I sometimes say something and then I wonder where in the world the phrase came from. Not something genius like "fixin' to". Why would anybody ever wonder about the origins of THAT phrase. (See Day One-Seventy-Seven if you are wondering what brought that up). No, I'm talking about phrases like "old timey". Where did something like that come from? And if you still say it are you, in fact, "old timey"?
I saw something on TV the other day and in my head, I thought "Wow, that's really old timey." Then I thought, "How old timey am I if I think something is old timey and the phrase literally goes through my head?" I think it is a phrase that doesn't get a lot of use anymore. A few minutes ago I looked it up. I couldn't find the origin, but I did find a definition. In case you were wondering if someone refers to something as old timey, it is not as hip as something that they would refer to as retro. Two things can be from the same era and one can be considered retro while the other is considered old timey. Take for instance, the Chrysler Building in NYC and a Barber Shop Quartet. You would totally think of the quartet as being old timey, but that building is nothing if not retro. They also said that old timey can refer to something as old as 200 years, while retros cut off point is about 80 to 100 years.
But this got me thinking about other phrases. Where do they come from. So, I found a website.... Go figure, there's a website for origins of old phrases. Okay, before I go further, have you seen the commercial, I don't know what it is for, with the girl who is convinced that everything on the internet is true. At the end of the commercial she introduces her boyfriend from France who she met on the internet and he looks like a neanderthal and sounds like he is from the Bronx. Love that commercial. "It's true.... it was on the internet..." Back to my topic, so after much research I have chosen a few select phrases to educate you about whether you like it or not. Hey, if you don't want to be educated, just close your browser. But these are facts.... I know.... because it was on the internet.
The first phrase I decided to look up after "old timey" was "drunker than Cooter Brown". Naturally, it wasn't on the website that I found, but it does have it's own Wikipedia page. Who would have thought that we are all sitting here in complete anonymity and Cooter Brown has a Wikipedia page. Anyway, they weren't completely sure of the origin, but it seems to come from a Civil War era drunk. By some accounts he lived on the Mason-Dixon Line. In another explanation he lived in southern Louisiana and was half Cajun and half African-American. But either way, he was a drunk who didn't want to take sides in the Civil War and was afraid of getting drafted by either side, so he just stayed drunk for the duration of the war to prevent that from happening. I do have to say that I initially heard this phrase from an old family friend, Don Bailey and the only thing I can tell you about it from personal experience is that if you say it with no accent and just say "drunker than Cooter Brown", it sounds kind of stupid. But if you say it the way I am sure it was meant to be said and the way I always heard it "drunker'un Cooter Brown", it sounds much better. By the way, when a Texas State Trooper utters the phrase "drunker'un Cooter Brown" you know the person was blowing WAY above the legal limit because those guys see some pretty drunk people.
After looking up a few phrases on the website that I found, I figured out that it was put together by an Englishman which explains why he had never heard of Cooter Brown. It would seem that he "didn't know shit from Shinola" when it came to Cooter. And that's a phrase that he was well aware of. But he was a little derogatory toward Americans for coming up with it. Apparently, it was coined during WWII. Shinola in case you were unaware was a shoe polish, which I suppose could be easily mistaken for poop if you are an idiot. As he so articulately states, "The distinction is well made; only one of them would be good to apply to your shoes and only particularly dim people could be expected to muddle them up."
A phrase that I use daily is "for the love of Pete". Usually, I say this when Jingle is meowing incessantly and I cannot find anything to make him stop. Like now for instance. At times like this I blurt out "Jingle! For the love of Pete!!!!" It does nothing except to let me blow off a little steam. Apparently, it is nothing more than a substitute for saying "for the love of God" which obviously would be blasphemous. It would seem that Pete refers to St. Peter. Ditto with "for Pete's sake", St. Peter is simply substituted for God. Even "peter out" can be linked to St. Peter. "Peter out" goes back to mining, but they weren't sure why miners would have substituted the word Peter for dwindle. One of the explanations had to do with Peter being referred to as "the rock" and they were mining in rocks... blah blah blah.....
So there you have it. These are the weird things that I wonder about while I sit here in my house and Jingle won't let me study my travel agent training manual because he needs constant attention. If you are curious about the origins of anything, let me know. I'll see what I can find out PDQ or Pretty Damn Quick which finds it origins in a play "The Mighty Dollar" by Benjamin E. Woolf in case you were wondering.
Enjoy your Sunday!
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