Is that the original context of that meaning of "ringer"? I thought it came from sports.
Sobchak should check out the second definition on that page, ps.
Sobchak should check out the second definition on that page, ps.
Chop chop.
There's a band from Oakland called Hella.
Their first album is great.
Hmmm, I've never heard ringer used in that musical way, although the idea of sneaking a pro into an amateur competition sort of applies, but there is no 'competition' per se.
As for the urbandictionary, in football that was called a head slap and was against the rules because you could puncture someone's eardrum. Oh, and the context was different, which should go without saying.
Regarding folksy musical sayings, I always liked "That's great! Why don't you take it up an octave and leave it out?"
I'm on record as a fan of "early ripe, early rotten." And, trite though it may be, "even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while" always makes me laugh.
I heard "snap to grid" used to refer to a philosopher who would always bring the conversation around to her agenda, no matter what. Seems right.
I like pretty much any folksy saying that strikes me as anachronistic, or which I can make into a long pun-based joke.
"even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while"
The German version of this is "Even a blind chicken finds a grain..."
I also like the addage the German speakers use for finding husbands : "Every pot finds a lid"
Anybody who's talked to me for any length of time will tell you that I'm a little too fond of the south's "bless her/his heart," which is a phrase that can be used to cover a multitude of sins. In fact, using this phrase before saying something mean obviates the meanness, transforming it into an expression not unlike sympathy. So while a proper southerner could never directly call somebody ugly or stupid, saying "bless her heart, she is the ugliest child," or "bless his heart, he's dumb as a post" is miraculously acceptable.
even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while
That's a great one, and reminds me of one from Monty Python: "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat." Most effective when said / thought with a British accent.
"Photographs, eh?" he asked him knowingly?
There's a Greek version of "pot calling the kettle black" that translates to "that's like the donkey calling the dog big-headed."
Question I've always wanted to ask of an american with a taste for Monty Python. Did you also get the "Goons" on radio, and if so, are you also a fan?
"Wings over Dagenham" has got to be about the most surreal radio comedy ever... "It looks like an aeroplane, it smells like an aeroplan, and by golly it tastes like an aeroplane.."
No, but I was dead before the Goons came out. (I have no idea why I wrote that. I think it has something to do with being awake like sleep. What I meant is that I'm too young.)
:) lol at the donkey.
I can alos give you the german version of "sticks out like a sore thumb:"
"Obvious as a technicolour (that color, sorry) dog"
I heard these growing up from my father, who had been born and raised in Alabama:
"And if frogs had wings, their butts wouldn't get all bruised."
"You'd lose your ass if it wasn't stamped on the back of you."
"So dark you couldn't find your ass with both hands."
"Like a $500 saddle on a $50 mule." (you'd be surprised how often you get to use this one)
"Gotta go see a man about a dog." (translation: must urinate)
"Dumber than a sack full of hammers."
"Green inside is clean inside." (exhorting us to eat our vegetables)
My dad is from Yorkshire: I once got to hear: "If brains were dynamite, tha' could ne' blow tha' nose"
"Gotta go see a man about a dog." (translation: must urinate)
I've always heard this as "about a horse."
I can't believe no Southerners have mentioned "I'm gonna beat you like a red-headed stepchild."
Being a redhead myself, that one wasn't used so much in my presence.
I can't believe no Southerners have mentioned "I'm gonna beat you like a red-headed stepchild."
Is that a southern expression? I heard it (and "like a rented mule") a lot. I was delighted when, in college, I met a red-headed stepchild.
Now in my youth "going to see a man about a horse" was always used in the context of "conducting dodgy business" like placing bets etc.
I always assumed it was. In my head, it's spoken with a Texas twang.
"Ugly enough to stop a Chinese wedding" is one that never made any sense to me, but that I still hear occasionally.
"If he was any dumber, you'd have to water him."
I met a red-headed stepchild.
My older son, redheaded and from my first marriage, is my current wife's redheaded stepchild.
"If he was any dumber, you'd have to water him."
Damn, that's good.
I don't know if it's a southern saying, as such, but one of my favorite (purported) LBJ quotations is, "...so stupid he couldn't poor piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel."
"If a cat has kittens in the oven, that doesn't make them biscuits."
(Um, for our English-speaking friends, those are American biscuits -- sort of a not-sweet scone -- not what one has with a quick cuppa.)
What the hell does the phrase "six ways to Sunday" mean?
As in, he got his ass kicked six ways to Sunday.
Google is failing me on this.
I got a shock, when, shortly after arriving in Austria, my future mother in law told me that a savoury dish was baked in a "Biscuit-Pastry."
For sheer random specificity, I like "colder'n'a Yukon well-digger's ass." And the phrase ghw was bandying about a while back: "What I know about x wouldn't fill the thimble of a small-fingered seamstress."
Then there's the very Austrian: "The church should remain in the village" for not making things to complicated. Or "With the Church around the cross" for going out of one's way.
And to wrap this up for me: "Wouldn't fit on a cow skin" for a long and wearing process or explanation.
"The church is near, but the road is icy. The bar is far, but we will walk carefully" is reputed to be a Russian proverb, but I am skeptical.
druthers.
every day and twice on sunday.
the wheel is spinning, but the hamster's dead.
My dad uses this one:
"That's like looking a dead horse in the ass."
I think it is hilarious and I have no idea what it means.
Large as life and twice as natural.
My stepdad used to say, "That's my name, don't rub it in."
Austro, I've never heard nor heard of the Goons. Do they have a website I can check out?
Ben (re #16): Is your wife a goer, eh? Does she go, eh? Does she go, eh?
Ok I give in:
"Not all the cups are in the cupboard" is the Austro-german for "one short of a load."
"If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a teacart."
Walter: You know I honestly dont know. :) Id guess they dont but there will be fans who do... I ll get back to you on that.
The Goons were Spike Milligan, Peter Sellars, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine. They were a BBC Radio institution in the 50s. Very Avant Garde and in very many ways a forerunner to Monty Python. The shows were live and often improvised with what passed for a script being re-written as they went on. Well worth tracking down.
What the hell does the phrase "six ways to Sunday" mean?
I think that's "six ways from Sunday" as in the six days of the week besides Sunday.
Ugly enough to stop a Chinese wedding
That's just brilliant. Another of my favorites is "more chins than a Chinese phonebook." And that statement applies to me, so I'm allowed to use it.
Also, one I heard while in Spain was "Me has engañado como un Chino," which means, basically, "You just cheated me like a Chinaman." Doesn't make much sense, but it sounds hilarious in Spanish. Plus it goes well with my pseudonym.
You're fucking like a goddamn Chinaman.
Walter : http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GoonShow with such immortal quotes as: "Here, would you like a gorilla?" "No! I only smoke Baboons" "Ah! good show!"
Not all the cups are in the cupboard
Ha! I know that one! I have the Schmutzige Wörter book (not with me right now, but I remember seeing it). I can't remember exactly how goes... it would have to be something like "Du hast nicht alle Tassen im Schrank" but for some reason that doesn't sound exactly right.
LB, I've heard something similar with trolley car (or Volkswagen, which, to the lewdly inclined, could be lewdly construed) in place of "teacart".
Joe, the Chinaman is not the issue here!
Walter: Word perfect: "Du hast nicht alle Tassen im Schrank" = Beklopft = "Du hast einen Dachschaden" etc:
btw re goons www.goon.org
He didn't build the fucking railroads, Walter.
"There's nothing wrong with him [her/it/that] that couldn't be fixed with a hammer."
I'm not even going to bother with any more - there's at least 1500 of them.
http://www.texasmonthly.com/ranch/sayings/index.php
ash
['I do like hotter 'n a two-dollar pistol.']
Austro, thanks for the Goons links. I'm trying to remember a few of the sayings my German friend in Spain taught me. I think my favorite was "die Falten auf dem Sack schlagen." Also, another friend taught me this little rhyme:
Sitzt du auf dem Klo
Und hast kein Papier
Dann nehm das Trikot
Von Schaalke null vier!
And then of course there's the almost-exact translation of "don't look a gift-horse in the mouth" which sounds so much cooler in German: "Einem geschenkten Gaul, schaut man nicht ins Maul."
"They ate supper before they said grace."
My grandmother used to say this, w/r/t couples who have babies out of wedlock. I'd forgotten it until now.
Joe, what the fuck are you talking about!? The Chinaman is not the issue here! The issue is Lebowski, the other Jeffrey Lebowski, the millionairrre. Plus, he's got the wealth, uhh, obviously, and the resources, so that there's no reason, there's no fucking reason, why his wife should go out and owe money all over town, and then they come, and they pee on your fucking rug! Am I wrong?
lol... very cloacal.
"Keine schütteln
Keine klopfen
In der Hosen geht
der letzte Tropfen"
which just goes to show:"Wenn die Sonne der Kultur nieder steht, werfen auch Zwerge grosse Schatten" Karl Kraus.
Oh, with all this Lebowski talk, and now a reference to Texas, how could I forget?
"It was darker than a black steer's toucas on a moonlit prairie."
Also, "made me laugh to beat the band."
Parts, anyway.
Speaking of the sun and shadows: "The daylight of the mathematical method rendered useless the lamps which, while they guide us in the darkness, throw deceptive shadows" (Benedetto Croce).
Hah, which reminds me of:
"The world was night and all was in darkness hid. God said, let Newton be and all was light" - Pope
To which the 20th C rejoinder:
"It could not be, it did not last:
The devil cried "Ho! Let Einstein be"
And restored the status Quo"
"There's nothing wrong with him [her/it/that] that couldn't be fixed with a hammer."
I've always heard that said "...that couldn't be fixed with a sackful of twenties." I say always, but in reality I've only heard it once, and that was in reference to my hypochondriac former mother-in-law.
My grandmother, of all people, was often heard to say, (in her native dialect of Farsi): "Big as an ant's cock." (Said of small portions, for example.)
Yeah, I guess it runs in the family.
runs in the family
Cock jokes or ant-sized cocks?
Apo: I'm SO glad you asked. For all of us, I mean.
My ant-sized cock is gonna beat the shit out of your wife's redheaded stepson.
"Keine schütteln
Keine klopfen
In der Hosen geht
der letzte Tropfen"
Awesome. I know there's an equivalent in English, but I can't think of it. Anyone else? (I would translate this as "No shakes, no knocks, in the pants goes the last drop." Sound right?). Also, reminds me of a saying about the value of confidence: "You can have confidence in a fart and still end up with shit in your pants."
There's on obverse to that, Walter: If you shake it more than twice, you're playing with it.
But that might have been just a funny thing I heard someone say.
Well, yeah, I know that one. But I know there's an equivalent to Austro's.
Do you know what's smaller than a teeny weenie ant?
An ant's teeny weenie!
Man I'm on FIRE today!
Walter,
"No shakes, no knocks, in the pants goes the last drop."
You reminded me, (from my Dad again)
You can shake it,
you can break it,
you can make it dance,
but the last few drops
always go in your pants.
I know there's an equivalent in English, but I can't think of it. Anyone else?
No matter how you shake and dance,
The last drop always falls in your pants.
Also:
You can shake it
You can break it
You can bang it against the wall
But when you put it in your pants
The last drop will fall.
Me again, cross-posting with Tripp...
Oooh, ooh, we all know "him who smelt it dealt it," right? Well my brother remembered that as "him who said it let it."
I need this thread like I need a whole in the head.
My sister-in-law's version of smelt/dealt: "Fox smells its own hole."
Tripp: You commenting on my laundry bill?
I've always liked: "not the brightest crayon in the box"...
And this one: "You'd lose your ass if it wasn't stamped on the back of you."
was "You'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on" in my family.
- OLS
I like Pogo's use of "rock hockey" to mean busting rocks in prison (I think the mouse may be the only character to use this). As in, "Some guy just signed a seven-month rock hockey contract in the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal, even though the Dem party chairman pleaded for him 'cause, reading not too far in between the lines, he rolled over on Bill Frist."
From my (very southern) grandmother:
"you just can't breathe tomorrow's air until you've (e.g.) had some of Viola's chocolate cake"
Re: her second husband: "Sometimes he gets me so worked up, I'm tempted to knock him over the head with a brick and tell God he woke up dead."
I'm told the Russian version of "you've made your bed/dug your grave, and now you have to lie in it" is: "you've called yourself a mushroom, now crawl into the basket!"
And a favorite Greek saying, basically like the grandmother/teacart or frog with wings ones mentioned above: "And if your grandmother had a dick, she'd fuck your grandfather."
I have a good friend who likes to deadpan purposefully mangled folksy sayings. The only two I can remember right now are:
"As clean (or fresh) as a baby's bottom" (original: as soft as)
"He's so dumb he couldn't tell his ass from a hole in his butt" (original: hole in the ground)"
Which reminds me, I also like: "so dumb he couldn't find his ass if there were a bell tied to it."
He's so dumb he couldn't tell his ass from a hole in his butt
That might be the very funniest one ever.
Ben asked, way back "Is that the original context of that meaning of "ringer"? I thought it came from sports."
Horse-racing I believe.
What do you play, FL?
What do you play, FL?
He's been rumored to favor the skinflute.
Another fave: "about as successful as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest".