My superficial response was, "You're in fat city." Her head snapped up and through her teeth she asked, "What did you say?" At that point I achieved a moment of perfect clarity of this interaction: she was a lady of ample proportions, and had apparently never heard of New Orleans, Mardi Gras, or Lent. The only word she heard was fat. I weakly offered an explanation and slithered away.
And also: In Detroit, regional slang for cool or fine is "tits". I'll leave that one in the Motor City.
I didn't know Detroit had "tits" but years ago an old friend of Sam's suggested that "tits" would be a good feminist equivalent for the qualities expressed by "balls" (and "titsy" for "ballsy"). Detroit's usage is more like George Carlin's old routine in which he said "tits" sounds like a name for a snack (Pizza Tits, Tater Tits, etc.).
Faithful reader Anne sent this:
One of the wonderful granddaughters coined the word "snackage" a few years back to describe the edible stuff Moms carry in the van for the kids to ~ um ~ snack on between school and soccer/lacrosse practice, piano lessons, rehearsals, and such. WE like it ~ maybe it's simple enough to catch on? Remember ~ you heard it here first!
Anne's son, Dave DaBee, coined "stupility" for those occasions when "stupidity" just doesn't cover it.
I met a girl from New Zealand a few years ago who complained about her country's "tall poppy syndrome." I understood from her context that she meant cutting down a person who stands out, who appears to be (not only to act) superior to her or his peers, and a Web search confirms this meaning in Australia (and vicinity).
Someone asked if I knew the origin of the phrase, "There's no free lunch." I know hardly anything for sure, but I do know how to browse the Net. An extensive search might find the person who really originally said it, but this entry from www.yale.edu/yup/qyd/media.html is weighty, if not definitive:
Mr. Shapiro's current project is by far his most ambitious effort. He appears to take particular delight in using electronic resources to correct Bartlett's, his tome's archrival. Using Jstor, for example, Mr. Shapiro tackled the famous quotation "There's no such thing as a free lunch," which Bartlett's attributes to the economist Milton Friedman, who used the saying for a book of his that was published in 1975.Mr. Shapiro's research unearthed a 1952 mention in the journal Ethics, which referred to Professor Alvin Hansen's "famous TINSTAAFL formula ~ 'There is no such thing as a free lunch.'"
Of course the phrase refers to (note I do not verb "references") the free lunches saloons used to offer, sandwiches and boiled eggs and things, to encourage business and drinking. People would come in to eat and might buy more drinks, which would more than cover the cost of the lunch, especially if drink prices were raised; and of course they also might drink too much, thus paying too much in more than one way.
I suspect the phrase was heard, and appeared in print, much earlier than 1952. By that time the free lunch custom was mostly gone (it was popular in the 19th century and early 20th century), so literally there was no free lunch anymore, but it was also true metaphorically, which is the meaning that remains ~ you can't get something for nothing.
This, however, contradicts another old saying, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" ~ if someone gives you a horse, be grateful and don't look at its teeth to check its age.
The Japanese fashionistas are still at it. I browsed ~ no, I scrutinized my Japanese students' fashion magazine, Nicola, again, and found more goodies, including a coin purse with the heading above, "JOYFUL ENGLISH LOVELY" printed beneath a cartoon Bambi.
A T-shirt carried this actually lovely poetic passage:
This wants to show the continuation of a dream for them, even if the day which bursts into flames even if it rains and a wind blows and a calm night are the ends in the world.
I'd wear that shirt.
A full-page ad for the Girls Power Manifesto says, "Hello, girls!!! We are 'Girls Power Manifesto'. We debut this spring!!! Come visit GPM!!!" Of course I don't read Japanese, but it looks like Girls Power is basically the power to shop.
But once again, many of the slogans printed on clothes and purses and notebooks are confusing or disturbing:
In one photo the T-shirt was partially obscured, but this was part of the message: "cute . . . drugs overdose at her" (or possibly "overdoes").
A TV news guy said that putting certain people in power in the new Iraqi gummint (nod to Molly Ivins) would be like "putting new wine in old bottles." This phrase of course comes from the Bible (Matthew 9:17, and other books: "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.") But I think the metaphor doesn't quite fit here, because it seems to me the government structure would be the bottle and the officials the wine. If the government structure is new (i.e., pseudo-democracy) and the people are old-time Iraqi players (as any experienced Iraqi politician would have to be), it should be "old wine in a new bottle."
Another reporter referred to the people who "bear the blunt of the war." He meant "brunt."
The ACLU is suing Los Angeles because it has a cross on its city emblem, representing early Spanish settlement and missions. The cross supposedly offends non-Christians in Orange County, though the two people who filed the complaint are not named. Thus history must be rewritten. Redlands has already been forced to remove a cross from its city seal. Considering that the movie industry grew huge in California and was largely driven by powerful Jewish studio heads, I'd say that neither the symbol nor California's history has discouraged non-Christians too much. (This is just one example; by referring to Jews, I do not intend to ignore the American Indians, Chinese, Koreans, and so on.)
Maybe they'll have to change all the Spanish Christian place names too, although according to The San Diego Union-Tribune, the ACLU did not object to the Roman goddess Pomona on the seal or the name Los Angeles. ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner said that to do so would push the issue to "extreme limits."
It could happen, though. Los Angeles (City of Angels) could become, say, City of Unembodied Entities, so there wouldn't be any specifically religious associations, although this still might offend people who don't believe in unembodied spiritual entities, such as atheists.
San Francisco (Saint Francis) could be renamed for someone else, not a Christian saint. Sally Rand, the fan dancer, had a club there. Why not call the city Sally Rand? "I Left My Heart in Sally Rand." Doesn't scan. "I left my heart in Sally Rand's fan." Oh well.
What about San Diego, San Rafael, San Clemente, San Bernardino, San Jose, San Luis Obispo, Santa Ana, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, and all the rest? You could cut out the San and Santa, but that would still leave Cruz, unacceptably meaning "cross". Place names like Devil's Hole imply a religious belief too.
According to the San Diego article, the Los Angeles seal contains a cross; two stars above the Hollywood Bowl; goddess of fruits and trees Pomona with a sheaf of grain, an orange, a lemon, an avocado and grapes; mountains and ocean; a triangle and calipers to represent industry; oil derricks; the Spanish galleon San Salvador that was sailed into San Pedro Harbor in 1542 by the explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo; a tuna and a champion cow named Pearlette, for the fishing and dairy industries.
LA's web site describes another city seal:
Ordinance 10,834 describes the City Seal being used today. It explains that the lion and the castle are from the Arms of Spain and represent Los Angeles under Spanish rule from 1542-1821. The eagle holding the serpent is from the Arms of Mexico and represents Los Angeles under Mexican rule from 1822-1846. The Bear Flag shows the California Republic of 1846. The stars and stripes indicate Los Angeles as an American city. The olives, grapes, and oranges are reminders that Los Angeles is a garden community. The Rosary around the Seal represents the part played by the Mission Padres in the early years of Los Angeles.
This one also contains a Christian religious ~ regionally historical ~ symbol. Think of all the people and gods and goddesses and objects that are not in the seals.
Does anyone truly believe that this little historical memento is depriving unsuspecting citizens of their religious freedom or subtly inculcating them with Christianity, Catholicism specifically? Maybe someone should sue LA about the reminders of California's Spanish history, on the grounds that it's promoting the Reconquista, which is perhaps more of a real possibility than wholesale religious conversions amongst Los Angelenos.
One seal can't depict every culture, person, or artifact within the city limits. How about a big empty seal and a box of crayons for everyone to draw their own picture? Is history bunk, in the sense that Aldous Huxley did not mean in quoting Henry Ford in Brave New World?
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