Buriram Expats

Buriram Province - General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: rufusredtail on October 19, 2013, 11:24:01 AM

Title: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 19, 2013, 11:24:01 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

All early ships' ropes were plaited from strips of dried rush, a plant known in Latin as the juncus. Even when ropes were made out of more sophisticated materials, such as nylon, the term "junk" remained to describe worn-out bits of rope chucked over the side as rubbish.

The eastern sailing junk is unconnected, taking its name from the Javanese "djong", for ship. As for the phrase "money for old rope ", this was coined to describe the easy money made by sailors who stored up all the ship's rope-junk and sold it at the shipyard in the next port of call.

Here it was shredded out and hammered into the gap between deck planking before it was sealed with pitch. Meanwhile, the fat collected from the boiling down of meat in the gallery was kept by the cook , who made it into candles and sold these when next ashore. This fat was known as the slush, hence the modern term"slush fund".
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Adam on October 19, 2013, 09:02:10 PM
Very good rufus, tell 'em about Brass Monkeys...  monkeydancing
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on October 20, 2013, 12:31:41 PM
Very good rufus, tell 'em about Brass Monkeys...  monkeydancing

Yesterday I was going to reply with the brass monkey story, but as I checked the internet, sources said it wasn't true. 

So how about the railroad width being determined by Nookie's personality: 



Four Feet, Eight and a Half Inches

Standard gauge railway lines are used throughout New South Wales & on Australian National Railways' interstate lines. It is also the primary gauge used in Britain, Europe, the USA, & many other countries. It is used on such high speed lines as France's TGV, Germany's ICE, & Japan's Bullet Trains.

Standard gauge, in railway terminology, means a distance between the rails of 4 feet, 8 ฝ inches or 1.435 metres. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, & English expatriates built railways all around the world. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railway tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did they use that gauge in England, then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did their wagons use that odd wheel spacing?

Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads. Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts. So who built these old rutted roads?

The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since. And the ruts?

The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The standard railway gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.

Specifications and Bureaucracies Live Forever.

So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to  accommodate the back-ends of two war-horses.

And the Space Shuttle?

Plus, there's an interesting extension of the story about railway gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railway from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railway track, and the railway track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass.

 
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: erik69 on October 20, 2013, 12:48:53 PM
Four Feet, Eight and a Half Inches

What about the 'whole nine yards' enchilada ;)

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-whole-whole-nine-yards-enchilida.html
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 20, 2013, 05:33:43 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

The replacement of the horse by the car as the main mode of transport left some pretty bizarre regulations on the English statue books.

The drivers of all hackney cabs could be arrested for failing to carry a bale of straw for their horse and a bucket and shovel to clean up behind it.

The English ''journey" derives from the French "jour" -- as in early times few ventured farther than a place from which they could return safely before dark.

In law, this was seven miles_ and ended up creating a nightmare for inn landlords. Riders more than seven miles from home could, at any time of night or day, knock at the inn and the landlord was legally obliged to provide food, lodgings and stabling facilities.

If the landlord politely told you to go away, you could canter to the local police station and demand a constable return with you to enforce your rights.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 25, 2013, 07:46:05 AM


DID YOU KNOW ?

''As Mad As A Hatter”

Back in the 1800′s, hatters used a process called carroting. The hatters would use an orange liquid (mercury nitrate) to help separate the fur. Because workshops and warehouses were so badly ventilated at the time, workers were literally slowly killing themself via mercury poisoning. They would go insane hence the term “as mad as a hatter”
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 28, 2013, 07:09:07 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

Anorexia nervosa might be popularly perceived as a "new" condition but it is nothing of the sort. The condition is mentioned in ancient Egyptian papyri and the first case study is that noted by the Persian physician Avicenna in the 11th Century.

The oxford Dictionary contains a quote from 1598, "Then the Anorexie, Then the Dog-hunger", and in 1694 the English doctor Richard Morton first gave the condition a name --- Phthisis Nervosa--- which translates from the Greek as the nervous condition which causes wasting away.

The now recognised name of anorexia nervosa first appeared in medical literature in 1874 after a study by Sir William Gull of Guy's Hospital. He was also a physician to Queen Victoria. It was not only his fixation with conditions afflicting young women but also his stalking of Whitechapel at night that made him a prime suspect for the Jack the Ripper murders.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 06, 2013, 07:41:40 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

BLACKMAIL

Extortion

Back in the 16th- century England, ''blackmail'' (reditus negri in Latin) meant nothing more threatening than a form of rent paid in a combination of produce and low denomination coins that were black from constant handling; higher rents were  ''whitemail''  (reditus albi) and paid in silver coin.

These payments were recognized in early Scottish law, and ''blackmail'' acquired its criminal connotations after it was used to describe the supplies extorted from farmers and crofters along the Scottish borders by the outlaws who would otherwise burn them out at the drop of a hat. PAY THROUGH THE NOSE
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 08, 2013, 06:28:38 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

AMMONIA

The ancient temple of Ammon at Siwa in the Libyan Desert attracted thousands of pilgrims, who left their camels tied up nearby.

Over the centuries, the sand soaked up thousands of gallons of camel urine. When the oasis was commandeered by the Roman Army in 106 BC for a new garrision, the troops digging out the initial defences found large and foul-smelling crystals of sal ammoniac, which were shipped back to Rome , where their properties were identified and named after the garrision.

Once alerted to the cleansing powers of ammonia, all garrisions began to collect urine every day for use in the laundry and the daily oral hygiene drill.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 17, 2013, 04:41:03 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

BATTLEAX

Overbearing harridan

Despite the antiquity of the weapon, this use of the term in its non-military, pejorative sense only dates from the 1890s, and refers to the American Rights Movement magazine of the same title.

The magazine celebrated the activities of one of the movement's more strident members, Carrie Nation (1846-1911), a 6-ft-(1.8m) tall Prohibitionist famed for marching into saloons to close them down with an axe. Weighing in at over 180lbs (82kg) it is said that most fled and left her to it.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 25, 2013, 06:45:54 AM
 Food for thought… or possible death
◾Those with a little money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach into the food, causing lead poisoning and often death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 07, 2014, 03:53:16 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

TURNCOAT
Traitor.
This was known in the 16th century long before soldiers had uniforms or coats, so all the stories claiming this is derived from deserters turning their coats inside out to show the colour of the opposing army are spurious; how could cloth be dyed to show a different colour each side ?

Only the very rich and powerful had coats that were lined .

A ''turncoat'' was an old coat that had been taken to a tailor to be inside out and revamped for those who could not afford to buy a new one .

The modern use was born of the metaphorical allusion to the changing of sides. REVAMP
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 03, 2014, 07:01:30 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

GENOCIDE
Eradication of an ethnic group.
Professor Raphael Lemkin (1900-59) of Duke University, North Carolina coined this term in 1933, and first used it when he addressed the League of Nations in Madrid at the beginning of his campaign to make genocide a recognized crime in its own right.

This meeting did not happen until December 9 ,1948, so it is a myth that the criminals at Nuremberg stood trial on such a charge, although the term was used during the proceedings. CONCENTRATION CAMP and HOLOCAUST
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 21, 2014, 04:38:16 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

KNUCKLEDUSTER
Brass finger guard

Firmly associated in the modern mind with street thugs, "knuckleduster" is actually a mid-19th century American nickname for the pepperbox pistol. Something of an early revolver, this had several barrels that could be rotated to bring them under the flintlock, resulting in the shotter's hand recieving a generous dusting of powder burn.

The brass trigger guard enclosed the shooter's entire hand so, even after all shots had been discharged, it could still serve as a brutal effective weapon.

In time , the pistol faded from use but left its nickname behind for brass knuckles.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: SOM LUCK on February 25, 2014, 07:31:23 AM
Always entertaining, Thanks
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 08, 2014, 04:54:31 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?               


In George Washigton's days, there were no cameras. One's  image was either sculpted or painted.  Some paintings  of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with  one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and  both arms.  Prices charged by painters were not based  on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs  were to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs," therefore  painting them would cost the buyer more.  Hence the  expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a  leg."
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 09, 2014, 06:34:19 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. However, how to prevent them from rolling about the deck? The best storage method devised was a square-based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.  Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem...how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey" with 16 round indentations.
However, if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it.  The solution to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys." Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too  far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the  iron cannonballs would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."
    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on April 09, 2014, 06:38:02 PM
Very good rufus, tell 'em about Brass Monkeys...  monkeydancing

Yesterday I was going to reply with the brass monkey story, but as I checked the internet, sources said it wasn't true. 


But it makes a good story. 

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 10, 2014, 05:05:00 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?
As  incredible as it sounds, men and women took baths only twice a year (May and October)!  Women kept their hair  covered, while men shaved their heads (because of lice and  bugs) and wore wigs  Wealthy men could afford good  wigs made from wool.  They couldn't wash the wigs, so  to clean them they would carve out a loaf of bread, put the  wig in the shell, and bake it for 30 minutes.  The heat  would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term "big  wig."  Today we often use the term "here comes the Big  Wig" because someone appears to be or is powerful and  wealthy.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 12, 2014, 07:25:00 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

Early  politicians required feedback from the public to determine  what the people considered important. Since there were no telephones, TV's or radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local taverns, pubs, and bars.  They were told to "go sip some ale" and listen to people's conversations and political concerns.  Many assistants  were dispatched at different times. "You go sip here"  and "You go sip there." The two words "go sip" were eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and, thus we have the term "gossip."
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 17, 2014, 03:54:38 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

At local taverns, pubs, and bars, people drank from pint and quart-sized containers. A bar maid's job was
to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in "pints" and  who was drinking in "quarts," hence the term "minding your "P's and Q's."
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 19, 2014, 07:22:45 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

Personal  hygiene left much room for improvement.  As a result,  many women and men had developed acne scars by  adulthood.  The women would spread bee's wax over their  facial skin to smooth out their complexions.  When they  were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at  another woman's face she was told, "mind your own bee's  wax."  Should the woman smile, the wax would crack,  hence the term "crack a smile."  In addition, when they  sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt . . ...  Therefore, the expression "losing face."
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 27, 2014, 07:23:50 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

Ladies wore corsets, which would lace up in the front.  A  proper and dignified woman, as in "straight laced". Wore a  tightly tied lace. 
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 29, 2014, 05:07:06 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

Ginger up.  Invigorate

During the 17th and 18th centuries, cavalrymen had a special way of getting the most out of their horse in a charge ;they would shove a pinch of ginger up the animal,s  backside to give the surprised horse a great incentive to move forward fast.

"Ginger up" thus came metaphorically to mean "invigorate".
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on May 29, 2014, 05:11:43 PM
old joke


You know what is old, wrinkled and smells like ginger? 



Fred Astaire's face. 

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 07, 2014, 08:10:04 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

HEAD HONCHO    
Ultimate boss or commander.    
This is one of many Japanese expressions picked up by American    
troops during their World War I1contactwith the Japanese. "Honcho"    
was the American version of han-cho, "squad leader"; in the Japanese    
Army a han-cho was a corporal or sergeant. The term enjoyed    
increased American usage during the Korean War (1950-53), along    
with other Japanese-derived terms such as "hooch," from uchi,    
"a dwelling," which to the troops meant any hut, bar, or brothel.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on June 07, 2014, 09:30:27 PM
Logic,

Guy:   How much are these?
Clerk:  20 baht each.
Guy: so If I buy 10 that will be 40 baht?
Clerk:  Yes
Guy:  I'll take 1000. 
Clerck:  That will be 80 baht. 

What is they guy buying? 

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: mxyzptlk on June 08, 2014, 12:16:42 PM
Logic,

Guy:   How much are these?
Clerk:  20 baht each.
Guy: so If I buy 10 that will be 40 baht?
Clerk:  Yes
Guy:  I'll take 1000. 
Clerck:  That will be 80 baht. 

What is they guy buying?
First of all I thought the quantities of the item being bought were being expressed in binary by the guy asking the price. But "1000" in binary is 8 which would make the total 160 (8 x 20) baht, so I'm obviously wrong...
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on June 08, 2014, 12:53:19 PM
Logic,

Guy:   How much are these?
Clerk:  20 baht each.
Guy: so If I buy 10 that will be 40 baht?
Clerk:  Yes
Guy:  I'll take 1000. 
Clerck:  That will be 80 baht. 

What is they guy buying?
First of all I thought the quantities of the item being bought were being expressed in binary by the guy asking the price. But "1000" in binary is 8 which would make the total 160 (8 x 20) baht, so I'm obviously wrong...

Oh but so close.  He was buying numbers.  10 is "1" and "0"  for 2 items, and "1000" is 4 items. 

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: mxyzptlk on June 08, 2014, 07:02:35 PM
Keith,
I'm more confused after your reply than I was before.
I'm sure there is a direct connection between my confusion and the number of beers I swallowed this afternoon @ Nookies.
Probably best to leave it at that......LOL
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on June 08, 2014, 08:51:10 PM
I thought is was clear.  Look at the Pic, actual numbers are being sold. 


But I did get to thinking that where I said "Guy:  I'll take 1000"  I easily could have said  "Guy:  I'll take 5829." 
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 09, 2014, 04:46:12 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

HOT SHOT
   
Competent orf7ashyperson.    
Along with grapeshot, barshot, and chainshot, the original hot shot    
was an option for early gunners who had to be certain they knew    
what they were doing throughout the loading process. It took about    
10 minutes to get a cannonball heated to red hot temperature, after    
which it was put into a gun prepared with wet wadding and fired    
as quickly as possible, with devastating results on the target. Most    
ships and batteries had one or two men skilled in the procedure,    
and by the 17th century "hot shot" was being heard in England. The    
expression would not arrive in American usage until the opening of    
the 20th century, despite the British unsportingly firing hot shot into    
Charlestown during the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), which,    
confusingly, actually took place on Breed's Hill.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 11, 2014, 07:43:08 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

SAIL UNDER FALSE COLORS
   
Subter-ge.    
In the 16th and 17th centuries there was only one accurate means of    
identification for ships and that was the flag flown at the masthead    
for all to see. Although each nation had its own peculiarities of    
rigging -hence the expression "I don't like the cut of his jib" -many    
ships were taken as prizes, so that different types of rigging were    
found in various navies. Thus the flag was the only reliable guide to    
nationality. Of course many signalmen kept a locker full of flags to    
suit all occasions, and while it was considered a trifle unsporting,    
many a captain sailed up close under false colors, only to strike these    
at the last minute and show his true colors just before opening fire    
on a startled enemy. NAIL YOUR COLORS TO THE MAST    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 13, 2014, 05:33:58 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

STICKLER
   
One who is overly observant of rules and regulations.    
Ultimately derived from the 13th-century Middle English stightle,"to    
set in order," this was the title of the umpires who oversaw anything    
from wrestling matches to judicial combat. In the case of the latter the    
rules were quite complicated, and the sticklers gained a reputation    
for their insistence on the observation of every little point and nicety.    
"Stickler" is still the title of the umpire in Cornish wrestling, which is    
not unlike judo in that it requires contestants to wear tough jackets.    
Sticklers were also involved in horse-racing to decide what    
amount of weight should be added to one animal or what length of    
head-start should be allowed to produce a fair contest. UMPIRE    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 15, 2014, 03:04:09 PM



DID YOU KNOW ?

BURY THE HATCHET
    
Make peace.    
Most Native American tribes went through a peace ceremony that    
involved the burying of axes and other weapons to signify a truce,    
and had done so for centuries before the English arrived and coined    
the above phrase. The French followed suit with enterrer la hache de    
guerre and the Dutch with de strijdbijil begraven; the locals, of course,    
would have spoken of burying the tomahawk. The ritual was    
preceded by what Europeans mistakenly called a pow-wow (po'wah),    
but that name in fact referred to the title of the medicine man    
chairing the peace-talks rather than to the discussions themselves.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 23, 2014, 04:36:50 PM

        DID YOU KNOW ?   

        CATCH 22
   
   No-win situation.    
   This extremely popular and useful expression is taken from    
   Joseph Heller's 1961 novel of the same title, in which Captain    
   Yossarian of the 256th US Army Bomber Squadron develops a    
   fervent desire not to fly any more missions. He discovers that the    
   only way to get relieved is to be classified as insane; but everything    
   in the Army has a catch, and Number 22 decreed that a man would    
   have to be insane to continue flying endless missions without    
   making a request to be relieved. However, the very making of such    
   a request to be relieved would indicate a rational desire to survive    
   which, in turn, indicated a rational mind. Therefore, the man was    
   sane enough to fly.    
   Heller's original title was Catch 18, but Leon Uris just beat him    
   to publication with Mila 18, forcing Heller to change his title at    
'       
   the last minute. He opted for Catch 11 but that was scotched by the    
   release of the film Ocean's Eleven, so Catch 22 it was!    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 30, 2014, 08:22:40 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BUCCANEER
   
A sea rover orfilibuster.    
Now synonymous with pirate, these Caribbean rovers were actually    
privateers, willing to take a letter of marque from any nation who    
would pay them to fight. Their nickname came from their staple    
rations of sun-dried meat prepared on a framework the natives    
called a bocan. The Spanish called the frame a barbacoa, (whence    
"barbeque") and the product charque, this surviving in America as    
"jerky." The South African equivalent, biltong, translates as the less-    
than-appetizing "buttock tongue," because it consists of strips of    
sun-dried rump. Ex;.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 08, 2014, 10:27:03 AM
   DID YOU KNOW ?

        INTOXICATE
   
   Make drunk.    
   The Greek for a bow was toxon, so any poison used to tip arrows    
'    was called toxikon. In Latin this became toxicare, "to smear with    
   poison," so the first people to be "intoxicated" were those shot with    
   poisoned arrows. All primitive toxins were prepared from distilled -C vegetable matter, so the word was also used to mean less harmful    
   vegetable distillations produced for pleasurable consumption. The    
   original link can still be seen in "toxophily," a formal term for the    
   skill of archery, and "name your poison" as a humorous invitation    
   to enjoy a drink.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: candy on July 08, 2014, 11:27:08 AM
Did you know?

Spy


spy (v.)
    mid-13c., "to watch stealthily," from Old French espiier "observe, watch closely, spy on, find out," probably from Frankish *spehon or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *spehon- (cognates: Old High German *spehon "to look out for, scout, spy," German spähen "to spy," Middle Dutch spien), the Germanic survivals of the productive PIE root *spek- "to look, observe" (see scope (n.1)). Old English had spyrian "make a track, go, pursue; ask about, investigate," also a noun spyrigend "investigator, inquirer." Italian spiare, Spanish espiar also are Germanic loan-words. Meaning "to catch sight of" is from c.1300. Children's game I spy so called by 1946.
spy (n.)
    mid-13c., "one who spies on another," from Old French espie "spy, look-out, scout" (Modern French épie), probably from a Germanic source related to spy (v.).

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 16, 2014, 05:03:12 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

INTERNECINE

   
Mutually destructive conflict.    
Any mutually destructive conflict or strife within a political    
organization that threatens to bring about the destruction of all    
involved is usually termed internecine, but the word means nothing    
of the sort. Although the foundation is the Latin necere, "to kill,'' this    
"inter" does not have the same meaning as is found in "intercom"    
or "international"; in this case, "inter" is an intensifier, so that    
the meaning becomes "to kill to the last man; to slaughter." The    
confusion stems from the famous English writer Samuel Johnson's    
(1709-89) Dictionary (1755), in which he wrongly defined the term    
as "endeavoring mutual destruction."    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 19, 2014, 08:48:14 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

THUG
   
Violent person.    
Just as "assassin"was brought home by returning crusaders, this came    
back with British troops returning from service in India, where they    
had endured first hand the attentions of the ritualistic killers known    
as the Thuggee. They took their name from the Sanskrit sthagati,"to    
conceal" or "cover up* ("thatchn is derived from the same word).    
The Thuggee cult is first mentioned in the mid-14th-century    
History of Firoz Shah by Ziauddin Barni, but it is generally accepted    
that they were on the rampage long before that, possibly as early as    
the opening of the 13th century. Thuggees dedicated themselves    
to the never-ending task of providing banquets for the insatiable    
goddess Kali, who dined on corpses. A group of them would    
masquerade as bona fide travelers and join a caravan so they could    
rise up and slaughter their fellow travelers in their sleep. So as not to    
waste any of the precious blood that Kali craved, all were stran    
with the yellow prayer-scarf that was Kali's symbol.    
L    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 01, 2014, 07:47:48 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

THROW DOWN THE GAUNTLET
   
Issue a challenge.    
In the 15th and 16th centuries, no knight could strike another outside    
the arena of judicial combat. So when instigating a fight, protocol    
demanded the insulted party cast down his gauntlet at the feet of    
the other party, who only had to take up the gauntlet to indicate the    
challenge was accepted.    
There have always been ploys to instigate a fight: a line can be    
scratched in the dirt before daring the other to cross it, and in 19th-    
century America the belligerent would place a wood-chip on their    
shoulder for the other to flick off and start the fight, hence "having a    
chip on your shoulder." RUN THE GAUNTLET    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on August 01, 2014, 08:56:09 PM
Since I was a military brat. 
 

Military BRAT…do you know the true meaning?


By: Williamsburg Military Insider

April is the month of the military child.  So many of our children are referred to as a Military BRAT, I actually never knew what the acronym stood for until this morning.
 
But to honor the month, I want to share a story … one that very few people know. This story is from Michael M. Dunn
 
When I was President of the National Defense University (NDU), I frequently bragged about the NDU library, calling it the “best library in the world.”  I had reason to … as, before I took over, it had won an award as the best library in government.  One night, at a social event at my home, I asserted the above praise, and my dear wife responded:  “If your library is so great, ask them to find the origin of the term ‘Military Brat.’  I think the term is an acronym.”
 
 [Many of you may know that the term Brat is a common reference to children of military members.  It is a term of endearment - referring to a group who endure hardships, frequently move, change schools, leave behind friends, put up with frequent deployments, long absences of their parent(s), and (sometimes) inadequate government housing.]
 
The NDU library came through.  A researcher there found a book written in 1921 which described the origins of the term.  It came, like many of our military traditions, from the British Army.  It seems that when a member of the British Army was assigned abroad and could take his family (mostly in India), the family went with the member in an Admin status entitled:  BRAT status.  It stands for:  British Regiment Attached Traveler.  Over the years, it was altered to refer only to the children of the military member (the wives of the British Army [who were all males] objected to the term referring to them).  And the term not only stuck, but in many cases was adopted world-wide.
 
 I can’t emphasize too much the support role of families to our military.  They move all over the world.  Continuity of education, friendships … and even living conditions are often lacking.  The success of the military is dependent upon the safety and support of their family members.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 20, 2014, 07:12:31 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?


I NEVER KNEW THIS ABOUT JAPAN - UK , Canada and US could learn a lot from this country. The Japanese are a very evolved race.

Have you ever read in the newspaper that a political leader or a prime minister from an Islamic nation has visited Japan ?
Have you ever come across news that the Ayatollah of Iran or the King of Saudi Arabia or even a Saudi Prince has visited Japan ?

Japan is a country keeping Islam at bay. Japan has put strict restrictions on Islam and ALL Muslims. The reasons are:

a) Japan is the only nation that does not give citizenship to Muslims.
b) In Japan permanent residency is not given to Muslims.
c) There is a strong ban on the propagation of Islam in Japan .
d) In the University of Japan , Arabic or any Islamic language is not taught.
e) One cannot import a 'Koran' published in the Arabic language.
f) According to data published by the Japanese government, it has given temporary residency to only 2 lakhs, Muslims, who must follow the Japanese Law of the Land. These Muslims should speak Japanese and carry their religious rituals in their homes.
g) Japan is the only country in the world that has a negligible number of embassies in Islamic countries.
h) Japanese people are not attracted to Islam at all.
I) Muslims residing in Japan are the employees of foreign companies.
j) Even today, visas are not granted to Muslim doctors, engineers or managers sent by foreign companies.
k) In the majority of companies it is stated in their regulations that no Muslims should apply for a job.
l) The Japanese government is of the opinion that Muslims are fundamentalist and even in the era of globalization they are not willing to change their Muslim laws.
m) Muslims cannot even think about renting a house in Japan .
n) If anyone comes to know that his neighbor is a Muslim then the whole neighborhood stays alert.
o) No one can start an Islamic cell or Arabic 'Madrasa' in Japan
p) There is no Sharia law in Japan .
q) If a Japanese woman marries a Muslim then she is considered an outcast forever.
r) According to Mr. Kumiko Yagi, Professor of Arab/Islamic Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, "There is a mind frame in Japan that Islam is a very narrow minded religion and one should stay away from it."

My estimation of the Japanese has risen dramatically!

VERY SMART PEOPLE
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: JasonB on August 20, 2014, 07:40:04 PM
The Japanese have always been highly evolved and smart,they lost the battle but won the war,so to speak.As for the Muslim religion,there are some good people and bad,like everywhere,but I have maintained for years that they are fundamentally different from most cultures,and if the whole world was Muslim,they would still find a reason to fight among themselves.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: CO-CO on August 20, 2014, 09:00:41 PM
The Japanese have always been highly evolved and smart,they lost the battle but won the war,so to speak.As for the Muslim religion,there are some good people and bad,like everywhere,but I have maintained for years that they are fundamentally different from most cultures,and if the whole world was Muslim,they would still find a reason to fight among themselves.


I have seen that email questioned before. This is all I could find:-


http://www.barenakedislam.com/2012/09/21/bni-response-to-the-viral-email-re-islam-and-japan/
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 25, 2014, 07:15:56 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

VANDAL
   
Destructive person.    
None of the Germanic tribes left behind any written history, so the    
only details about them come mainly from the Romans, who painted    
them all as savages. However, they were in the main a great deal    
more sivilized and compassionate than the Romans, who reserved    
particular ire for the Vandals, whose name originally meant    
"Wanderers," as they had the temerity to march into Rome in AD 455    
and sack the city. However, they were there by imperial invitation.    
The Roman Emperor Valentinian I11 was in negotiation with    
Gaiseric, the Vandal king, to bring his lands and peoples back into the    
Roman fold; Valentinian even offered his daughter's hand in marriage    
to one of Gaiseric's sons, Huneric. No sooner was everything settled    
than Valentinian was murdered in a coup, prompting his widow,    
Licinia Eudoxia, to write to Gaiseric, pleading with him to come to    
Rome and rescue her and her daughters. Unfortunately he sacked the    
city while he was at it. The ladies returned to Carthage with Gaiseric    
where one of the daughters, Eudocia, did indeed marry Huneric as    
originally planned.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 27, 2014, 06:54:51 PM
   

DID YOU KNOW ?

NUMBER IS UP, YOUR    
Impending trouble or death.    
This seems to have two parents. Nineteenth-century admirals used    
to summon selected captains of their fleet to conferences on their    
flagsbigs by hoisting their ships' numbers in semaphore; this    
invariably meant that action was not far off. Also, British Army    
miscreants had to line up outside the CO's (Commanding Officer's)    
office to be called in by their service number to be informed of their    
punishment. The expression moved into general use at the beginning    
of World War I.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 02, 2014, 07:06:36 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

CLOSE RANKS
    
Present a united front.    
The concentrated and rhythmic firepower of the British Army    
in either its square or Its three-tiered line was as methodical as it    
was lethal. Naturally there were casualties sustained by such a    
presentation, and from time to time the above order would be given,    
requiring the ranks to close up over their own dead to reconsolidate    
the line. First noted in print in the mid-17th century, in recent    
times the expression has taken on conspiratorial overtones    
and is more often heard to describe thg united wall of silence    
presented by a professional body when being questioned about    
ethical procedures.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 09, 2014, 05:48:26 PM

        DID YOU KNOW ?
   
         GRINGO
   
   Any non-Hispanic in Mexico.    
   The great fiction attached to 'gringo" maintains that American    
   troops marching down to the Mexican-American War (1846-48)    
   loved to sing "Green Grow the Rushes-0," prompting Mexicans to    
   construct 'kringo" from the first two words of the title. Another folk    
   etymology ties the birth of the term to green coats worn by American    
   troops at the time, which caused hostile Mexican civilians to chant    
   "Greens go home!" or an equivalent phrase. In fact, the term had    
   been in use in Spanish since the early 18th century; only its    
   appearance in English coincided with the Mexican-American War,    
   which explains the rash of stories trying to pin it to that conflict.    
   The Castillian Dictionary (1787) by Esteban de Terreros explains    
a    that the term was used in Malaga for any non-Spaniard, while in    
   Madrid it was specific to the influx of Irish; either way, both    
   applications rested on the established phrase hablar en griego, "to    
   speak in Greek," which most Spanish languages used to describe    
   anyone talking rubbish or nonsense. English has its own parallel in    
   "It's all Greek to me!" TARTAR    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 16, 2014, 10:24:37 AM


DID YOU KNOW ?

MONEY
   
Currency    
In 390 BC the Gauls attacked the city of Rome itself. In a night-time    
offensive, the Gauls tried to sneak up the walls, but they had    
neglected to abandon their wooden overshoes; they were so noisy    
that the guard-geese of the temple of Juno raised the alarm and the    
Roman Guard turned out to send the barbarians on their way. The    
goddess Juno was rewarded with the new title of Moneta, "she who    
warns:' and the geese were sacrificed and served up at a celebratory    
feast. From 269 BC Moneth temple was used to house the Roman    
mint, and the currency produced there was named after her; the    
variant spelling, Mynet, evolved into "mint."    
The use of geese as "guard dogs" is still common; there is a large    
flock on the night shift at Ballantine's main Glasgow depot, which    
holds 240 million liters of maturing whisky.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 25, 2014, 07:27:16 PM


DID YOU KNOW ?

COLD FEET
   
Fear or apprehension before an event.    
Properly called Immersion Syndrome, trench foot was rife among    
the World War I troops in northern France and was caused by long    
periods of standing around in cold and muddy water. Painful and    
debilitating it may have been but it was a sure ticket to the hospital,    
and those with a strong aversion to being shot at would endure    
the condition until just before a major offensive, reporting to the    
medical officer at the last minute.    
The condition was first noted during Napoleon's failed Moscow    
campaign of 1812 and his subsequent retreat. Once back in France, a    
paper describing the disease was published by Army Surgeon-in-Chief,    
Baron Larrey, the man who invented the ambulance. AMBULANCE    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 01, 2014, 07:48:24 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

COHORT
   
Disreputable associate.    
After arriving in 15th-century English, "cohort" moved a long way    
from its original meaning in the Roman Army, wherein a legion    
comprised ten cohorts of up to 600 men. Each Roman cohort was a    
self-contained unit, so when the term entered English it first applied    
to a walled garden or self-contained enclosure, such as a court, before    
"hort" went its own way in the early-mid 18th century to survive in    
terms such as "horticulture."    
By the late 18th century, the term was being used of any closed    
L or cloistered group with its own hidden agenda, and the final nail    
in the coffin was hammered home in 20th-century America, where    
the word was increasingly applied to disreputable associates after    
evangelical preachers took to referring to the forces of evil as "Satan    
and his cohorts."    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 21, 2014, 04:21:22 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

PITCHED BATTLE
    
Major conflict.    
Sixteenth-century military communications consisted of a man on    
a horse with little idea of where he was heading. It was not unknown    
for armies to stamp around the countryside for days looking for    
the opposition, who were also marching around in circles trying    
to find the enemy. To avoid this confusion, important battles    
were formally arranged and "pitched at a specific venue on a date    
sufficiently far in advance to ensure that the combatants had plenty    
of time to prepare.    
였̆䦬Ჰ㛱⣰೻뉈̓
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 29, 2014, 10:13:27 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

POINT BLANK

   
Straight-talking; popularly, very close range.    
The expression is more common in America employed in the first    
application -"I told him point blank what he could do with his job."    
Perhaps the recent wave of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation television    
programs has done much to cement the second meaning that a shot    
taken at point blank range is one fired from a couple of feet away.    
Originallypoint blanc, the French for "aim at the white," this was    
born of late medieval archery targets, when the bull's eye was white.    
Ah archer standing close enough to the target to hit the bull without    
anv elevation would literally point (straight at the) blanc. In gunnery    
it was more complicated. Cannon barrels tapered to the muzzle,    
so the bore sat elevated even in a gun laid to the horizontal, and the    
recoil would add an extra "flick." All ballistic projectiles travel in an    
arc, so when fired, the shot rises to what is called the "point-blank    
primary" before its arc takes it below that line to the "point blank    
secondary"; the distance between these is the point blank range.    
"Point blank range" is thus a variable; in modern artillery it can be    
anything up to a mile and in firearms up to perhaps 250yds.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 12, 2014, 05:55:22 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

DUMMY RUN
   
Practice or rehearsal.    
Bombers used to practice with dummy bombs, and submariners' drill    
included torpedo practice with dummy warheads. Some sources like    
to maintain that "dry ryn" was born of bench-tested torpedoes, but    
that expression was used by 19th-century American fire brigades for    
a drill without any water in the pumps and tenders.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 20, 2014, 06:20:52 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

ESCAPE
   
Elude danger.    
This emerged back in the days of capes and swordplay, when there    
were no rules of engagement and anything went: backstabbing,    
spitting, biting, and so on. Getting a good grip on an opponent's    
cape to tug them off balance was a favorite maneuver that could only    
be countered by that person slipping out of their cape to safety.    
"Escape" derived from such terms as the Italian scappare (ex cappa,    
"out of the cape") which is also the likely progenitor of "scarper," a    
British slang term meaning "to run away."    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 29, 2014, 09:39:56 AM


DID YOU KNOW ?

FACE THE MUSIC
    
Accept punishment.    
When any European or American officer is cashiered, from the    
French casser,"to break," he is required to face the regimental drum-    
squad while the reasons for his dismissal are read out for all to hear.    
He must continue to face the (drum) music, which then alters to a    
somber tattoo, while his sword is broken and the buttons are torn    
from his uniform. At this point the rhythm changes to the infamous    
"Rogue's March" to accompany the broken officer as he takes the    
walk of shame across the parade ground. This is the derivation of the    
expression "drummed out,'' first noted in print outside military circles    
in 1766,while "face the music" was adopted in the UK in the 1880s    
from American usage in the same context.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 11, 2014, 06:18:37 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

FIRST RATE
   
Top class.    
First rate, second rate, and third rate were originally classes of British    
warships as defined in 1677 by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) during    
his stint as First Secretary to the Admiralty. First-rate warships carried    
100 guns and about 800 men; second-rate warships carried 82 guns    
and 530 men; and third-rate warships carried 74 guns and 460 men.    
The ratings continued as far down as sixth rate, which described    
warships with perhaps 30 guns and around 60 men. By extension, the    
terms came to be applied to people or things by the early 1680s.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 21, 2014, 02:44:30 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

FULL TILT
 
Maximum speed.    
Yomping across rough terrain on a horse while holding an 8-foot pole    
at the horizontal was not a sensible option for knights in combat.    
Instead, they held their lances upright until closing with their    
opponent at top speed, at which point the lance would be lowered,    
or tilted, down to use. The phrase "full tilt" thus came to mean "full    
speed" in a metaphorical sense.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 24, 2014, 01:01:08 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

ETIQUETTE
   
Punctilious manners.    
Basically meaning "to stick" or "attach," when this first appeared in    
14th-century French it described a piece of white paper stuck to a    
post to serve as an archery target, and later, to a poster in a barracks    
giving details of billeting arrangements or any update of orders.    
When the term arrived in mid- 18th-century English it was hijacked    
by court and diplomatic circles to describe a small hand-out, or    
ticket, giving information about the pecking order of visiting    
dignitaries and who should bow to whom, and so forth. Thus    
"etiquette" moved from archery to fancy manners, creating "that's the    
ticket!" along the way. PROTOCOL    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 17, 2015, 11:51:17 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

A Roman soldier's helmet was secured by a strapwith a tined fkhg    
that lay against the right cheek, which explains why the modern    
buckle is named from the Latin buccula, "a little cheek." Before steel    
plate and mail, most early armor was made of stiffened leather panels    
(harness) secured by buckles; hence the phrase "buckle down,"    
meaning "to get into action," and the explanation as to why those who went down fighting   
 would "die in harness," as long after steel    
armour had replaced leather, "harness" remained an accepted term and was still   
being used in such a  context until the late 19th century.    
SWASHBUCKLING
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 19, 2015, 05:33:27 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

FABIAN TACTICS

               
Constructive prevarication.                
During    the    Second Punic    War    (218-201    BC), the    Roman    
commander and statesman Quintus Fabius Maximus (d. 203 BC)    
was given the job of fighting the Carthaginian general, Hannibal,    
an enemy Fabius thought best worn down rather than confronted    
head on. To the fury of his foe Fabius led the Carthaginians a    
merry dance, stretching Hannibal's supply lines to breaking    
point and constantly maneuvering him into hilly terrain where his    
famous cavalry was useless. Until his strategy proved effective,    
Fabius was derided in the Senate and nicknamed Cunctator, "The    
Delayer," a name he kept as a badge of honor after the vindication    
of his tactics.    
The left-wing Fabian Society (est. 1884) took his name because    
its declared objectives %re to bring about social change by a slow    
process of education and persuasion rather than by revolution.    
   
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 23, 2015, 06:57:26 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BASTARD
    
Illegitimate child or an unpleasant person.    
"Bastard" derives from "bast" or "bat:' alternative names for the kind    
of pack-saddle used in the baggage-trains that followed an army on    
the move. This saddle opened out into a crude bed for nights on the    
trail. A child supposedly conceived on a "bast," and thus unlikely to    
be the issue of a sanctified union, was called a biitard in French and    
in English a "bastard."    
Whilst "bastard" is now exclusively offensive -synonyms include    
the grandiose "love-child" -it was not thus in military and court    
circles of old, where the bastards of nobles rose quickly through the    
ranks. The Norman warlord, William the Conqueror (1027-87) was    
respectfully known as "Le Grand Bitard de Normandie," this neatly    
summing up what was thought of him in the modern sense in    
England, where the surname of Bastard would also be claimed with    
pride. Another noble, Robert the Bastard, also arrived at the Norman    
invasion and established the House of Bastard at Kitley in Devon.    
Since then, quite a few Bastards have sat in the House of Commons,    
the most recent being John Pollexfen Bastard (1756-1816) and    
Edmund Bastard, who took up the seat when John died. The British    
Army has also enjofed its share of high-ranking Bastards, including    
Colonel Reginald Bastard DSO &Bar (1880-1960), Lieutenant of the    
County of Devon, who was succeeded in this office by his son, the    
now deceased Captain Rodney Bastard.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 27, 2015, 06:43:33 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

MAYONNAISE

    
Dressing for salad.    
After a long siege in 1756,Frehch forces under the Duc de Richelieu    
ousted the British from Port Mahon on the Spanish island of    
Minorca. The siege had been protracted and the blockade so    
successful that the Duc's chef was hard pressed to come up with a    
victory banquet, but he did the best he could and dressed the side    
salad with a new sauce, first called "Mahonaise" after the port.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 30, 2015, 06:06:10 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BLESS
   
Consecrate or sanction.    
The original meaning of the term can be seen in the Old English    
bletsian (Middle English blessen), "to injure or make bleed," which is    
stiU reflected in the modern French verb blesser, "to injure." In earlier    
times to "bless" someone was to hack them to pieces on the battlefield.    
The shift in meaning arose from pre-battle augury and sacrifice to    
attempt to determine the outcome of the forthcoming conflict.    
Dark Age Britain (5th-11th centuries) was by no means a    
Christian enclave, pagan sacrifice persisting to the end of that period    
and likely beyond. Before any battle, early Dark Age commanders    
would stretch out their arms to mark off a section of the sky to be    
read for omens and portents (the auspices), usually involving the    
significance of any bird that flew through the section. Nezrt, the    
commander would cut the throat of some unfortunate animal and    
daub the blood on the foreheads of his juniors to bless them in their    
battle-fortunes. Finally, he would dip his grouped finger-tips in the    
blood and kiss them. This is still done today to indicate excellence,    
but without the blood. BLIZZARD    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 08, 2015, 04:50:15 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BENNIES    


Falkland Islanders.    
After the British Army secured the Fakland Islands in the Falklands    
War of 1982, the honeymoon with the locals was short-lived. The    
troops nicknamed their reluctant hosts "Bennies" after the simple-    
minded character Benny in the British soap opera Crossroads.When    
the community relations officers opined that this was hardly    
conducive to harmony, the troops used "Bubs," "bloody ungrateful    
bastards," instead. A flurry of memos followed, demanding that this    
term also be abandoned, so the squaddies altered position to "Stills,"    
"still bloody ungrateful bastards."    
Not to be outdone, the islanders called the troops "Whennies," as    
most of the old soldiers' tales to which they were treated began with    
When I was in Belize ..." or some other far-flung locale.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 12, 2015, 05:05:25 PM
        DID YOU KNOW  ?

        FLAK

      
   Barrage of criticism.    
   An abbreviation of the German Fliegerabwehkanone, "anti-aircraft    
   gun," this term enjoyed limited metaphorical use by World War I    
   British pilots, but it was World War 11British and American pilots    
   speaking of "catching flak" after a dressing-down which brought the    
   term into general use on both sides of the Atlantic.    
   To afford aircrew some protection from ground fire, the British    
   company Wilkinson Sword produced jackets made of Du Pont's    
'    ballistic nylon, the forerunner of their more successful Kevlar, with    
   metal inserts. Unfortunately these were too bulky for the confines of    
   World War I1British bbmbers, so the stock was offered to American    
   aircrew whose planes were roomier. Today, "flak jacket" is used of a    
   bulletproof vest.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on February 12, 2015, 10:00:13 PM
        DID YOU KNOW  ?

        FLAK

      
   Barrage of criticism.    
   An abbreviation of the German Fliegerabwehkanone, "anti-aircraft    
   gun," this term enjoyed limited metaphorical use by World War I    
   British pilots, but it was World War 11British and American pilots    
   speaking of "catching flak" after a dressing-down which brought the    
   term into general use on both sides of the Atlantic.    
   To afford aircrew some protection from ground fire, the British    
   company Wilkinson Sword produced jackets made of Du Pont's    
'    ballistic nylon, the forerunner of their more successful Kevlar, with    
   metal inserts. Unfortunately these were too bulky for the confines of    
   World War I1British bbmbers, so the stock was offered to American    
   aircrew whose planes were roomier. Today, "flak jacket" is used of a    
   bulletproof vest.    


think I need one of them for when I do postings. 

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on March 22, 2015, 05:43:49 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BAG AND BAGGAGE
   
Everything.    
Not quite the tautology it appears for, since the 15th century, this    
has been a recognized British Army command calling for all to    
quit a camp or barracks, never to return. If only leaving for a short    
time then a single bag would suffice, but when the regiment moved    
out in its entirety, it was a case of personal bags plus all equipment    
and supplies being loaded onto a baggage train. LOCK, STOCK    
AND BARREL    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 10, 2015, 05:44:21 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BALACLAVA
   
Woolen helmet.    
The original balaclava covered not only the head but also the    
shoulders and was general issue to British troops in the Crimean War    
(1853-56), where the winters were extremely cold. Although the    
garments were a thoughtful gesture, knitted in the main by well-    
intentioned women back home, they were no match for the Crimean    
cold, so the troops nicknamed them after the location of the    
disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade. Officers tried to discourage    
the usage but the name stuck.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Westlife on April 11, 2015, 12:52:55 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

Neighbour

How Did the Word “Neighbour” Originate and What Does Neighbour Mean In Old English?


In the early days of our language, in the times that we call Old English, the word “neighbour” was a compound word, made up of the two elements, neah and gebur.

These separately have descended to us as “nigh” and “boor,” and that is exactly what neighbour originally meant, a nearby rustic or peasant, a husbandman dwelling nearby.

From the origin it would appear, therefore, that the term applies only to countryfolk and to small villages, but it was early taken into the towns and cities and applied to anyone who lived nearby.


Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 17, 2015, 03:26:04 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

THE BALLOON WENT UP
    
Indication of imminent trouble    
Before a World War I infantry attack, artillery would soften up    
the target area and, prior to their opening fire, observation balloons    
were winched aloft to correct aim. Naturally, this alerted those in the    
trenches that it would not be long before someone was ordered over the    
top, and so "the balloon went up came to mean "imminent trouble."    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Westlife on April 17, 2015, 03:57:29 PM
DID YOU KNOW

PITCHER

The word "pitcher" comes from the 13th century Middle English word picher, which means earthen jug. The word picher is linked to the old French word pichier which is the altered version of the word bichier, meaning drinking cup.The pitcher’s origin goes as far back to the Medieval Latin word bicarium from the Greek word bikos, which meant earthen vessel. Compare with Dutch beker, German Becher and English beaker.

ALSO

In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. Traditionally, the pitcher also bats. Starting in 1973 with the American League and spreading to further leagues throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the hitting duties of the pitcher have generally been given over to the position of designated hitter, a cause of some controversy. The National League in Major League Baseball and the Japanese Central League are among the remaining leagues that have not adopted the designated hitter position.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 23, 2015, 07:26:25 PM
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BLIMP
   
Observation balloon; pompous old man.    
"The term blimp originated in the last war, when British lighter-    
than-air-aircraft were divided into Type A-Rigid and Type B-Limp    
i.e. without rigid internal framework" (War Illustrated, December    
29, 1939).    
The second meaning emerged in the interwar period, when David    
Low (1891-1963) ran his Colonel Blimp cartoon in the London    
Evening Standard newspaper to national acclaim. Obviously he took    
the name from the military balloon because of its suggestion of    
inflation without any substance. In 1943,Michael Powell and Emeric    
Pressburger, co-producers of the Archers Film Company, produced    
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a film chronicling the career of    
an ineffectual colonel from the Boer War to the opening of World    
War 11. The film was not released until 1945 because Churchill used    
-the Defense of the Realm Act (DORA) to block its release as being    
detrimental to wartime morale. DUD    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 27, 2015, 06:19:08 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?
 
COCKPIT
    
Control area.    
In a man-of-war, the space below the lower gun-deck (otherwise    
the midshipmen's mess) also served as the surgeon's operating    
room during battles. Grapeshot and flying oak splinters the size    
of javelins produced horrific injuries, so it was perhaps inevitable    
that this area, blood soaked in battle, was nicknamed "the cockpit" in    
the late 1600s by drawing a parallel with the arena where cocks were    
pitted to tear each other to pieces in a blood-splattered spectacle.    
When smaller vessels such as the modern yacht came into use, the    
term transferred to the corresponding area, which now housed    
the steering gear and navigational aids. YACHT    


Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 01, 2015, 08:26:20 AM

        DID YOU KNOW ?
   
        BERSERK
   
   Violentfrenzy.    
   Tyr was a Scandinavian warrior-god whose devotees were famed for    
   charging into battle stark naked, or sometimes with just a bear-skin    
   cape. The warriors were beset with a form of battle madness of such    
   extremes that they were reputedly unable to distinguish friend from    
   foe, and this was called berserk.    
   The origin of the name is not entirely clear but is known to stem    
   kom one of three Norse options: bjorn serkr, "bear-shirt"; berr serce,    
   "bare of mail," or berr serkr, "bare of shirt." The inclusion of berserkers    

    in raids on England gave us the present English usage.    
   Regarded as a warrior-elite, they were free to do much as they    
   pl-easedwithin their own communities, were they raped and murdered    
   atwill. Theywere last mentioned in AD 860 asthe personal bodyguard    of the
   Norwegian King Harald ~airhir (AD 850-933). RUN AMOK    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 17, 2015, 07:11:46 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

DEAD AS A DOORNAIL
    
Completely defunct.    
Fourteenth-century carpenters constructing fortified doors for    
castles and keeps had to build them in such a way that they could not    
be dismantled from the outside. As may still commonly be seen in    
the structure of church doors and the like, this called for heavy ball-    
headed nails that were impossible to grip with any tools of the time    
and that also had a spike far longer than was required to penetrate the    
door panels and the internal batons. This excess shank of the nail    
was bent over and hammered flat against the internal face of the door    
in a process called "clinching or "dead-nailing." Through a pun on    
"dead," the expression has been used from the mid-1300s of anyone    
unmistakably dead.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 22, 2015, 05:32:05 PM

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PASS THE BUCK
    
Shifting responsibility.    
In the early 19th century in the American West, it became customary    
to keep a piece of heavy-gauge buckshot on the poker table as a    
marker to indicate where the deal lay next; some say this marker was    
a buckhorn-handled knife, but weapons on a poker table does not    
seem a sensible idea. As each successive player picked up the deck to    
deal, he passed the buck to the man on his right. Some forms of poker    
precluded shuffling between rounds for two reasons: firstly, a good    
card sharp needs to work the deck to gain an edge, and secondly it    
gave the more able players a chance to build up a rough idea of the    
running order. In a game without shuffling, the only way players    
could "shake things up a bit" was to miss out his deal and simply pass    
the buck. Sometimes this would be done by more than one player to    
shift the buck halfway round the table.    
In high-stake and private games in which poker chips were the    
norm, a silver dollar was used as the marker but still called the buck.    
This is why a dollar is still called a buck. The phrase "the buck stops    
here" was made famous by poker-mad Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)    
who kept such a sign on his desk in the White House. It was made for    
him by the inmates of Oklahoma's El Reno prison and mailed out to    
him by the warden on October 2, 1945.    

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 25, 2015, 04:00:42 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

BANZAI
   
Foolhardiness or suicidal tactics.    
The term is of Chinese origin, and while its literal meaning is "ten    
thousand," it is also understood to indicate an infinite number, in the    
same way as the Greek word myriad. "Banzai" was adopted by the    
Japanese in the 8th century but fell from popular use until the late    
19th century, when it was revived as a chant beseeching the emperor    
to live forever, as he was considered a living god.    
The Japanese Army adopted the term as a battle-cry for suicide    
squads, who would charge into the fray screaming the term in the    
notion that immortality awaited them. These tactics were successful    
against poorly-armed and -trained Chinese troops in the First    
(1894-95) and Second (1937-45) Sino-Japanese Wars, but far less    
effective against properly trained Allied troops whose modern    
weapons were capable of shooting several hundred rounds per minute.    
The last banzai charge occurred at the Australian POW    
Compound No 12, Cowra, New South Wales. More than half of the    
4,000 internees were Japanese, and on August 5, 1944 a large mob,    
armed with sticks and homemade knives, launched a banzai charge    
at the perimeter fence, where machine-gun emplacements killed    
about 350 of them before the situation was brought under control.    
The Japanese Gardens and Cemetery, later designed and laid    
out at Cowra by Ken Nakajima, are still a major tourist attraction. In    
general usage, dangerous drivers (i.e. those with a death-wish) are    
called "banzai boys,'' and a Royal Navy group going ashore to get    
drunk is known as a "banzai party." KAMIKAZE    
   
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 28, 2015, 06:08:05 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

WHOLE NINE YARDS

   
Everything; all-out effort.    
Although it is difficult to pin down this expression to any particular    
plane or theater of war, the timing of its emergence into general    
speech in the 1950s or 1960s and the fact that it almost certainly    
had a military origin of some kind does lend support to the notion    
that the inspiration was the 27ft-(9 yard) ammunition belts carried    
by many World War I1 fighters flown by both the British and the    
Americans. If a pilot homed in on a target and expended all his    
ammunition in a determined and sustained attack, then it is easy to    
see how talk of "give it the whole nine yards" could have arisen in    
mess chat. That said, this derivation does not go unchallenged, but    
until someone comes up with a better suggestion it has to stand as    
the best bet.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 03, 2015, 06:51:01 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

CHASTITY BELT
    
Metal or leather girdle preventing sexual intercourse.    
The myth of the chastity belt grew out of the notion that knights riding    
off to war or a crusade would encase their beloved's loins in such a    
device to preclude any lapse of virtue during their separation. This is,    
however, a modern misunderstanding of the numerous medieval    
references to chastity belts and girdles, which were made of cord    
knotted into a distinctive pattern and tied about the waist to announce    
the wearer's intention to remain chaste, equivalent to the present-day    
virginity ring. According to Keyser von Eichstad's Bellifortis (1405),    
respectable women of Florence and Venice opted for "iron breeches"    
when venturing about those notorious cities, but these were anti-rape    
devices for which the women themselves kept the keys. In the 19th    
century smiths and artisans began to manufacture objects such as they    
imagined a chastity belt to have been and to sell them off to museums,    
and this is where the image of the locked, metal girdle originated.    
Eventually, the British Museum, the Musee National du Moyen Age,    
and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, to name but a few, removed    
all such items from display.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 08, 2015, 05:56:31 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

UNION JACK
    
British flag.    
Some argue that this is only the name of the flag when flown from the    
jackstaff of a warship and that otherwise the flag should be known as    
the Grand Union, but this is dismissed as a relatively recent idea by    
the Flag Institute of Great Britain. The idea that the flag should be    
flown upside down to indicate distress is also incorrect. Although    
it sounds a mite fanciful, the term more likely began life as the    
commoners' nickname for the flag as based on the name Jack, which    
is actually the pet form of James (Latin Jacobus). This is certainly    
the derivation favored by the historian Dr David Starkey.    
After countless wars and cross-border spats, the first significant    
step toward a United Kingdom came in 1603 when the same king    
held thrones as James I of England and James VI of Scotland. Three    
years later this union was celebrated by the new flag, which was    
referred to as the Flag of Britain. By 1625 there was mention of    
the device as the Flag of the Union, but by far the more popular    
with the general people was the Jack Flag and quite possibly Jack's    
Flag. TORY    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 15, 2015, 06:32:10 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

WASHOUT
    
Abject failure.    
Below the targets on pre-World War I military target ranges sat the    
markers, who held long sticks that they used to indicate the accuracy    
of the shots. These poles were topped with a 9-inch metal disc that    
was painted black on one side and white on the other. A shot striking    
the outermost division was indicated by spinning the pole, and one    
that missed the target completely was indicated by the disc being    
swung to and fro in an arc across the face of the target as if washing    
it, hence the term.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 20, 2015, 07:12:27 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

GOON
   
Stupid and brutal person.    
Although the term has been around since the 16th century, when    
sailors referred to the albatross as the "gooney bird," the term's    
modern popularity and application is specific to the 1920s Thimble    
Theater cartoon strip, from which the American troops adopted    
many terms and expressions.    
Long before it evolved into Popeye, Thimble Theater was the most    
popular cartoon in America, and Alice the Goon, a bulky creature    
with a bald head and long nose, made a regular appearance. Although    
E. C. Segar's Alice was placid and good natured, the term was    
used in the late 1930s for any thug brought in to "regulate" striking    
workers. Within a decade British and American POWs were using it    
of their German guards; it then moved into general use to describe    
anyone deemed stupid or brutal.    
In more recent times, ex-serviceman and comedian Spike    
Milligan (1918-2002), who found much humor and comfort in the    
lunacy of Thimble Theater during the war, named his famous Goon    
Show after Alice, whose friend, the hamburger-crazed Wellington    
Wimpy, gave his surname to the burger-chain. JEEP    

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 25, 2015, 11:22:07 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

DAMN THE TORPEDOES, FULL SPEED AHEAD   
    
Proceed despite obvious dangers.    
On August 5,1864, during the American Civil War, Union Admiral    
David Farragut's fleet entered Mobile Bay to take on the Confederate    
fleet. Almost immediately, he lost his lead ship, USS Tecumseh, to a    
mine (then known as a torpedo) and, despite the very obvious    
presence of other devices afloat in the bay, he ordered his captains to    
proceed. The fate of the USS Tecumseh had caused another ship to    
falter and hold up the line, prompting Farragut to shout "Damn the    
torpedoes! Four bells! Captain Drayton, go ahead [this to the bridge    
of the faltering ship] Jouett, full speed!" (this to his own captain).    
Farragut's audacity won the day and he proceeded to sink several    
enemy ships and capture the remainder in the bay, including the    
Confederate flagship, Tennessee.    
Although the American Civil War did see the advent of mines with    
electric firing devices -most notably those designed by Samuel Colt    
of pistol fame -these were notoriously unreliable, and a torpedo could    
still be as unsophisticated as a barrel of gunpowder set adrift with a    
slow fuse and a lot of hope, although if it found a target it could have    
a stunning effect. It was named from the Latin torpere,"to stun," which    
is also the Latin term for the so-called electric eel, which is really a    
fish with a 500-volt tail. Roman doctors were yell aware of the torpor    
these creatures could induce if they shoved them into the armpits of    
hysterics and epileptics, so the Roman Navy adopted the same term    
for the ram on the front of a warship, a burning rock hurled from a    
catapult, or even a fire ship; anything that "stunned" an enemy ship.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 04, 2015, 11:53:53 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

FLASH IN THE PAN
      
Transitory fame.       
There have been attempts in America to link this expression to the       
California Gold Rush (1848-55) and a single flash of gold in the       
prospector's pan, which failed to reveal more. Although prospectors'       
slang did produce talk of successful ventures "panning out," and       
"dishing the dirt" from their gossiping while working, "flash in the       
pan" is first noted in the 17th century in reference to a common failing of a militiaman's flintlock.    -   
Early flintlock weapons were not known for their reliability, and    
a common malfunction involved the spark igniting the gunpowder    
in the priming pan, which then faded to ignite the main charge in    
the barrel. The result was all flash and no bang, so the expression    
soon referred to people and events of great show but little substance    
GO OFF HALF-COCK and COCKSURE
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 12, 2015, 09:53:13 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

WEAR YOUR HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE
    
Tie your fate to that of another.    
Prior to a medieval joust each lady of the court would select a    
champion to whom she was likely romantically linked. Her selected    
knight would be presented with her scarf, which he tied around    
his arm and secured with the lady's brooch for all to see; the lady    
had pinned her hopes on her champion, and he was then said to be    
"wearing his heart on his sleeve."    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 31, 2015, 09:06:56 AM



DID YOU KNOW ?

PARTING SHOT
    
Cutting remark issued on departure.    
The army of the Parthian dynasty of Persia (modern Iran) included a    
large number of lightly-equipped horse archers. They were extremely    
skillful, and one of their tactics was to feign retreat and then turn in    
the saddle and cut down pursuers with an unexpected shot. Over    
time, the expression has altered from "Parthian shot" to "parting shot."    

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Jackie-boy on July 31, 2015, 03:30:35 PM
Oversexed, overpaid and over here

Meaning

Comic line, making fun of the US Army in Europe in WWII. There was a good humoured banter between the GIs that were stationed in Britain prior to and during WWII and the British citizenry. The GIs had a come-back - calling the Brits, "underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower".

cookConditions were harsh in Britain in the early 1940s and there was also an undercurrent of unease that was conveyed by the phrase, especially amongst British men, who resented the attraction of GIs, with their ready supply of nylons and cigarettes, amongst British women. The artist Beryl Cook, who was a young woman at the time confirmed this in an interview to the BBC in the late 1970s. I can't find the transcript of the interview, but from memory it was words to the effect of, 'food was scarce, but we supplemented our income by a little impromptu whoring with the GIs - we all did it'. Many of these liaisons were love matches rather than merely commercial transactions though, as the thousands of marriages between US servicemen and British women (the GI brides) is evidence of.

The line was also used in Australia, in much the same context.

Origin

The phrase was popularized by Tommy Trinder (1909-1989), a well-known and well-liked English comedian (seen here with Phil Silvers). His version of the line which, although he gave it wide circulation was probably coined by someone else, was "overpaid, overfed, oversexed and over here".

(http://www.phrases.org.uk/images/trinder.jpg)

Strangely, since there can't have been anyone over the age of ten in Britain at the end of the war who wasn't familiar with the phrase, it appears very seldom in print. It must have been recorded earlier, but the earliest reference I have found is in a US newspaper The Morgantown Post, 1958, in an article by Holmes Alexander:

"The British regarded us then as well-meaning but blundering intercessors whom they rather preferred to have on their island than the Jerries. We were, in the well-known phrase, 'overpaid, oversexed and over here', and we were in British eyes overdecorated, overstaffed, overmaintenanced and overbearing."
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Jackie-boy on August 05, 2015, 01:57:21 PM
Did you know ?

"Keep your hand on your ha'penny".

(http://www.hobbyhorses.co.uk/ekmps/shops/stablemates01/images/shove-ha-penny-%5B3%5D-35-p.jpg)

In earlier times in the UK, elderly ladies used to warn the young girls to keep their sanctity safe from boys while going on dates. Half penny or ha'penny was symbolic use for their privates.

Also girls, keep one tucked in their knickers for the bus ride home, if their boyfriend were getting a bit too frisk  buttslap

Quote from: modern, not the old music hall song)

Yorkshire lads are mucky bastards
Dirty, mucky bastards all.
Keep your hand upon your ha'penny
Else you're riding for a fall.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfmYIjojkMg
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 09, 2015, 07:23:19 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

UNDERMINE
    
Weaken or bring to ruin.    
The main objective of any besieging force attacking a castle or walled    
city was to breach the walls, but there was often a moat in place to    
make it impossible for sappers to place mines against the wall. Thus    
they had to start their tunnels some way distant from the walls and    
burrow under the foundations to try to weaken or breach the walls    
from below.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 20, 2015, 07:09:42 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

DOODLEBUG
   
Flying bomb.    
American servicemen stationed in the UK gave this nickname to the    
German V1 bombs that were fired at London from within occupied    
Europe during World War 11.    
Based on "doodle," "to play about," "doodlebug" had already been    
used in America to describe many things, including flying insects    
and the mini racing cars that became so popular there in the 1930s.    
Both these associations seem to have been in mind when naming the    
V1, which flew with a rasping anclpulsating note similar to that of    
the straight-through exhaust system of the mini racers.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 26, 2015, 08:06:26 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

FLAP
    
State of worry,fuss, or excitement.    
At the turn of the 20th century, a "flap meant any state of agitation    
on board a Royal Navy ship. The inspiration for this meaning was    
the flurry of semaphore signals that preceded any significant event or    
visit, which required plenty of flags flapping in the breeze. The term    
then moved into general use.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 07, 2015, 12:50:14 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

WALTZING MATILDA
    
Australia's unofficial anthem.    
It is something of a mystery how this innocuous little ditty came    
to such prominence in Australia; a song about a sheep-thief    
drowning himself to escape justice is hardly a rousing cornerstone    
of national fortitude.    
The title derives from 18th- or 19th-century German soldiers    
nicknaming their greatcoats "Mathilde," after the archetypical girl-    
next-door who kept a man warm at night. If not required, the coat    
was rolled up and carried like a bedroll on a cord slung across    
the back, resulting in "Mathilde" bouncing from side to side as the    
owner marched along. This usage leaked back into general German    
usage, also producing auf der Walz, "to trek about looking for work."    
German migrants to Australia took both expressions with them,    
"waltzing matilda" being the major survivor. This was most likely for    
its serving as a parallel to the Irish contribution of "Sheila," which is    
far too crude to explore here.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 12, 2015, 04:37:23 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

UPSHOT
    
Verdict or outcome.    
To a medieval archer the "upshot" was the final arrow fired in a    
competition, specifically the single-arrow shoot-off between two    
tied parties. The umpire's decision to call for such a tie-breaker was    
proclaimed with the cry of "leuparti!" "game divided," which evolved    
into "jeopardy" because at this point both archers were in danger of    
losing. "Jeopardy" moved into general speech towards the end of the    
14th century, with "upshot" following in the mid-16th century.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 20, 2015, 03:20:48 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

RUSSIAN ROULETTE
   
Pointless or high-cost risk.    
There is nothing to suggest that the Russians, more than any other    
race, went in for this kind of pointless bravado. In all likelihood it    
is just a racial tag implying stupidity or poverty: they can't afford    
a proper roulette wheel so they have to use a revolver. English is    
littered with parallels: "Dutch courage" is gin; "Bombay duck" is fish;    
"Welsh rabbit" (never rarebit) is cheese on toast; a "Jew's harp" is a    
primitive instrument.    
No reference to the 'be" of Russian roulette can be found before    
January 30,1937. In the hugely successful American weekly, Collier's,    
a major foundation stone of the modern publishing company,    
there appears a short story by Georges Surdez in which two of    
the characters discuss such a game being played by Russian troops    
deployed to Romania in 1917. In Surdez's story and in all other    
early references, the gun holds five rounds with just the one empty    
chamber allocated to fate. One other theory holds that the game was    
"invented" by disillusioned Tsarist officers, but this is disproved by    
the time line.    
The version of Russian roulette played with one bullet and five    
empty chambers became the "norm" in the more safety-conscious    
1950s; the theory maintaining that the weight of the single round    
always carries it to the six 0' clock position when the chamber is spun    
has no foundation in fact.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 26, 2015, 05:57:45 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

BRAILLE
    
Writing system for the blind.    
In 1819, a young French artillery officer called Captain Charles    
Barbier de la Sierra became frustrated by the difficulty and dangers    
of trying to read orders at night without lighting a lantern and    
attracting enemy fire. He devised a code of embossed night-writing,    
which failed to attract any interest in military circles. However, Louis    
Braille (1809-52), a young teacher at the French National Institute    
for Blind Children, saw the potential for Barbier's system of coded    
dot-clusters to revolutionize texts for the blind, which until then had    
been presented as rather clumsy raised letters.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 29, 2015, 06:39:40 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

RIDE ROUGHSHOD OVER SOMEONE
   
Disregard someone's feelings or opinion.    
The main objective of the 15th-century battlefield was to inflict    
injury by every means possible, so knights always rode with their    
horses "roughshod." This required the blacksmith to leave every    
second nail projecting to inflict maximum damage to any soldier the    
horse stood on.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 06, 2015, 05:50:48 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?
 
BACKROOM BOYS
    
Unseen contributors.    
Although "the boys in the back room" has been used throughout    
North America since the turn of the 19th century, the usage    
indicated the "in-crowd," rather than a group of unsung boffins.    
"Backroom boys,'' which is a UK expression, derives from a    
speech made on the radio by Canadian-born Lord Beaverbrook    
on March 19, 1941 when, as Minister of Aircraft Production,    
he said: "Let me say that the credit belongs to the boys in the    
backrooms. It isn't the man in the limelight like me who should    
have the praise. It is not the men who sit in prominent places. It is    
the men in the backrooms." He later stated that his inspiration was    
none other than Marlene Dietrich. In Destry Rides Again (1939), she    
played the tart-with-a-heart owner of the Last Chance Saloon, in    
which she gives her famous rendition of "The Boys in the Back    
Room," which, according to Beaverbrook, was "a greater work of art    
than the Mona Lisa."    

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 12, 2015, 06:05:59 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

LIQUIDATE
   
Kill.    
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, quite a few terms that smacked    
of capitalism were used of the extreme measures implemented    
against the enemies of the new regime. The Russian term likvidirovat,    
which meant winding up a commercial enterprise and stripping it    
of all capital, became a euphemism for the wholesale murder of    
any group refusing to toe the line. As the term was extended to the    
assssination of foreign spies and agents provocateurs, it leached into    
Western spy-speak through the reports of Sidney Reilly (1874-1925),    
the so-called Ace of Spieg, himself liquidated by the Russians.    
It is said that Ian Fleming used Reilly as the basis for his character    
James Bond.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 18, 2015, 06:56:35 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

NOM DE GUERRE
    
Alias.    
Nom de guerre does mean "war name" but was never used in such    
a literal way by the French, to whom it meant something more    
like "pen-name." Failing to understand, the English adopted "nom    
de guerre" in the 1670s when they wrongly thought it denoted    
an assumed name of a combatant, and in the 1820s coined the    
tautological expression "nom de plume" for "pen-name." The English    
misunderstanding of "norn de guerre" and the unnecessary "nom    
de plume" became the accepted usages, forcing the French to adopt    
them to stay in tune with the rest of Europe and America.    
Noms de guerre are most associated with the French Foreign    
Legion, but it is a myth that joining up under a nom de guerre can    
place a barrier between a fleeing criminal and the law. So strong is the    
myth that any aspiring member has to remain a 'guest" of the Legion    
for a couple of days while a full search is made through Interpol    
to make sure there are no outstanding warrants. That done, the    
applicant is allowed to assume a nom de guerre, but his real details    
must be logged with the Legion.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 26, 2015, 06:51:55 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

OLD FOGEY
   
Old-fashioned man.    
Before "foggy" had any meteorological applications, the term was used    
of marshy wetlands and, by extension, anything or anyone bloated,    
flaccid, or unhealthy. In British Army slang of the mid-18th century    
a "foggy" or a "fogey" was an invalid soldier or one so old that he was    
restricted to garrison duties. By the 19th century, "fogey" was appearing    
in American forces' jargon to denote a supplement in pay which    
increased with service. In turn, this produced "old fogey" for the typical    
old soldier who kept telling the rookies what it was like in the old days.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 02, 2015, 06:56:29 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

LOOPHOLE
   
Escape clause.    
This modern use of the term rests on the misunderstanding that    
"loophole" is etymologically connected to "loop," as in "a small hole,"    
but in fact it denoted a ball-thermometer-shaped slit in a castle wall    
that afforded the archer inside a wide field of fire due to the angled    
profile of the stonework. The slit took its name from the Middle    
Dutch lupen, "to look slyly" ar "lie in ambush like a wolf," but by the    
1660sthe term was already being misused to describe an ambiguity    
or a get-out clause in a statute or contract, perhaps through confusion    
with loopgat, a Dutch term meaning "runway" or "escape route."    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 10, 2015, 06:54:16 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

AMBULANCE
    
Conveyance for the incapacitated.    
Baron Dominique Jean Larrey (1766- 1842), personal physician to    
Napoleon and Surgeon-in-Chief of his armies, was responsible for    
the first form of ambulances. Larrey argued that medical back-up on    
the battlefield would improve morale and thus the fighting spirit, and    
was given permission to institute what he called the hopital ambulant,    
"walking hospital," a light, hooded litter equipped with basic first    
aid equipment. These litters were moved about the battlefield by    
men who provided what medical assistance they could for the    
walking wounded, and evacuated the more serious cases. By the    
Italian campaign of 1796 these litters had been augmented by a much    
faster and more comprehensive system of horse-drawn wagons called    
ambulants volantes, or "flying-walkers."    
The British Army instituted a similar system of stretcher-bearers,    
which adopted the French title in the form of "ambulance" (the term    
had arrived in English by 1809), but it was the Americans who,    
horrified by the carnage of their own Civil War (1861-65), first set    
up properly organized service with their 1864 Ambulance Corps    
Act. This Act made the movement and care of the wounded the    
responsibility of a wholly separate body and not just another duty    
imposed on the transport brigades, as had been the case at the First    
Battle of Bull Run. At that encounter the men detailed as stretcher-    
bearers allegedly ignored the wounded so they could stay back, out    
of the line of fire, and get drunk on the medicinal brandy.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 09, 2015, 06:26:03 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BACHELOR
   
Unmarried man.    
When this term first appeared in the 13th century it denoted a man    
on the lowest rung of knighthood, a squire who was still under the    
banner of someone more senior and thus not ready to take on the    
cost of marriage. The ultimate source of the word is uncertain but it    
might derive from the Latin baculum, "staff," referring to the staff    
with which the squire trained.    
By the 14thcentury, the term had passed from its original military    
meaning into general speech, still with overtones of lowly status.    
It was adopted by rural communities to describe a man without    
his own land and therefore bonded to an agreement to work for    
a richer man as tenure for his house and land. As a "house-bond"    
(husband), a bachelor was a good prospect for a girl seeking security    
and stability. The term has continued to mean a man suitable for    
marriage ever since.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 17, 2015, 07:55:53 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

THAT'LL BE THE DAY
    
Never.    
The Prussian officer corps of World War I believed in the imminence    
of Der Tag, "The Day" when the German military elite would defeat    
the British and rise to its rightful prominence in Europe. It became    
the standard toast of German officers and the theme of so many    
newspaper articles and books that the British military countered with    
"that'll be the day," which was first heard as a cat-call across no-man's    
land before becoming the title of so many songs, books, and films    
that its popularity still endures.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 22, 2015, 07:08:14 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BAFFLE
   
To confuse.    
"Baffle" has its roots in terms such as the early French baffer, the    
Italian beffare, and the Iberian bafa, all meaning "mockery." It first    
appeared in English in the 16th century to describe the public    
humiliation of a disgraced knight who was hung upside down from    
a tree for the local peasantry to ill-treat. After being swung about    
and battered, the butt of the joke was more than a little disoriented    
when let down, so by the opening of the 17th century "baffle" was    
employed much as it is today.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 05, 2016, 07:03:41 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

ROSTRUM
    
Platform for public speakers.    
"Rostrum" was first used for the Speakers' Platform in Rome after it was decorated with the prows (rostra)of enemy ships captured in 338 BC at Antium. Antium, now known as Anzio, was the scene of the 1944 Allied landings in Italy.   
.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 17, 2016, 10:36:46 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BOOMERANG
   
Primitive weapon; any person or object that keeps returning.    
Before the first Europeans had even heard of Australia, natives of    
that country had been using wo-mur-rang for a type of club and wo-   
mer-ra for an extension stick they used to whip-throw a bumarin, a    
short spear. Eighteenth-century whites seem to have conflated all    
these terms to produce "boomerang" in reference to the wooden,    
angled blade, a term until then unheard anywhere on the continent.    
No boomerang can be thrown at an enemy to deliver a fatal blow    
and return to its owner; any boomerang striking its target stays with    
the victim. The returning boomerang is virtually unknown in much    
of Australia, where only the hunting variety is used; this travels in a    
straight line, is thrown in a completely different way, and is absolutely    
lethal. In the areas where the returning boomerang is known, it is    
mainly used for fun or sometimes in hunting when it is thrown above    
a raft of ducks, which, mistaking it for a hovering bird of prey, take    
off in panic and fly into netting-traps.    
Although the links between the weapon and Australia are    
indissoluble in the general mind, the device is far from unique to that    
continent. The Ancient Egyptians used boomerangs in war and leisure,    
as did peoples of India, Africa, and Native Americans. More recently,    
"boomerang surfaced in American military jargon as the name of a    
sniper-detection device that uses multidirectional acoustics to pinpoint    
a shooter's position by homing straight back down the soundwaves    
from the muzzle blast. In general use, the term describes anyone or    
anything that, like a bad penny, just keeps coming home to roost.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 27, 2016, 08:11:31 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

RIVALS
    
Contenders.    
First noted in the late 1500s, "rivals" is a simple derivation from "river," since such geographical features have long formed natural boundaries between warring factions and nations.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on January 27, 2016, 03:41:51 PM
Did you Know?

Gangnam is a territory in Seoul, Korea, it is the wealthy district kind of like Beverly Hills. 

So Gangman Style is all about the wealthly sexy ladies of that area and PSY wanting to get in their pants.  BTW Oppa means big brother.


The Song translated: 

Oppa is Gangnam style
Gangnam style

A girl who is warm and humanly during the day
A classy girl who know how to enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee
A girl whose heart gets hotter when night comes
A girl with that kind of twist

I’m a guy
A guy who is as warm as you during the day
A guy who one-shots his coffee before it even cools down
A guy whose heart bursts when night comes
That kind of guy

Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey
Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey
Now let’s go until the end

Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style

Eh- Sexy Lady, Oppa is Gangnam style
Eh- Sexy Lady oh oh oh oh

A girl who looks quiet but plays when she plays
A girl who puts her hair down when the right time comes
A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all
A sensable girl like that

I’m a guy
A guy who seems calm but plays when he plays
A guy who goes completely crazy when the right time comes
A guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscles
That kind of guy

Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey
Beautiful, loveable
Yes you, hey, yes you, hey
Now let’s go until the end

Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style, Gangnam style
Oppa is Gangnam style

Eh- Sexy Lady, Oppa is Gangnam style
Eh- Sexy Lady oh oh oh oh

On top of the running man is the flying man, baby baby
I’m a man who knows a thing or two
On top of the running man is the flying man, baby baby
I’m a man who knows a thing or two

You know what I’m saying
Oppa is Gangnam style

Eh- Sexy Lady, Oppa is Gangnam style
Eh- Sexy Lady oh oh oh oh

http://www.businessinsider.com/gangnam-style-translation-2012-9


Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 30, 2016, 01:26:28 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

OVER THE TOP    
    
Flamboyant theatricals.    
This is British Army slang from World War I, when it meant to go    
over the top of the trench and attack, an activity usually marked    
by a great deal of shouting and yelling. By extension. anyone over-    
reacting to a minor annoyance was told that there was no need to    
go "over the top " about it. The expression began to be widely used in    
England in the 1980s, and is now often abbreviated to "OTT."    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 04, 2016, 09:58:27 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

JERRY, JERRYCAN
    
German or fuel can.    
Used in World War I but not popular until World War 11,"Jerry" was    
a British dig at the shape of the pudding-bowl style of helmet that was    
standard issue in the German Army, and which was similar in profile    
to a chamber pot, then nicknamed a "jerry." That in turn was based on    
the biblical Jeroboam, the "mighty man of valor," whose name is still    
used for any large bowl or wine bottle. As for the fuel can, it refers to    
the 5-gallon fuel cans carried by Rommel's long-range desert patrols,    
and the nickname has stuck to this day. BOCHE and HUN    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 12, 2016, 11:43:49 AM


DID YOU KNOW ?

JANITOR
   
Caretaker of a building.    
Always portrayed as two-faced so he could look both ways, the    
ancient Roman god Janus was the god of doorways and thus of    
opportunity, especially in warfare. The Romans saw him as    
responsible for what they termed "the magic of war," by which    
sudden and inexplicable events could suddenly turn the tide in a    
battle. During times of war his temple doors were left open to allow    
him to intervene as and when he saw fit, and kept closed in times    
of peace in case he decided to start something. Naturally, it was his    
association with doorways which gave his name to a building's    
janitor, who has keys to all the doors, and to the month of January,    
the doorway between any two years. Those of a less-than-trustful    
nature are still called "Janus-faced." TROPHY    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 20, 2016, 06:04:54 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?
 
OSTRACIZE
    
Shun from society.    
Excessive popularity was a double-edged sword for public figures    
in Ancient Greece. Citizens could vote each year to exile a prominent    
figure who threatened the state's stability. Often these men were    
powerful generals, such as Themistocles and Aristides. Each year    
the Athenian assembly organized a ballot to see if anyone attracted    
sufficient votes to warrant their temporary banishment. The votes were    
cast on a piece of bone or seashell, known in Greek as ostrakon. Anyone    
who found too many ostraka in their ballot-box had to take themselves    
off into exile for a stipulated number of years under pain of death for    
early return. Although the term is noted in English as early as the mid-    
1600s, it was not popular until the opening of the 19th century, by    
which time it was used more broadly of those shunned by polite society.    
   

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 24, 2016, 12:04:58 PM
BRIGAND

bandit.   
   
Ultimately deriving from the Italian brigare,"to fight or quarrel," this    
word first appeared in medieval Italy as brigata, any group of bandits    
extracting blackmail from rural towns and settlements. Through    
mercenary affiliations, these irregulars gradually morphed into    
formal military units, hence "brigade" and "brigadier."    
The French Army under King Louis XIV seems to have been the    
first to formalize the rank, applying it to regimental commanders,    
and the British followed suit soon after. A royal warrant of 1699 states    
that: "The Major General of Our Ordinance within Our Kingdom    
for the time being shall have the rank and precedency as Brigadier."    
Even a corporal in the Life Guards of the 1670s was a commissioned    
officer referred to as a brigadier, while up until the 1960s in the    
French Army "brigadier" denoted a corporal, so the term has enjoyed    
a varied career to say the least.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on March 02, 2016, 02:10:00 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BREAD AND CIRCUSES
   
Cynical gimmicks to distract attention from real issues.    
The expression dates from the writings of the Roman poet Juvenal (AD    
60-140), specifically his Satire X, lines 77-81, in which he laments    
the wane of Roman military power and grandeur, which he says is    
occasioned by the apathy of the people who now only hanker after two    
things: free grain and increasingly violent spectacles in the arena.    
The cost of grain had long been subsidized in Rome but in 123 BC    
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus lowered it to a ridiculous figure.    
In 58 BC, in a blatant move to buy favor with the people, Publius    
Clodius Pulcher initiated a free monthly grain ration. By the    
time of Augustus in 27 BC more than 250,000 Romans were on    
the grain-dole to keep them contented. Putting on spectacles in    
the arena to keep the people happy was a crucial part of a Roman    
magistrate's job, and helped ensure his popularity and thus votes in    
future elections.    
The expression has been modified by various cultures but    
always encompasses the same i4ea of nostalgia for former glories.    
Nineteenth-century Cuban journals such as El Figaro and El Esquife    
both chided their readers for being placated with bread and dancing,    
while Spanish newspapers accused their readership of selling out for    
bread and bullfights.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on March 20, 2016, 04:40:43 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

RESTAURANT
    
Public dining facility.    
Although there were rooms in 1860s Paris that could be hired for    
private functions, it was not until the French Revolution (1789-99)    
that a restaurant came to mean a walk-in establishment that catered    
to the ordinary people.    
As the nobility were killed at the guillotine, Paris was left teeming    
with unemployed chefs, wine experts, butlers, and assorted servants    
who, knowing no other trade, set up shop cooking and serving food.    
The establishments were called restaurants, from the French for "to    
restore" or "to restock (oneself)," restaurer.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: wombatballs on March 20, 2016, 07:05:39 PM
I really enjoy rufisredtail's daily briefing. Have you noticed his post numbers never go up from 362, why is this so.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Tassie on March 20, 2016, 10:08:57 PM
Yes, rufusredtail does indeed provide very interesting reading.
Regards
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on March 30, 2016, 05:15:17 PM
AXIS

Threatening power-bloc
   
The two founding members of the original Axis were Adolf       
Hitler and Benito Mussolini. On October 25, 1936 they signed an       
agreement that prompted Mussolini to issue a pompous statement       
   '    
that the two nations formed "an axis around which all European       
states animated by the will to collaboration and peace can also       
assemble." One month later to the day Germany signed an anti-Soviet       
pact with Japan, and all three powers signed a tripartite document on       
September 27, 1940. Prior to Mussolini's 1936 statement, the term       
had no use outside physics.       
The Allied use of "Axis" was generally sarcastic and intended to       
belittle the ambitions vaunted in Mussolini's speech. The Axis leaders       
themselves preferred to call the union "Roberto" (Rome, Berlin,       
Tokyo). "Axis," with all its sinister overtones, was given new life on       
January 29, 2002 when George W. Bush included in his State of       
the Union address a description of all states supporting terrorism       
as an " Axis of evil."       
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 06, 2016, 06:22:28 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

REIGN OF TERROR
   
Period of ruthless purge.    
On September 5, 1793 the French Revolutionary government issued    
a decree announcing that "Terror would be the order of the day,"
intended to keep the population in line while France struggled with    
civil and foreign wars. It is not clear which particular British newspaper    
first used the term, but it was probably he Times that employed it as    
a monarchist jibe implying that, having got rid of their king, the French    
were now ruled by terror. In France, the same period was known as La    
Terreur. As the Terror gathered momentum, it served as an excuse for    
many of the leaders of the French Revolution to settle their differences    
by means of closed trials and midnight executions. The Terror finally    
ran out of steam in July 1794,but the expression has been applied since    
then to the excesses of countless regimes throughout the world.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 15, 2016, 02:20:34 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?
    
(AT) LOGGERHEADS
 
In violent dispute.    
As a sister-word of both "log and "clog," "logger" denoted anything    
heavy or impeding, especially the lump of wood used to hobble a    
horse; this kind of logger was also known as a "pester," hence the    
modern use of that verb. But the above expression was coined aboard    
English warships, where one found two kinds of loggerhead: one was    
a long pole topped by a metal ball that could be heated to melt pitch    
for deck maintenance, and the other a bar-shot with a cannonball at each end.

 
The first was frequently used by sailors to sort out their differences,
 and the second was fired at close quarters to whirl about like a lethal
weight-lifting bar to sweep the enemy decks .

Either could have inspired the saying .
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 24, 2016, 09:44:08 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

LABYRINTH
    
Maze of great complexity.    
The original labyrinth was designed by Daedalus at the command    
of King Minos of Crete, who came home from war to discover that    
his wife, Pasiphae, had given birth to a taurine hybrid after the    
god Poseidon caused her to fall in love with a bull. Mios kept the    
Minotaur in the labyrinth and fed it with his enemies. Above the    
entrance was carved a labrus or labrys, a large ceremonial double-    
headed ax, which suggested to the condemned the unavoidable death    
that lay ahead of them. Twentieth-century excavations of the palace    
at Knossos, closely identified with the labyrinth, revealed the symbol    
of the labrus throughout.    
Eventually, Theseus killed the Minotaur and escaped from the    
labyrinth by following the string that he had unrolled on the way in.    
The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur was a great hit in England,    
where as early as the 1360s "clew" or "clue," terms originally denoting    
a ball of thread or string, were being used metaphorically of    
information that leads to a conclusion.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: TBWG on April 24, 2016, 12:32:03 PM
Piss Poor

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor”

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot……they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & were the lowest of the low


Apologies if this has been posted before.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 01, 2016, 04:39:54 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

BEYOND THE PALE
   
Offensive   
When one country gained foothold in another it was said to have    
established a "'pale," from the Latin palus, "a stake," in an allusion to    
a real or metaphorical palisade guarding the boundary. The English    
established two major pales, the first in 1171 centered around Dublin    
in Ireland, embracing Louth, Trim, Meath, Kilkenny, Waterford, and    
Tipperary, and the second around Calais in 1347. The expression was    
born of the disdain of those inside the pale for those outside it, and    
*one within the pale whose behavior irked others would be booted    
mlt to take their chances "beyond the pale:'    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 05, 2016, 07:34:32 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

RING OF STEEL
    
Ultimate defense.    
After Italy had surrendered to the Allies in 1943, Hitler addressed    
the German people to assure them that this loss was of minor    
consequence: "Tactical necessity may compel us from time to time to    
give up something on some front in this gigantic and fateful struggle    
but it will never break the ring of steel that protects the Reich."    
Twenty months later the Allies were in Berlin and Hitler was dead.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 13, 2016, 07:33:02 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

THIRD LIGHT
    
Smokers' superstition.    
The notion that one should never take the third light from a match    
or lighter was common throughout World War I, and there is some    
evidence that the superstition was observed during the Boer War.    
The reasoning is not unsound; when the match is first struck it could    
be seen by an enemy sniper, who would have got his rifle in position    
by the time the second cigarette was lit. The third man, illuminated    
in isolation, would present a fine head-shot.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on May 13, 2016, 10:27:16 PM
Did you Know?


Friday the 13th: How did it come about and why are we afraid of it?


Friday the 13th has long been regarded as an unlucky day. Why do we choose this day in particular to fear for our lives?

In 1993, scientists found that there is a general increase in hospital admissions on Friday 13th.

History of Friday the 13th

The superstition around this day is thought to have come about during the Middle Ages, and may have Biblical origins.

Some historians have claimed it was the day on which Eve bit the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, the great flood began and the builders of the Tower of Babel.

In the New Testament there were 13 people present for Jesus's last supper on Maundy Thursday, the day before Christ's crucifixion on Good Friday.

Geoffrey Chaucer made reference to the apparent unluckiness of the day, recording in his Canterbury Tales that it was bad luck to start a journey or a project on a Friday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/06/friday-the-13th-how-did-it-come-about-and-why-are-we-afraid-of-i/


Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 27, 2016, 05:25:01 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

THREE-MILE LIMIT    

   
Delineation of territorial waters.    
Far from an arbitrary figure, this was decided by the maximum range    
of the largest muzzle-loading cannon on shore batteries and thus the    
limit of protection any nation could offer from land. Although "booze    
cruise" rose to popularity in UK slang with the advent of the Common    
Market and trips across the English Channel to buy cheap alcohol in    
France, the term was first seen in the US to describe floating gin-    
palaces taking American revelers beyond the three-mile limit during    
Prohibition (1920-33) to drink and gamble to their hearts' content.    
Today,most nations have extended this to the 12-mile limit    
sanctioned by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,    
but in practice limits are extended in some cases to hundreds of miles    
to cover fishing rights and oil or gas deposits.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 04, 2016, 07:47:31 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

LOGISTICS
   
Science of transport.    
In the 18th-century French Army, logistiques described the duties    
of the quartermaster, whose main task was to find quarters, or    
accommodation, for the men to loger, or "lodge." When the Army    
was on the move it fell to this same officer to ensure that supplies    
kept pace with the column. The word is used in the modern sense for    
the British Army Royal Logistics Corps, responsible for transport,    
bomb disposal, catering etc., which was formed from the Royal    
Transport Corps in 1993.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 07, 2016, 05:14:47 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BITE THE BULLET
    
Prepare for action; accept the unpleasant.   
Obviously of military origins, there are some sources, such as Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which link this expression to 19th-century field surgery when amputations were conducted without anesthetic; those about to undergo surgery were offered a bullet to bite on, either so that they would not scream or so that they would not bite through their own tongues in pain. In fact, it seems
that patients were usually rendered unconscious during surgery.   
   
 
SInce the surgeon could not risk them writhing about in agony during his tender ministrations with saw, hammer, and chisel. For
minor operations there was always a leather strap to bite on; even a 19th-century surgeon knew better than to put a small object into
 the mouth of a supine patient who might choke to death on it. There is too much known practice to support this suggestion; far more
 likely a progenitor is the cartridge issued for the British Enfield rifle, which required the soldier to bite off the top to expose the charge         
 prior to loading.    
    
    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 10, 2016, 05:47:44 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BARRACK
 
Raucous banter.    
There are various theories as to the derivation of "barrack," which was    
first known in Australia in the 1880s. It has been suggested that its    
origins lie in the rowdy football games then played on land adjacent to    
the Victoria Barracks on Melbourne's St Kilda Road. It has also been    
said that perhaps it derives from the Aboriginal word borak, meaning    
''fun? Unfortunately, neither of these lively suggestions is correct.    
Instead, we should look to baragouin, first noted in print in    
English in 1613 when it was borrowed from the French, who used it    
to mean "unintelligible language." Baragouin itself is borrowed from    
the Breton bara gwin, "white bread," a nickname used by Breton    
soldiers for troops from other parts of France where white bread    
prevailed instead of their own dark and rustic variety. Since the    
Breton language had more in common with Cornish and Welsh    
than with French, the language barrier between Breton soldiers and    
their French counterparts was such a problem that bara gwin and    
baragouin soon came to describe the ridiculing of others' language    
and customs. By the late 1700s, English had modified baragouin to    
barrakin, which was then taken by transportees to Australia, where    
the spelling was later altered again.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 17, 2016, 10:47:41 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?


WALL STREET

       
New York's financial district.       
This thoroughfare follows the line of the stockade erected across       
Lower Manhattan by the early Dutch settlers to keep out the hostile       
locals. The first defense was a simple earthwork redoubt built in       
1653 and replaced later by a wooden stockade on the orders of       
Governor Peter Stuyvesant (1600-72).       
The locals had good reason to be hostile to Stuyvesant. The Dutch       
had stolen their land, and all the stories about canny settlers buying       
it for 24 dollars'-worth of beads and axes are pure fiction; it was       
America's first land fraud calculated to stir up war between the tribes.       
The Dutch cynically went through some meaningless trade-exchange       
in 1662 with the Canarse tribe who, as the occupants of modern       
Brooklyn, were only too happy to sell Manhattan, which both parties       
knew to belong to the Weckquaesgeeks who, less than impressed with       
all concerned, came out fighting.       
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 25, 2016, 07:05:40 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

UNDERGROUND
    
Resistance movement or clandestine operation.    
Long before there was any real underground railway, it existed in    
1830s American metaphor to describe the network of rat-lines for    
escaped slaves making their way north in the hope of freedom. The    
country was abuzz with the rapid expansion of the steam railroad,    
so the disparate groups called themselves the Underground Railroad;    
guides were "conductors" and safe-houses designated "stations or    
"depots:' and so forth. The term resurfaced during World War I1    
when it was used by the Americans of any resistance group in    
occupied Europe that ran similar rat-lines to smuggle Allied    
personnel back to the UK or onwards to Spain or Switzerland.    
Immediately after World War I1 the term was put to use describing    
the avant garde of any sector of the arts, and in the New York of the    
so-called Swinging Sixties "velvet underground attached to the    
liberated sexual sub-culture of the city before becoming the name of    
one of the most influential American rock bands of that decade. In    
modern Britain it can also describe what is otherwise known as the    
black economy, off-record work and transactions conducted beyond    
the grasp of the Inland Revenue.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 04, 2016, 06:55:06 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

YO-YO
    
Toy.    
Aficionados of this intriguing device still debate its ultimate origins,    
but it can be stated with certainty that the yo-yo came to America    
from the Philippines, where it once served as a weapon. Those who    
dislike the idea of such a brutal history for a toy should check the    
earliest references in the OED, especially the extract for "Philippine    
Craftsman:' which noted: "Sumpit (blowpipe),pana (arrow), and    
yo-yo are names very generally used throughout the islands"; an odd    
grouping of terms indeed if the yo-yo had no lethal applications.    
The early Filipino stone yo-yo, perhaps meaning "come-come," as in    
"return," could be dropped onto prey or foe by a man hiding in a tree,    
or hurled on the horizontal, with shattering effect, and then reeled in    
for another go.    
The non-lethal variety was launched to great success in 1928 by    
the American-Filipino Pedro Flores and his Yo-Yo Manufacturing    
Company of Santa Barbara, California.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 06, 2016, 04:55:55 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

ZAP or ZAPP
    
Kill.    
Although this achieved popularity through American comics of    
the 1920s, the trail dates back to perhaps the 16th century and is    
decidedly military.    
The OED presents an intriguing quote from 1600 demanding that    
castle ramparts be "zapped," this based on the Italian zappere, "to    
inflict death and destruction with explosives," as dug in with a zappa,    
or "spade," by the kind of engineer we now call a "sapper." The Italians    
have been talking about "zapping" people for centuries, and it is    
perhaps not too difficult to figure out which particular group of    
Italian "businessmen" might have been responsible for putting "zap"    
into American slang in the first place.    
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 11, 2016, 05:08:25 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BLACK BOX
   
Inboard flight recorder    
Something of a misnomer today, as flight recorders are painted bright    
orange so they will stand out at a crash site, the term originated    
during World War 11, when it described any piece of innovative    
equipment put through trials on active service and painted black to    
reduce the enemy's chances of finding it should the plane be shot    
down. When civilian flight recorders emerged in the late 1950s the    
term was simply transferred to general use.    

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 19, 2016, 09:10:44 PM
FOLLOW UP TO BLACK BOX  PART 1

DAVID Warren, the inventor of the black box flight recorder, has died in Melbourne nursing home aged 85.
Aviation experts and friends said Dr Warren had persisted with his invention despite being snubbed by Australian authorities.

The British government snapped up the device, which records cockpit conversations and instrument data and is now standard piece of equipment for commercial aircraft globally.
Dr Warrens biographer, Janice Peterson Witham, said lessons learned from black boxes found in plane wrecks had saved untold legions of lives by identifying human error and equipment failure. In 1994 a black box revealed why an Aeroflot Airbus 310 had plunged into the siberian countryside, killing 85 people. The pilot had handed the controls to his 15-year-old son.

In 1934, when Dr Warren was 9, his father, Hubert, died in a plane crash. Dr Warren was raised in Sydney, moving to Melbourne in 1951 to work at the aeronautical research laboratories, now the Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

As a chemist, in 1953 he helped investigate crashes of the first jet-powered aircraft, the Comet. Tests on fuel proved that was not the cause; the long time electronics whiz wondered whether a tape recorder in the cockpit could provide clues to future crashes.
Dr Warren told the Age in 1998 that his colleagues thought the idea was fantasy and there was no response from government. He made a prototype in 1957 , using a flame and trauma proof wire recording element.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 19, 2016, 09:14:35 PM
PART 2

The Department of Civil Aviation told him Australian aviation had a good safety record and did not need the black box. The defence Department said it would extract " more expletives than explanations:. The pilots union feared pilots chat would be monitored. But a visiting British aviation official was impressed and invited Dr Warren to London.
A British company S. Davall and Sons , started manufacturing the device. In 1976 the international Civil Aviation Organisation made the black box standard equipment. In 2002 Dr Warren recieved the Order of Australia. Ms Witham said Dr Warren was proud of the device, but never bragged about it . "He had a lot of disappointments and disillusionment. He had many detractors in Australia, and he just kept going. I think that's the lesson that we all take, that when you really believe in something, you never give up."

A childhood friend, Macarthur Job, of Mount Dandenong a former air crash investigator said "It was an extraordinary wonderful concept. He was an innovator, and a thoroughly good fellow." Julian Walsh, director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s safety division, said the travelling public owed a great deal of gratitude" to Dr Warren "and his perseverance and his tenacity in pushing his idea'".
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Sofa_King on July 19, 2016, 09:49:14 PM
Part 3  :biggrin:

Black Box
Believed by some to exist only in ancient greek mythology, but known by a few select men to exist in the open world.

According to most theories, the black box is a blackened lock box containing precisely one thousand condoms. This box, only opened once every thirteen years to a certain individual of superior strength. Once opened, the Black Box opener, or the Jehosaphat, must use every single condom in a 24 hour period. If he does not complete the task, his sexual organs will implode violently, effectively killing him. If he successfully completes the task he will be blessed with a c##k of magical size and powers. The length will be precisely 6 inches, when folded in half, before getting up. Also, the victorious Jehosaphat will have complete control over his crotch region. Erection and Ejaculation can be achieved at whim and are at his total control.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Sofa_King on July 20, 2016, 12:58:59 PM
Part 3  :biggrin:

Black Box

Believed by some to exist only in ancient greek mythology, but known by a few select men to exist in the open world.


BTW...... Below it a Picture I took when I opened the Black Box 5 years ago.  wildman
Just in case a few haven't noticed ,with the help of 327 ladies for Pattaya Soi 6  .......I'm still alive and no implosion accrued  cool1
If anyone wants to attempt this feat of endurance, so they can obtain the Magical Man Wand of Beelzebub and become a Jehosaphat ...then PM me and I will put your name on the list...you'll only have to wait 8 years    :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Sofa_King on July 20, 2016, 01:24:18 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

COCK & BULL STORIES

One of Stony Stratford’s many claims to fame is as the place of origin of the term 'Cock & Bull Story', recognised throughout the English-speaking world.

This dates back to the late 18th/early 19th centuries, at the height of the great coaching era, when Stony Stratford (which is located on the old Roman Road of Watling Street, latterly the A5) was an important stopping-off point for mail and passenger coaches travelling between London and the North.


Travellers on these coaches were regarded as a great source of current news from remote parts of the country - news which would be imparted in the town's two main inns, The Cock and The Bull. The two establishments rapidly developed a rivalry as to which could furnish the most outlandish and scurrilous travellers' tales. It's a fine tradition was resurrected some years ago by the COCK & BULL STORY SOCIETY. To pay homage to Stony Stratford's unique provenance, as the home to The Cock & Bull Story (a term familiar throughout the English-speaking world), by positioning the town as THE UK CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE for the origination, perpetration and dissemination of the totally preposterous. Above all - by the adeptest manipulation of the English language - to have fun.


The society has been re-launched recently as The Cock and Bull Society, complete with website (www.cockandbull.org.uk), newsletter (available by emailing clayton@cockandbull.org.uk) and various events in and around the town.

http://www.stonystratford.gov.uk/Visit_The_Area/History/Cock_and_Bull_Stories
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on July 20, 2016, 01:42:24 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

COCK & BULL STORIES

One of Stony Stratford’s many claims to fame is as the place of origin of the term 'Cock & Bull Story', recognised throughout the English-speaking world.

This dates back to the late 18th/early 19th centuries, at the height of the great coaching era, when Stony Stratford (which is located on the old Roman Road of Watling Street, latterly the A5) was an important stopping-off point for mail and passenger coaches travelling between London and the North.


Travellers on these coaches were regarded as a great source of current news from remote parts of the country - news which would be imparted in the town's two main inns, The Cock and The Bull. The two establishments rapidly developed a rivalry as to which could furnish the most outlandish and scurrilous travellers' tales. It's a fine tradition was resurrected some years ago by the COCK & BULL STORY SOCIETY. To pay homage to Stony Stratford's unique provenance, as the home to The Cock & Bull Story (a term familiar throughout the English-speaking world), by positioning the town as THE UK CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE for the origination, perpetration and dissemination of the totally preposterous. Above all - by the adeptest manipulation of the English language - to have fun.


The society has been re-launched recently as The Cock and Bull Society, complete with website (www.cockandbull.org.uk (http://www.cockandbull.org.uk)), newsletter (available by emailing clayton@cockandbull.org.uk) and various events in and around the town.

http://www.stonystratford.gov.uk/Visit_The_Area/History/Cock_and_Bull_Stories (http://www.stonystratford.gov.uk/Visit_The_Area/History/Cock_and_Bull_Stories)



I understand they have elected a chief spokesman and have the headquarters for the most outlandish cock and bull stories: 


Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 27, 2016, 03:07:31 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

G.I.

American serviceman or woman.
"G.I:' has been variously interpreted as standing for "Government
Issue" or "General Issue" but it more likely stems from "Galvanized
Iron;' which was stamped on the trash cans that once proliferated in
military camps of the early 1900s;
In A Dictionary of Soldier Talk (1984) by Colonel John Elting,
the first reference to G.I. is dated to 1906 in the line "Bucket, G.I., on
strap near axle under body;' which Elting found in documents
relating to cavalry maneuvers at Fort Kansas that year. Many items
were made of galvanized iron and stamped with G.I., which came to
stand for anything or anyone considered solid and reliable. As these
items were general issue, it is easy to see how the confusion arose.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Sofa_King on July 27, 2016, 04:05:13 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

OK (http://smileys.newbeginningsnetwork.com/piwigo/galleries/EXPRESSIONS_AND_GREETINGS/OK/signboard-ok-smiley-emoticon.gif)


Millions of people all over the world use the word OK. In fact, some people say the word is used more often than any other word in the world. OK means all right or acceptable. It expresses agreement or approval. You might ask your brother, "Is it okay if I borrow your car?” Or if someone asks you to do something, you might say, “Okay, I will.” Still, language experts do not agree about where the word came from.

Some people say it came from the Native American Indian tribe known as the Choctaw. The Choctaw word okeh means the same as the American word okay. Experts say early explorers in the American West spoke the Choctaw language in the nineteenth century. The language spread across the country.

But many people dispute this. Language expert Allen Walker Read wrote about the word OK in reports published in the nineteen sixties. He said the word began being used in the eighteen thirties. It was a short way of writing a different spelling of the words “all correct.” Some foreign-born people wrote “all correct” as “o-l-l k-o-r-r-e-c-t,” and used the letters O.K. Other people say a railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly invented the word long ago. They said he put the first letters of his names -- O and K -- on each object people gave him to send on the train.

Still others say a political organization invented the word. The organization supported Martin Van Buren for president in eighteen forty. They called their group, the O.K. Club. The letters were taken from the name of the town where Martin Van Buren was born — Old Kinderhook, New York.

Not everyone agrees with this explanation, either. But experts do agree that the word is purely American. And it has spread to almost every country on Earth.

Then there is the expression A-OK. This means everything is fine. A-OK is a space-age expression. It was used in nineteen sixty-one during the flight of astronaut Alan Shepard. He was the first American to be launched into space. His flight ended when his spacecraft landed in the ocean, as planned. Shepard reported: "Everything is A-OK.”

However, some experts say the expression did not begin with the space age. One story says it was first used during the early days of the telephone to tell an operator that a message had been received.

There are also funny ways to say okay. Some people say okey-dokey or okey-doke. These expressions were first used in the nineteen thirties. Today, a character on the American television series, “The Simpsons,” says it another way. He says okely-dokely.

(https://slm-assets3.secondlife.com/assets/9946414/view_large/images.jpg?1404579140)
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 02, 2016, 07:06:12 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

FUNK

Cowardice,failure, or petulant sulk.
"Funk" has been around since the 17th century when it described
thick smoke or any offensive smell. The above applications were
influenced by terms such as the French funkier, "to give off smoke;'
and the Flemish in de Jonke siin, "to be in the smoke;' both understood
to mean a state of panic. The definitions in the heading were cemented
by the term's adoption into 19th-century military slang, in which
"funk" was the smoke of battle and a funk-hole was a dug-out to
escape it. Come World War I, "funk-hole" was used of any deep recess
dug into the forward wall of a trench to provide refuge in the event of
a gas attack, this serving at other times as a good hiding place to avoid
going over the top or simply to be alone with one's thoughts. The term
hence metaphorically came to mean cowardice.
By the 1950s "funky" had made another leap to describe a
particular style of music, most likely for the smoky atmosphere in
the bars where it was played.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Sofa_King on August 03, 2016, 02:28:47 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

Slapper

Slapper used to mean a large object or a strapping, or overgrown person. Anne E. Baker’s Glossary of Northamptonshire Words (1954) explains that the term referred most frequently to an overgrown woman. In its modern sense the term found its way into the 1990 Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, which describes slapper as a working-class term from East London and Essex meaning ‘prostitute’ or ‘slut’. It’s possible that the word may have its roots in the Yiddish schlepper, meaning an ‘unkempt, scruffy person; gossipy, dowdy woman’ but its etymology is unclear.

Oy vey  :)
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Sofa_King on August 03, 2016, 05:24:14 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

 A dog and pony show

 These days, your meaning of the phrase is the usual one: an elaborate briefing or visual presentation, usually for promotional purposes. Writers in recent decades have applied dog and pony show pejoratively to military briefings, political speeches and photo opportunities as well as to sales pitches.
To find the origin, we have to go back to the small towns of the middle west of the USA at the end of the nineteenth century. From the 1880s, reports start to appear in local newspapers of the arrival by rail of small travelling troupes of performers billed without any hint of sarcasm as “dog and pony shows”. The earliest example I know of:
The dog and pony show of Prof. Morris drew big houses at the matinee and at the evening performance yesterday. All who went, old and young, seemed delighted.
Omaha Daily Bee (Nebraska), 23 Sep. 1885.

The most famous was that run by “Professor” Gentry (actually four brothers), but many others existed, including those of Sipe & Dolman, the Harper Brothers, Stull & Miller, and the Norris Brothers. They were in truth small circuses, many of them running on a shoestring, with no more than a band and a ringmaster in addition to the animal acts, which did consist only of dogs and ponies. The Gentry operation was bigger than its rivals and around 1894 it had some 40 ponies and 80 dogs in each of two troupes (later it would grow into a full-scale circus).
This later description gives something of the atmosphere:
Arrived upon the populous and festive scene of the Dog and Pony Show, he first turned his attention to the brightly decorated booths which surrounded the tent. The cries of the peanut vendors, of the popcorn men, of the toy-balloon sellers, the stirring music of the band, playing before the performance to attract a crowd, the shouting of excited children and the barking of the dogs within the tent, all sounded exhilaratingly in Penrod’s ears and set his blood a-tingle.
Penrod, by Booth Tarkington, 1914.

The term dog-and-pony show later came to be used dismissively of any small-scale or mom-and-pop operation, in the same way that dog and pony shows were thought to be cut-down versions of “proper” circuses, with their limited repertoire (the idiom one-trick pony comes from them, too):
The published record presents a picture of the latest performance in one ring of the American broadcasting circus. The institute is not a Ringling Brothers production in its own chosen subject field, but it is not an itinerant dog and pony show either.
The Survey, published by Survey Associates, the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, 1940.

However, the literal term continued in use in parallel with it right through into the 1950s; it was sometimes the name for one part of a larger circus, perhaps designed as a sideshow for the children, who were allowed to ride the ponies and pet the dogs.
It was in the 1960s that the term began to appear in print as a metaphor for some event that was more pizzazz than substance, like the tinsel and glitter of a circus ring. An early example of this figurative sense:
Mr. Ally said his agency does not do speculative presentations either. They will sit down with a prospective client, however, and talk about the agency and the client’s problems. “But the dog and pony show we will not do.”
New York Times, 4 Oct. 1967.

The pejorative sense was almost certainly helped along by the implication that participants were like the performing animals at a circus; it’s likely that the idiom putting on dog also had some influence on its popularity.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 13, 2016, 04:12:23 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

UMPIRE

Arbiter.
Before it mellowed to describe a judge in a sporting contest, this was
the title of the stickler who refereed judicial combat as the numpire,
from the Old French for "non-pair/peer;' indicating impartiality.
This entered English as "numpire;' but by the 15th century the "n''
had leeched back to the article to produce "an umpire:' Much the
same happened to "napron:' "nadder;' and "norange:' with the reverse
happening to "ewt" and "ekename;' which today appear as "newt"
and "nickname:' STICKLER
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 21, 2016, 07:58:48 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

CHAPEL

Place of worship.
St Martin of Tours (d. AD 397) is said to have been a Roman soldier
who, on seeing a beggar shivering at the gates of Amiens, divided his
centurion's cape with the wretch and went on his way with what little
he had left. The beggar was Jesus, who later appeared to Martin in a
dream, wearing the half-cape, and told him to quit the army and
place himself under the guidance of the Bishop of Poitiers. The
French built a significant cult around this saint, and any battle or
treaty requiring the royal presence demanded that the cappella, or
cloak, believed to be St Martin's half of the divided garment, be taken
along in its ornate ark and a small place of worship be built at every
stop on the journey. Each of these places was designated a cappella,
now "chapel;' and, in imitation of St Martin, each soldier delegated
to leave the army and remain behind as custodian took the title of
cappellain, which evolved into "chaplain:'
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 09, 2017, 01:17:16 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

RUN AMOK

Lose control.
This was the Malay equivalent of the Viking berserk, a warrior in a
homicidal frenzy bent on killing as many of the enemy as possible.
The Malays occupied and gave their name to Malabar on the west
coast of India where, until the 17th century, their king was required
to cut his own throat in public after 12 years of rule. At that time, the
ritual was modified so that the king was required to stand in public,
surrounded by his bodyguards, as an open invitation to any amok,
"frenzied warrior;' who dared to attack the bodyguards, kill the king,
and take his place for the next 12 years. Visiting Europeans brought
home the phrase after watching one amoker after the other meet their
deaths at the hands of the king's bodyguards. "Run amok" is often
written as "run amuck;' incorrectly. BERSERK
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 12, 2017, 07:19:08 AM
DID YOU LOOK ?


https://youtu.be/U9XFqL-3KfU
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 23, 2017, 10:14:08 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

LACONIC

Terse or concise.
By the close of the 8th century BC Laconia was the region of modern Greece ruled by the warlike city of Sparta, whose citizens were not very talkative. Their approach to verbosity is best summed up by the probably apocryphal story of King Philip II of Macedon sending word to the Spartan council: "If I enter Laconia, I will level Lacedaemon to the ground." The ephors, or senior magistrates, returned the message: "If." A more recent military laconicism is "Nuts!" This was the famous reply made by General McAuliffe to the German demands for him to surrender Bastogne and the American 101st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. The 101st managed to hold the town.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on March 19, 2017, 08:53:06 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

FULL TILT

Maximum speed.
Yomping across rough terrain on a horse while holding an 8-foot pole at the horizontal was not a sensible option for knights in combat. Instead, they held their lances upright until closing with their opponent at top speed, at which point the lance would be lowered, or tilted, down to use. The phrase "full tilt" thus came to mean "full speed" in a metaphorical sense.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on March 26, 2017, 06:05:41 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

TWENTY-ONE GUN SALUTE

Gesture of respect.
Gestures of respect or submission involving weapons rendered inoperable are nothing new - bows held backwards and lances being dragged in the dust are all recorded - but it was difficult to tell with cannon or musket by just looking at them that this had been done, so they had to be discharged to put the opposition at their ease. Any ship entering a foreign port was expected to discharge all guns to indicate friendly intentions. However, black powder was a valuable commodity at sea with a short shelf-life in the damp and salty conditions, so something had to be done to limit salutes without causing offense.
In 1675, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), First Secretary of the British Admiralty, worked out a strict code to limit the ever-escalating number of salutes and the attendant waste of powder and shot. Pepys' scale started at three guns for the most junior admiral and added two more for each step in rank until it reached 19 guns for Admiral of the Fleet; he then added two more guns for a royal salute. His scale, still an accepted benchmark today, increased in odd numbers as salutes of even numbers were the accepted form for funerals.
However, everything started to creep up again. Royal salutes fired from the Tower of London soon leapt to 62 guns: 21 for the monarch, another 21 for the city, and 20 for the Tower itself. Other institutions quickly invented reasons for firing off dozens of cannon to add excitement to one occasion or another. Hyde Park still insists on 41 guns for ceremonial occasions, and indeed this was the number fired to greet American President George W. Bush on his 2003 visit to London .
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 01, 2017, 09:28:24 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BISTRO

Small restaurant.
The popular explanation has "bistro" as a corruption of the Russian bystro, meaning "quick:' because during the 1815 occupation of France Russian officers would strut into Paris bars and cafes demanding to be served bystro! However, bistro was unknown in French until 1884. The true origins may lie in bistouille, a drink of strong coffee and brandy, or any small cafe specializing in such. The drink's name emerged from its turgid appearance and means "to stir twice:' with an additional influence from bistre, "dark" or "dark brown:'
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 08, 2017, 10:29:01 AM
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CAVALIER

Careless or haughty.

"Cavalier" acquired its insulting meanings during the English Civil War (1642-51) when it was used as an insult by the Parliamentary forces for their Monarchist opponents, who could be arrogant and more concerned with fashion and panache than with the serious business of war. As every schoolboy knows, the Cavaliers responded with the term "Roundheads;' but no matter how many sources say this was a snigger at their austere and shaven heads, this is not the case. Cromwell had hair as long as any Cavalier, as did his sons and close associates; some Parliamentarians did have close-cropped hair or shaved heads as a health measure, but most Cavaliers also cropped their hair so that their wigs would fit better. The nickname "Roundheads" was more likely inspired by the pudding-bowl helmets worn by Cromwell's troops. JERRY
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 18, 2017, 03:52:54 PM
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BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA


Anywhere dark, cramped, and oppressive

In the 18th century, the East India Trading Company adopted a high-handed and dictatorial attitude to the ruler of Bengal, Nawab Siraj-ud-Dawlah, harboring escapees from his courts and abusing its duty-free privileges. After talks broke down, the nawab marched on the Company's Fort William in Calcutta on June 20, 1756 and took it over. Being assured of courteous treatment and freedom to roam the installation if they gave their word to behave, the Europeans immediately began to riot, prompting the disgruntled nawab (possibly) to order the ringleaders to be locked up in their own jail. That cell only measured 18ft by 14ft (5.5 by 4m), so it was quite incapable of holding the 146 prisoners who are sometimes claimed to have been incarcerated.
British accounts mention 146 prisoners, with only 21 survivors in the morning, while others talk of perhaps 30 prisoners, mainly soldiers, of whom  a small number  did die overnight but  only as a result of wounds received during the earlier fighting. As is to be expected with such incidents, opinion as to the truth is sharply divided; the British were the only ones to write about it at the time, the British historians C. R. Wilson and S. C. Hill both being funded by Lord Curzon (Viceroy oflndia 1899-1905) to issue papers backing up the below-mentioned  Holwell's  account of the affair, so their impartiality is suspect. Most Indian academics, such as R. C. Majumdar, Vice Chancellor of Dacca University, and Busudeb Chatterjee, Director of the West Bengal Government Archives, dismiss the British account as wild imaginings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
 The story only gained prominence in 1758, when East India Company officer John Zephaniah Holwell, who claimed to be one of the survivors, published A Genuine Narrative of the Deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen and Others Who Were Suffocated in the Black Hole. No one challenged this lurid account, despite  Holwell's  descriptions  of  the  blacked? out and windowless cell (hence "black hole") and countless other miseries.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               The British public was in no mood for such details; public opinion demanded that the nawab be taught a lesson and placed firmly back under the authority of the East India Company. Since the Company funded the publication of Holwell's ravings, the cynical might rightly suspect political maneuverings to be at work.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
               A relief column was dispatched from Madras under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Clive to expel the nawab from the fort and to re-establish the Company's grip on the local economy. Although Holwell's yarn was ridiculed behind closed doors, it was not openly challenged until 1915, when J. H. Little, Secretary of the Calcutta Historical Society, published The Black Hole - The Question of Holwell's Veracity, which poked large holes in Holwell's story. After India became  independent  in  1947,  the  Black  Hole  Monument to Indian "brutality" was demolished, but the expression remains descriptive of any dark, cramped and oppressive place.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 26, 2017, 07:21:19 AM

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DECIMATE

Wholesale slaughter.
There was a Roman Army punishment  called decimation but it did not involve slaughter on a grand scale, as the word now implies; rather it meant the killing of every tenth man in a unit guilty of disobedience, riot or cowardice. Any vanquished enemy that was judged guilty of cowardice might also be decimated.
An accurate account of the procedure is to be found in the writings of Polybius of Megalopolis (200-118 BC) who accompanied Scipio the Younger on his campaigns between 149 and 146 BC. "The tribune assembles the legion, and brings up those guilty of leaving the ranks, reproaches them sharply, and finally chooses by lots sometimes five, sometimes eight, sometimes 20 of the offenders, so adjusting the number thus chosen that they form as near as possible the tenth part of those guilty of cowardice. Those on whom the lot falls are bastinadoed  [clubbed to death] mercilessly; the rest               

[who actually had to do the clubbing] receive rations of barley instead of wheat and are ordered to encamp outside the camp on an unprotected spot. As therefore the danger and dread of drawing the fatal lot affects all equally, as it is uncertain on whom it will fall; and as the public disgrace of receiving barley rations falls on all alike, this practice is that best calculated both to inspire fear and to correct the mischief' (Polybius, World History, vol. 6, 38: 2-4).
After the heyday of Scipio the Younger, this punishment seems to have lapsed until it was reinstituted by Crassus (d. 53 BC) when hunting down Spartacus in 71 BC.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 29, 2017, 08:27:28 AM
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AL-QAEDA

Umbrella name for  disparate terror groups.
As with so many other Arabic terms, such as "algebra;' "alcohol;' and "alcove;' the definite article "al" is incorporated into the word in Western usage, and AJ-Qaeda means "The Base:' Whether that means a military base or something more abstract such as a principle or an ethos is unclear. It is also uncertain whether the term was first used by terror groups of themselves and subsequently picked up by Western intelligence, or whether it was a Western coinage.

In October 2001, Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni filmed an interview in which Osama bin Laden claimed: "The name al-Qaeda was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri established the training camps for our mujahideen against Russia's terrorism. We used to call the training camp al-Qaeda and the name stayed:'
The BBC's Power of Nightmares program (a trilogy screened January 18-20, 2005) not only went to great lengths to show there was no such specific organization as Al-Qaeda, but also postulated that the term was the invention of Jamal al-Fadl, a former cohort of bin  Laden who had  turned  informer. The White House was determined  to prosecute bin Laden  in absentia using the  1970s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which required proof that he was the leader of a criminal organization. The indictment required a specific name and members of the CIA put this problem to al.-Fadl, who had been feeding them intelligence since 1996; he told them to opt for Al-Qaeda and the case of US v bin Laden began in February 2001. This fits chronologically with the fact that bin Laden himself only started to talk of Al-Qaeda after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.To add further confusion, bin Laden's groups then allied with Egypt's al-Jihad to form the Qaa'idat al-Jihad, "the (power) base of the Jihad:' A third suggestion that cannot be discounted came from the late Robin Cook MP (1946-2005), British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001. Cook claimed inside knowledge that the term was derived from the fact that bin Laden, and others like him, had previously been registered on a CIA database listing individuals  and groups to which  the Americans had provided arms and support in Russian-occupied Afghanistan. The day after the London bombings of July 7, 2005, Cook wrote his penultimate piece in The Guardian, describing bin Laden as ''A product of monumental miscalculations by Western intelligence agencies

Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian
occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, literally the database, was originally a computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained by the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, bin Laden's organization would turn its attention to the West. "



Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 06, 2017, 12:35:00 PM
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DEMARCATION LINE

Dispute line.
During the 15th century, it was papal policy to attempt to stop the ongoing wars between the rulers of  Spain  and  Portugal  as they vied with each other over new lands and possessions. Since the pope received a cut in the profits from both sides, he was thus seriously out of pocket when these two Catholic countries fought each other instead of exploiting new lands.
On May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI drew a line through the New World and issued a papal bull demanding that the Spanish and Portuguese should each stay on  their  own  side  of  this line of demarcation . Most of South America, which was on the Spanish side of the line, is Spanish speaking, but Brazil was on the. Portuguese side. The agreement was cemented by the Treaty
.of Tordesillas, after which Alexander VI amassed a fortune. Today he is better known as Rodrigo Borgia, who died in 1503 when he accidentally drank from the poisoned chalice he had prepared to kill Cardinal Adriano.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 10, 2017, 02:34:37 PM
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CROUPIER

Casino dealer.
Medieval knights traveled light, with just a servant or arms bearer riding pillion on the croupe, as a horse's rear is known in French, gaining them the title croupier. When several knights camped together they invariably fell to gaming as a form of entertainment. The croupiers drew lots to see who would be the appointed dealer for the night and would therefore profit from the tips. A directly related word is "croup;' a collection of symptoms that includes a strange cough fancied to resemble the kind of noise heard from a horse's croup. HOIST ON YOUR OWN PETARD
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 13, 2017, 04:48:08 PM
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ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Ominous silence.
This expression, dating from World War I, refers to the 600-mile line of confrontation running from the Swiss border down to the English Channel, with various sections of the whole identified as either the Hindenburg Line or the Siegfried Line. From a geographical standpoint this is an odd expression to find in English usage, because only for the Germans was this the Western Front. From London, it was the Eastern Front. For the Germans, the Eastern Front ran from Riga to the Black Sea and the Southern Front from the Swiss Border to Trieste. German military dispatches so frequently stated Im Westen nichts neues, "nothing new in the West;' that the phrase was adopted by the German press and turned into something of catchphrase. Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) used it as the title of his 1929 book that detailed the horrors and boredom of trench warfare. When the book was translated into English the title was deliberately amended to echo other titles, such as that of the American Civil War song, "All Quiet along the Potomac Tonight;' and ''.All Quiet in the Shipka Pass:' The latter was the caption to a famous Russian cartoon of 1878 by Vasily Vereshchagin, showing dead and frozen Russian troops during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78).
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 17, 2017, 05:41:51 PM

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A Buck
 
How "buck" becomes slang for U. S. dollar? The term originated from the Old West when buckskin was a common medium of exchange with Indians. Later as currency replaced the barter system, people still refer to a dollar as a buck (short for buckskin).
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 23, 2017, 03:19:04 PM

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DEADLINE

Fixed date or time.
The Confederate-run POW camp at Andersonville was rightly infamous ; some distance in from the stockade wall ran another line, the "dead line;' beyond which any prisoner would be presumed to be attempting to escape and consequently shot out of hand.
Located about 10 miles to the northeast of Americus, Georgia, the camp was open for only 13 months from February 1864 to March 1865, but as there were no barracks or basic facilities Andersonville suffered a death rate of 1,200 inmates per month. Press coverage of the postwar trial of the commanding officer, a Swiss mercenary called Henry Wirz, brought "deadline" into general use in the late 19th century.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 30, 2017, 04:58:20 PM

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CUT AND RUN

Leave with all haste.
To sit in ambush, a warship might hide in a small estuary, riding at anchor in a running stream with the sails furled and tied off with light rope so that a few quick cuts would allow them to fall down and into use. Combined with the tug of the current, this would allow the vessel to get under way at first sighting of the enemy ship. The notion that the expression derives from a ship cutting its own anchor cable in haste to clear danger does not hold up, as such ships could not get under way like startled gazelles; there was always time to haul in the anchor and secure it in its bow support.
The inclusion of "run" in the expression has introduced overtones of cowardice or perhaps self-interest, which were not present in the original usage of the 17th century.

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 02, 2017, 03:16:02 PM




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COWBOY

Slipshod or-reckless operator.
The men who herded cattle in the 19th-century American  West were never called cowboys. They were called cow herders, vaqueros (corrupted to "buckaroos" in translation), cowhands, cowpokes, wranglers or even beef-drivers, but never cowboys.
The first actual cowboys were active during the American War of Independence ( 1775-83) as Tory guerrillas loyal to the British Crown, and the word was in use well before 1882. Their favorite ruse was to lure patriotic farmers into ambush by tinkling cowbells in the undergrowth and taking pot shots at anyone who came to look for the animal. After the war, "cowboy" became broadly understood to denote a Texan rustler who specialized in raids across the border into Mexico, so it is fair to say that the term has rarely enjoyed polite use in America.
By 1940 use of the term had spread to include inconsiderate drivers too, and it was this meaning that migrated to the UK in the 1960s and attached itself to truck drivers on the Middle East runs who paid scant regard to vehicle safety or loading restrictions and who would transport anything anywhere if the price was right. Today the term denotes any shoddy workman. SABOTAGE and WHIG
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 06, 2017, 06:14:16 PM
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HATCHET-MAN

Aggressively  effective subordinate.
In the early 18th century a hatchet-man was a soldier sent ahead of the main column to scout the way and mark his course on trees with an ax. He was also known as the "trailblazer;' not for his fiery courage but from "blaze" meaning "white;' a reference to the white marks he left on the trees. The blaze on a horse's head is so-named for the same reason. If the column were of a size to warrant it, the hatchet-man was followed close behind by a squad of soldiers with picks and shovels to clear the land for camp and dig latrines. The Old French for such troops was paoniers, hence "pioneers" .;ho, in the British Army, evolved into the Royal Pioneer Corps of Light Engineers.
In American military circles "hatchet-man" was used of anyone who undertook an onerous task for others, but when the expression filtered into political and commercial circles it took on darker overtones, for no other reason than the involvement  of  the word "hatchet:'
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 10, 2017, 06:20:01 PM
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TAKE (SOMEONE) DOWN A PEG OR TWO

Deflate someone's ego.
The height at which a warship's identifying flags flew was dictated by a series of pegs at the foot of the mast, and maritime etiquette demanded a junior ship "dip" her colours in the presence of, say, an admiral's ship. The allusion is hence to a ship, hitherto the senior in the fleet, which suddenly has to acknowledge a more important ship's arrival. The expression was employed metaphorically as early as the late 1500s.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 15, 2017, 02:50:18 PM

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SHIT.  (SCUSE MY FRENCH)

Manure... An interesting fact

Manure : In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and it was also before the invention of commercial fertilizers, so large shipments of manure were quite common.



It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, not only did it become heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane gas of course.. As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen.
Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOM!  Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the instruction ' Stow high in transit ' on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.



Thus evolved the term ' S.H.I.T ', (Stow High In Transit) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.




Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 19, 2017, 07:20:21 PM

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SLAVE

Captive labor.
The Germanic and Venetian armies of the Middle Ages were funded by slaving expeditions to  the Slavic nations to sell captive labor throughout Europe and North Africa. So extensive was this trade that "Slav" evolved into "slave:' The Italian equivalent, schiavo, survives as the cheerful Ciao, once the call or dismissal of a Venetian slave who responded with the same term; Ciao is still used as both a greeting and a farewell.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 25, 2017, 04:57:13 PM

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HANG FIRE

Delay.
Early cannon and mines were unreliable and there could sometimes be quite a delay between the ignition of the priming charge and the explosion . Under such circumstances the gun was said to be "hanging fire;' and only a fool would go anywhere near it until it either went off or was rendered safe. Firearms and cannon became so hot after protracted  firing that pouring gunpowder into them was dangerous, so a gun crew might be ordered to "hang fire" until their piece cooled to safe loading temperatures . HOIST ON YOUR OWN PETARD and GRENADE
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 07, 2017, 02:30:01 PM

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HERE'S MUD IN YOUR EYE

Drinking toast.
This phrase is sometimes said to have originated as a taunting toast before the start of a wild goose chase, in which the proposer indicated his intention to lead the field and give everyone else a face-full of mud from his horse's  hooves. The expression is unknown before World War I, however, and appears to be instead a grim acknowledgment of the reality of life in the trenches; here's to a life of muck and bullets, in other words.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 12, 2017, 05:49:26 PM

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HAVOC

Great confusion.
Originally rooted in the Anglo Saxon word for a hawk, "havoc" was also a cry raised on the battlefield calling for unlimited slaughter, no quarter granted or expected. Early in the reign of Richard II (1377-99) the cry was outlawed under pain of death for he who raised it or answered it. The Black Book of the Admiralty of 1385, then printed in French and Latin, states: "Item, qe nul soit si hardy de crier havok sur peine davoir la test coupe," which basically translates as "Cry 'havoc' and we'll cut your head off'
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on July 26, 2017, 06:03:13 PM
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GRENADE

Hand-thrown bomb.
Fifteenth-century grenades were round with a slow-fuse sticking out of the top, like a cartoon bomb. They were about the same size as a pomegranate and sprayed seeds of shrapnel, so they were named after the notoriously seedy fruit they resembled. Most early bombs were more dangerous to the user than the enemy, so the grenade faded from use and the taller-than-average men picked from the ranks to throw them returned to the infantry whence they came, but remained an elite corps and are still called the Grenadiers.
The grenade did not see serious action again until the Russo - Japanese War (1904-05), and even in the opening months of World War I the supply of factory-produced grenades was erratic to say the least, so troops in the trenches whiled away the long spells of boredom by making their own. The British troops in Northern France tended to use bottles or the "hairbrush bomb;' which was a shaped piece of wood with a charge attached, while the Australians fighting in the Middle East favored old jelly tins and brought this technology to France in 1916. If in a frivolous mood, which was often the case, the Aussies would insert a small charge into a full tin of jelly and lob it at the Germans, who were at first terrified by these pranks, mistaking the joke for some kind of hideous germ warfare.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 02, 2017, 04:27:51 PM
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PROTOCOL

Agreed etiquette.
In general speech the term stands synonymous with "etiquette;' but those who insist on following protocol in this are shamelessly abusing the word.
Any lengthy declaration of war or treaty drawn._ up in Ancient Greece in the 3rd century BC might be inscribed on several pieces of parchment that were glued together in series and rolled up in .a volume (Latin volvere, "to roll'), with the lead sheet giving details of content and known as the protokollen, "first stuck" or "first glued:' The term shifted into English diplomatic jargon of the early 17th century when it denoted the first page of a document detailing the broad terms of the attached trade agreement, declaration of war, or treaty.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 07, 2017, 06:50:23 PM
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COVER YOUR ASS


Take all steps for self-protection.
This is an expression used by American forces during the Vietnam War (1959-73). It seems to have developed from the practice of the more jungle-wise soldiers of taking the additional precaution of sitting on their helmets when  travelling over enemy territory by helicopter, in order to obviate the risk of receiving embarrassing wounds from ground fire.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 11, 2017, 06:15:56 PM

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BIG BERTHA

Large woman.
There is considerable confusion  surrounding this nickname, which is popularly imagined to have first applied to the Paris Gun, a long? range gun used by the Germans in World War I to shell Paris from a distance of about 70 miles. In fact, the epithet denoted any of the 42cm howitzers used by the Germans in 1914 to bombard Liege and Namur in southern Belgium, and was named after Bertha Krupp ( 1866-1957) in whose family's factories the guns had been built. The Paris Gun was built by Skoda, and its real nickname was Dicke Bertha, correctly translating as "Fat Bertha:' The term is used in modern English to describe a particularly impressive tennis serve or rugby kick.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 21, 2017, 12:08:56 PM

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BLUNDERBUSS

Primitive shotgun.
"Blunderbuss" is a corruption of the Dutch donderbus, "thunder gun;' a fair description of the weapon that found great favor in all Western navies for its effectiveness at sweeping enemy decks. With a massive, bell-ended barrel, the gun's additional advantage was that no specific ammunition was required; any redundant  metal  and bent nails would do. There is a modern misconception that the bell? shaped muzzle ensured a wide spread'of the shot, but it was simply to make it easy to pour in shrapnel at great speed. By the late 17th century, "blunderbuss" was being used of any noisy or  boastful person, and in the 1920s had become a waggish term for a baby's pram. Since the 1980s in the UK the term has been used to refer to a touring coach used by party leaders traveling the country in the run-up to a general election .
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 29, 2017, 07:34:02 PM

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BEST MAN

Attendant to bridegroom.
Back in the days when a bride might be kidnapped and forced into marriage to bring about some treaty between warring factions, the groom needed the best swordsman of his acquaintance to guard his back as he made off with his bride. The ushers at the church today are a pale reflection of the men involved in such raiding parties. The role of "best (swords)man" has been known since before AD 1000, although it was not encorporated into British wedding tradition until the early 1800s.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 12, 2017, 03:42:48 PM

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GUERRILLA

Aggressive/unconventional fighter .
Guerrilla is actually the Spanish for "little war" and is thus descriptive of the hit-and-run tactics employed; a soldier fighting in such a manner is a guerrillero. Although the term has been used in English since the early 1800s, "guerrilla war" is something of a tautology, translating as "little war war:' The word is now used in general speech to describe things that share characteristics with guerrillas' tactics.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 18, 2017, 01:52:02 PM
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BLUE BLOOD

Of noble birth.
In the 5th century, the much-maligned Vandals colonized the southern reaches of the Iberian Peninsula as a jumping-off point for their invasion of North Africa, giving us the name Andalusia, which was originally Vandalusia. Four hundred years later, the 9th-century Moors returned the favor by invading mainland Spain, which they controlled until the 11th century. Throughout this period, the Castilian nobility refused to tolerate the fraternization and intermarriage that had become quite commonplace. As a result, their skin remained paler than that of those nobles of mixed blood, and their veins still showed blue at their wrists. The Castilian boast of their sangre azul arrived in English as "blue blood" in the early 1830s.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on September 24, 2017, 05:54:32 PM

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TOMMY

British soldier.
Based on the ubiquity of the name Thomas Atkins in the 18th century, the first known incidence of "Tommy" as an affectionate nickname for the ordinary British soldier dates to 1743. It gained official recognition in 1815 with newly-issued forms and pay books. All the new paperwork came supplied with example forms completed in the fictitious name of Thomas Atkins.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 05, 2017, 07:04:08 PM

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SINISTER

Ominous and threatening.
Sinister is simply the Latin for "left" and, as explained in SALUTE, the handshake was once a determined and sustained grasp of both parties'  right  hands  to  preclude  the  drawing  of  a  sword  during negotiations.  A  left-handed,  or  "sinister;' person  with  malicious intent would hold a definite advantage in this context. Also, a left? handed swordsman would have the bonus of presenting right-handed opponents with mirror-moves, which could well leave them confused. Every aspect of the layout of castles and keeps related to their defense;  that  which  is  deemed  today  to  be  nothing  more  than pleasing to the eye was constructed for a specific military purpose. For example, on the broad but narrowing access to the main entrance, the steps are always uneven in number, size, and regularity; perhaps two steps up, then a short flat before three steps, another flat section before a single step, and so forth. Any forces attempting to charge up such irregular steps would trip over their own feet and create a bottleneck right under the archery positions. The open and winding stone stairs found in castles are also there by defensive design. All snake  upwards  in  an  anticlockwise  spiral  to  give  right-handed defenders the full sweep advantage over insurgents most likely to have their sword arms hampered by the wall. An exception to this rule is the Ferniehirst Castle near Jedburgh on the England-Scotland border, the stronghold of the Kerr family, which has clockwise stairs because
of the unusually high incidence of left-handedness in the family.
Originating in battle, the prejudice against the left side permeated society; the French word gauche, "left;' came to mean "clumsy" in early 16th-century English. "Cack-handed" and "awkward" both mean left-handed, and a left-handed compliment, one which carries a thinly veiled insult, has prevented the closure of many a conflict. RIGHT-HAND MAN and SALUTE
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 11, 2017, 04:28:20 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

GRANT QUARTER

Show mercy.
Known since the late 16th century, this was a battlefield expression indicating that vanquished knights would be taken prisoner and held for ransom. While the details of the deal were being agreed, the victor was expected to provide his "guests" with appropriate quarters and add the cost of their upkeep to the final demand, hence "granting quarter:' There is no substance to the suggestion that the expression was born of the ransom being fixed at one quarter of the captive's worth .
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 21, 2017, 03:27:55 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

HIGH PROFILE/LOW PROFILE

Prominent/ insignificant.
During the opening years of the Cold War (1945-90), when the navies of Eastern and Western countries kept a close eye on each others' maritime shenanigans, the above terms marked the broad distinction between the two main categories of "enemy" shipping. "High profile" covered battleships up to aircraft carriers while "low profile" was reserved for surfaced submarines and "innocent" trawlers out for a spot of fishing. The terms moved into general use via the press.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on October 29, 2017, 08:32:49 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

CENOTAPH

Monument to the fallen.
Cenotaphs were first seen in Ancient Greece to honor those lost at sea; invariably erected on headlands, the cenotaph took its name from kenos, "empty;' and taphos, "tomb:' The most famous cenotaph in the UK has stood in London's Whitehall since its completion in 1920 by Sir Edward Lutyens to commemorate those lost in World War I.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 14, 2017, 05:16:48 AM
DID YOU KNOW ?

SHAVETAIL

Inexperienced person.
Mules have many qualities, some irksome and others downright painful, so those who ran the mule-trains of the mid-19th century American Army would shave off the tail of any new mule as a warning to the unwary that its behavior might be unpredictable . It was not long before the troops were using the term for any newcomer, and by the Spanish-American War of 1898 "shavetail" had become
 specific to describe a newly commissioned lieutenant.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 30, 2017, 07:51:14 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

RENDEZVOUS

Meeting point.
In the late 16th century, rendezvous was borrowed from French, along with its meaning of "deliver yourselves;' as an order to regular troops to gather at a certain place and time; it could also be put out as an order for an open muster demanding all able-bodied men in the area to turn up and join  the force.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 10, 2017, 06:26:20 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

RIGHT-HAND MAN
 
Person of special responsibility.
In the early 17th century this was the designation for the officer who rode to the right of a line of cavalry to direct the charge. In any military array or battle formation, those in the favor of the king or commander  always took up position on his right-hand  side, and this privilege shifted from the battlefield to the political arena, in which those allied to the crown always sat on the right wing of an assembly while those opposed took up their position on the left wing.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 17, 2017, 05:45:02 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

RANK AND FILE

Unexceptional members of an organization, often numerous.
"Rank and file" refers to the mass of common soldiery who assembled in ranks (the lines of men standing side by side) and files (those lined up one behind the other). The expression was not known to be used outside military circles until the mid-19th century.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 27, 2017, 11:50:09 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

LIMBER UP

Prepare for main effort, warm up.
Since  the early days of horse-drawn artillery "limber" has described the detachable forepart of a gun carriage, consisting of two wheels, the shafts for the horses, and two ammunition chests. This all had to be hooked up before the gun crew could move off, so the command ''.Limber up!" preceded the main effort of moving the battery from one location to another. Exercise for pleasure is a relatively recent phenomenon, so "limber up " did not actually move into general usage until the late 1940s/early 1950s, likely as a result of the public hearing the command during the Royal Artillery's demonstrations of speed, agility and efficiency at military pageants such as Edinburgh's annual Tattoo.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 21, 2018, 04:16:58 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

ROOKIE

Recruit.
"Rookie" has been used in US and UK army slang since the 1890s and has always carried overtones of stupidity because it descends from "rook;' "to cheat or swindle:' The allusion was to the larcenous cunning of the eponymous bird, and the new recruits were considered easy targets for those determined to rook them.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 01, 2018, 01:16:00 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BLITZ

Spring-clean or purge .
Blitzkrieg, "lightning-war;' was the name the Germans gave to the kind of high-speed offensive spearheaded by tanks that was taught them by British Major General John Frederick Charles Fuller (1878-1966).
Fuller's first Blitzkrieg struck on November 20, 1917, when 476 British tanks rolled ahead of six infantry and two cavalry divisions at the battle of Cambrai; the effect on the Germans was quite shattering and the British advanced about 5 miles in that day alone. Regarding this as a vindication of all his ideas, Fuller embarked on a crusade to mechanize and modernize the army but, increasingly disenchanted, quit in 1933 to team up with Sir Oswald Mosley on the Policy Directorate of the British Union of Fascists . He became, at Hitler 's side, a regular observer at German military maneuvers and guest of honor at Hitler's SOth birthday party on April 20, 1939. This was the last time he met his friend, General Heinz Guderian ( 1888-1954), who incorporated many of Fuller's ideas into his 1937 fireside page? turner, Achtung! Panzer! and was soon deploying the panzer brigades just as Fuller had taught him.                                                                                                                                               

                        Londoners used the truncated  term "Blitz" for the intensive air raids they endured from September 1940 to April 1941. As early as late 1940 the term had begun to be used metaphorically to denote an intensive strike or purge of any kind, e.g. "We will have to blitz the kitchen today, it's filthY:' Today, "blitzed" can also mean extremely drunk,-this likely arising as an intensifier of "bombed:'

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Smithy on February 27, 2018, 07:39:44 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

SCAM

noun
1.  a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit; swindle.

verb (used with object), scammed, scamming.
2.   to cheat or defraud with a scam

No one really knows where the word SCAM originates form
OED cites three definitions for the noun, all contemporaneous: a swindle (1963), a fraudulent bankruptcy (1966), and a rumor (1964). One of the examples given suggests that users at the time (mid ?60s) believed scam to originally be a carnival term, meaning ?to fleece the public.? Although this is included in an early example, it?s worth pointing out that it?s not actually given as the origin of the word (suggesting that someone?s done research down this route and so far come up empty).

One surprising thing is that I?ve found no suggestion that scam was somehow derived from scheme. At the very least this has a nice ring to it as a folk etymology (and scheme used in this way ? as a plan or design ? dates to at least 1704). There?s no documentation to support that theory, however.

After weeks of searching on the Internet I have found where the word SCAM actually comes from
If you would like to know , send 1000 baht to my Bangkok Bank No 2341-23456-0-1 and I will tell you my findings  moneysmile
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Smithy on June 17, 2018, 02:54:21 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

TRASH

Definition of trash

trashed; trashing; trashes
transitive verb
1 : throw away 1
standards of reality and truth were trashed ?Edwin Diamond
2 : vandalize, destroy
3 : attack, assault
4 : spoil, ruin trashing the environment
5 : to subject to criticism or invective; especially : to disparage strongly a film trashed by the critics
intransitive verb
: to trash something or someone

Recent Examples of trash from the Web

There are some very good people on that forum that I personal know but unfortunately they still have the trash.

The newspaper would be thrown way in the next day?s trash and the only proof of the offending idiotic column would be in the memory banks of few readers.

In the kitchen are two dishwashers, a trash compactor and two disposal units.

China's decision this year to stop accepting most imported scrap has meant lower prices for plastic and paper, placing greater pressure on cities and waste companies nationally and in Wisconsin to keep unwanted trash out of recycling bins.

There are a few theories on where the word 'Trash" comes from. Perhaps from a Scandinavian source (compare Old Norse tros "rubbish, fallen leaves and twigs," Norwegian dialectal trask "lumber, trash, baggage," Swedish trasa "rags, tatters"), of unknown origin. Applied to ill-bred persons or groups from 1604 ("Othello"), and especially of poor whites in the U.S. South by 1831. Applied to domestic refuse or garbage from 1906 (American English). Trash-can attested from 1914. To trash-talk someone or something is by 1989.

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 17, 2018, 07:32:50 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

LAST DITCH EFFORT

Final and determined attempt.
When 16th- and 17th-century armies were preparing the ground for a pitched battle, they would dig several lines of trenches in case they needed to retreat and regroup in prepared positions. If the men found themselves in the last ditch they had no option other than to fight where they stood or to die.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 13, 2018, 03:18:01 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

CARTE BLANCHE

Complete freedom of action.
The old game of piquet was played with a reduced pack of 32 cards, all the low numbers from two through six being excluded. This raised the odds against a hand without face-cards, so a player with just carte( s) blanche( s), "white cards;' held complete sway over the game. Seventeenth-century gamesters would talk of someone in an unassailable position in any sphere as holding "cartes blanches" and the singularized version shifted into military and diplomatic circles in the 18th century to describe either a punitive acknowledgement of defeat, which left the vanquished no room for maneuver, or a blank sheet for them to sign so the victors could impose any conditions they fancied. A junior  might also hold a carte blanche from his superior so he could write above the signature a justification  for whatever actions had already taken place.

Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on November 30, 2018, 12:25:21 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

CARTEL

Group of businessmen bent on price-fixing .
The 16th-century Italian cartello meant a written challenge to a duel, but within a hundred years or so it was understood to denote a written agreement between armies trying to sort out the exchange of prisoners or to agree terms and conditions for any ensuing conflict. It was with these connotations of "fixing things" that the term leached into the commercial world to mean what it does today.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 09, 2018, 07:30:44 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

IRON CURTAIN

Imaginary barrier between East and West.
The original iron curtain was very tangible; it was the chain-mail safety barrier lowered between the stage and auditorium of a theater in the event of fire.
In its East-West political sense, the expression was launched into popularity by the famous "Sinews of Peace"speech given by Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946: "From Stettin, in the Baltic, to Trieste, in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent:' But, as was so often the case with Churchill, he was far from original; as early as 1914, Elizabeth, Queen of the Belgians, spoke of a "bloody iron curtain" between herself and the Germans. With specific reference to Russia, Ethel Snowden's Through Bolshevik Russia (1920) made frequent use of the same metaphor. In fact, it seems to have been Joseph Goebbels' use of "Iron Curtain" that prompted Churchill to adopt the expression, and, a full year before his Fulton speech, he was already using the phrase in official communiques to President Truman and other prominent figu res.
The iron curtains themselves appeared in theaters in the 1790s, and had entered the realm of metaphor by 1819 when the First Earl of Munster (1794-1842) wrote of his jaunts in India that: "On the 19 November we crossed the Betwah river, and as if an iron curtain had dropped between us and the avenging angel, the deaths diminished".
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on December 22, 2018, 07:38:55 AM
To  all those that read this post a very merry christmas to you all , and a happy new year.


DID YOU KNOW ?

YANK or YANKEE

An American.
AU suggestions citing Native American origins have turned out to rest on non-existent words, or those that mean something other than claimed. The most outlandish theory suggests that Yankee derives from the Persian janghe or jenghe, a "great warrior:' as in the title of Jenghis (or Genghis) Khan, and first reared its head in 1810 in a spoof letter sent to The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review. Intended as
a burlesque on the philological musings of Noah Webster printed in the same magazine, the piece was so well presented that later retractions failed to halt the launch of yet another false etymology into the English language.
The main problem with any putative American derivation is the fact that the term was beyond doubt first used by English sailors of their constant adversary, the Dutch freebooters and buccaneers. That said, it is still argued whether the insult was built on Jan Kaas, Johnny Cheese, Jan Kees, John Cornelius,  or simply the common Dutch surname of Janke. After the Dutch landed their first colonists in 1624 to consolidate their claim to the lands around modern New York, they too were called Yankees. Not to be outdone, the Dutch hurled the same insult back at the English settlers in Connecticut and before long it became a common term for anyone reviled. By 1758, General Wolfe made frequent and disparaging reference during the Quebec campaign to the New England militia under his command as a "bunch of Yankees" and, after the American War of Independence, the English were using it of any American, whatever their heritage or location.
It was during that American struggle that British Army surgeon Dr Richard Shuckburgh penned "Yankee DoodJe" to ridicule the opposition who, much to British chagrin, played the tune loud and clear when marching down to accept the surrender of the British forces at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on January 15, 2019, 02:00:17 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

COLOGNE

Light perfume.
Even the name of the city hasa military origin; in AD 50 the Romans established the garrison town of Oppidum Ubiorum, birthplace of Agrippina, mother of Nero, and her far more dangerous brother, Gaius Germanicus. As a child, Gaius liked to hang out with the soldiers, wearing his own scaled-down version of centurion's footwear, which got him the nickname Caligula, or "Little Boots:' After the Emperor Claudius foolishly married the murderous Agrippina he decreed the town be renamed Colonia Agrippina, an eponymous honor that was hurriedly abandoned by the residents as soon as Nero killed her.
EventuaUy Colonia became Cologne, and by the time the French invaded the Rhineland and occupied Cologne in 1794, the city had long enjoyed regional fame for its production of light perfume, or eau de Cologne. Officers of the occupying forces sent it home to friends and family, spreading the name and the fame far and wide.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on February 09, 2019, 06:03:02 PM

DID you KNOW ?

FASCIST

Draconian or authoritarian regime.
This term derives from the Latin fasces, (itself fromfasciare, "to bind or tie"), a bundle of thin wooden rods bound together with red tape to represent the power and unity of the Roman people. As they moved about the city, many officials, especially the magistrates, were accompanied by ju niors bearing their fasces; the more elevated the official, the larger the number off fasces. After the Laws of the Twelve Tables (450 BC) denied magistrates the power of summary execution over any Roman citizen, their fasces ceased to have an ax-head protruding while they were within the city where their power was thus limited.The ax-head was only added to magistrates'fasces when they journeyed outside Rome to indicate that they could exercise such power without recourse to higher authority.       Before Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) adopted the symbol of the fasces it was used throughout Europe and America to decorate civic buildings. It appeared on American military medals and on the dime coin; Christian Democratic groups employed  it and, closer to its natural home, the Sicilian Agricultural Union was known as the Fasci Siciliani. The term began to assume darker connotations just after World War I, when Fasci was used  by  organizations that were ostensibly set up to resettle returning combatants, but which actually had a secret and nationalistic agenda to combat the rise of Bolshevism and socialism.
In 1919, Mussolini set up the Fasci di Combattimento and mon_opolized thefasces as the party symbol. This group evolved into the Partito Nazionale Fascista, which took control of Italy in 1922.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on April 25, 2019, 06:51:09 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

RAGLAN

Style of sleeve with no shoulder seam.
Still very popular in sportswear for the freedom of movement it affords the wearer, this somewhat peculiar cut is named after Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788-1855), who lost his right arm at Waterloo and thereafter favored a cut of tunicand coat that minimized his mutilation. Raglan was placed in command of the Allied forces throughout most of the Crimean War (1853-56), and it was his constant appearance on the front page of every British newspaper that prompted the world of fashion to copy the steps his tailor took to hide his handicap.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 01, 2019, 10:51:12 AM
GRAVITY SHINES THE LIGHT

 
Is it really possible ? a device that generates light from gravity? It appears London- based designers have hit upon a potential game changer for the estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide that have no access to electricity and need an alternative to kerosene powered lighting. The innovators have developed a relatively uncomplicated device called GravityLight that needs no batteries or sunlight and costs nothing to run. It takes seconds to lift the weight that powers GravityLight, creating 20 minutes of light on its descent.
We?re pleased t add that the innovative device has its roots in solar power. Back in 2009 UK Charity SolarAid was charged with a mission to eradicate kerosene lamps. The team at SolarAid wanted to develop an extremely low-cost solar light, in order to reach off-grid families living on less than $3 a day.
Noting that batteries comprised a third of the product?s cost and PV panels another  third, the designers realised the need to look beyond solar and battery powered devices. What if they removed the power storage ? the battery? What if power could be generated as it was needed? They could reduce costs and might be able to gain in efficiency. One of the first ?proof of principle? designs involved a slowly falling weight attached to a bicycle wheel and by late 2013 the enterprising duo had a working/
near production prototype.
Fast-forward to today and GravityLight comprises three parts, the light is hung above the ground giving the weight component a two-metre drop. To power the light the weight is lifted, and on release starts to fall slowly back down towards the ground. This movement powers a series of gears that rotate very slowly with high torque (force).
The gear train running through the product turns this input into a high speed, low torque output that drives a power generator at thousands of rotations per minute. This output is used to power an LED light, and ancillary devices, providing off-grid communities with access to energy.
With the 0.1W of power it generates, GravityLight provides a light superior to kerosene lamps and can also power other devices, such as a radio.
 
Unsurprisingly GravityLight has caught the attention of several mainstream news outlets including The Guardian, Skynews, Al Jazeera, BBC, Forbes, Time and CNN.
And it is on Bill Gates? radar. The philanthropist tweeted ?Gravity light is a pretty cool innovation which could be a source of cheap light in developing markets.?
Solar Council President Steve Blume commented on the ?great invention?
saying ?Although it?s not solar powered it could easily be adapted to charge a Lithium ion battery when light is not needed and so add hours of free energy in a portable form away from the unit itself.?
The next major step is to distribute the life-changing device to the 1.5 million people in need of lighting, and develop a sustainable and scalable distribution strategy to underpin the successful launch.
https://gravitylight.org/
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on June 06, 2019, 02:39:45 AM


What's the origin of the phrase 'Over a barrel'?

This is an American phrase and first appeared in the late-19th century. It alludes to the actual situation of being draped over a barrel, either to empty the lungs of someone who has been close to drowning, or to give a flogging.

Either way, the position of helplessness and in being under someone else's control is what is being referred to.

An example of such a literal "over the barrel" experience was recorded in the Delaware newspaper The Daily Republican, July 1886, which reported the initiation ceremony of a college fraternity:

He was bound hand and foot and rolled over a barrel. Next he was stripped naked and placed upon a cake of ice... and branded on his back with the fraternity emblem.

Soon after that 'over a barrel' took on the figurative meaning of 'in trouble; without any hope of deliverance.

This usage is recorded in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 1893, in a story of an unfaithful wife:

The good, true, loving wife she appeared to be, being, to use a slang phrase "over a barrel." The woman who is "over a barrel" was Mrs. Nellie Brundage, and the man "not her husband" was S. R. Clute.

The modern-day usage of 'over a barrel' has softened somewhat. It is now used to refer to anyone in a situation where they have little choice.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 26, 2019, 01:58:34 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

FIFTH  COLUMNIST

Spy or saboteur.
As his army of four columns advanced on Madrid in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, General Emilio Mola (1887- 1937) was asked by journalists if he felt such a force up to the task of taking the city. He replied that he had a fifth column of spies and saboteurs in the city who were ready to rise up when he attacked. Mola failed to take Madrid and died in a plane crash on June 3, 1937 after becoming too popular and powerful for the liking of Francisco Franco, who was head of the Palange Espanola Tradicionalista. Several members of the Junta who mounted the revolution and presumed
they would sit in council after success died in other plane crashes, such as Jose Sanjurjo Sacanell in 1936. Nothing was found to link Franco to either incident.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: urleft on July 03, 2019, 08:05:53 PM
The Dog Days of Summer

The "dog days of summer" refers to the hottest, sweatiest, most oppressively sweltering stretch of the year. And though you might think the phrase comes from worn-out, overheated pups laying lazily in the sun, too hot to play even one round fetch, you?d be incorrect. Turns out, the phrase "dog days of summer" has very little to do with dogs at all.

According to Christopher Klein of The History Channel, the phrase dates all the way back to ancient times, when civilizations tracked the seasons by sky patterns. During the hottest days of the summer, ancient Romans and Greeks noticed that Sirius"the brightest star in the sky" set and rose alongside the sun. And as Jay Holberg, the author of Sirius: Brightest Diamond in the Night Sky, explains, Sirius is known as the "dog star" because it's the brightest star in constellation Canis Major, which literally translates to "greater dog" in Latin.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/this-is-why-its-called-?the-dog-days-of-summer?/ar-AADLaQm?ocid=spartanntp
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on August 01, 2019, 02:31:48 PM
CLOSE QUARTERS
Proximity.
Known in the 1600s as "close fights:' the 18th-century close or closed quarters could be anything from a makeshift partition hurriedly erected from grating to permanent wooden blockhouses built on the decks of early ships, which came in very handy if there was a risk of being boarded. The defenders could man these with muskets to create a withering crossfire on their own decks to convince any boarding party that withdrawal would be the healthy option. By the time close quarters were in play the enemy was virtually face-to-face, so when the term moved ashore it was understood to mean "close proximity.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on March 31, 2020, 08:28:22 PM

DID YOU KNOW

YACHT
Light craft.
The modern yacht evolved from the kind of vessel favored by pirates, hence its name deriving from the Dutch jachten, "to hunt:' The word entered English in 1660 with the restoration of the monarchy, when the States General of Holland presented Charles II with Mary, a hundred-ton , eight-gunner yacht for him to move swiftly and safely about English territorial waters.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on May 09, 2020, 10:11:32 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

CURFEW

Restriction of movement after dark.
After the Norman invasion of England in 1066, William the Conqueror required civilians to stay in after dark. Night patrols enforced this regulation by calling "Couvrefeu!" "Cover the fire!" which became "curfew" in English. All candles and fires were to be extinguished and everyone was to go to bed.





Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Smithy on November 27, 2020, 07:39:46 PM
DID YOU KNOW ?

A Leopard Never Changes Its Spot
s

The phrase a leopard never changes its spots means that its impossible for one to change their character, even if they will try very hard. The expression, sometimes also used as ?a leopard cant change its spots, is used to explain the idea that no one can change their innate nature.

Examples in use:

Starman: Do you think he'll ever stop lying to us ??     Smithy:   I doubt it; after all, a leopard never changes its spots.? ?

The teacher tried to be kind to her students, but a leopard cant change its spots, she was still very mean.?

Interesting fact

This meaningful phrase dates as far back as the Old Testament. It was used in Jeremiah 13:23, where the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah had originally said: Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots??. "A leopard never changes its spots" derives directly from that phrase and is still used today.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Freddy on November 29, 2020, 06:16:25 PM
FFS Grow Up. Has it occurred to you that the reason this forum is so quiet and so few of its members contribute is because of the childlessness that exists within a small % of members.
Do you really think the majority of members are the slightest bit interested in pathetic little feuds and think it clever to weave a dog into what might otherwise have been a reasonably interesting and informative post.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Gerry on November 30, 2020, 05:15:31 AM
FFS Grow Up. Has it occurred to you that the reason this forum is so quiet and so few of its members contribute is because of the childlessness that exists within a small % of members.
Do you really think the majority of members are the slightest bit interested in pathetic little feuds and think it clever to weave a dog into what might otherwise have been a reasonably interesting and informative post.

Sorry but I don't understand your beef here. A good post and interesting.

A conversation between 2 long term members here as an example. I do remember a bit about what that might be about but nothing really to concern me.

Can't see the issue to be honest. Also can't see any bearing on the forum. I belong to a few and they are all quiet. Most people nowadays seem to be joining Facebook groups.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: Smithy on December 01, 2020, 02:00:44 PM
FFS Grow Up. Has it occurred to you that the reason this forum is so quiet and so few of its members contribute is because of the childlessness that exists within a small % of members.
Do you really think the majority of members are the slightest bit interested in pathetic little feuds and think it clever to weave a dog into what might otherwise have been a reasonably interesting and informative post.

You has lost me there Freddy ...is there something......  you know so you can enlighten us all  ::)
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 17, 2022, 02:54:44 PM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BOCHE
German.
Since  the  Middle Ages  the  French  have  used  caboche  to describe anything round and heavy.
The word survives in English as "cabbage'.' In French slang, caboche or tete de boche described
anyone stupid and clumsy, and both these terms had been  used for the Germans long before World War
I in French slang dictionaries of the 1880s, by which time the truncated form, boche, was in
fashion. HUN and JERRY.
Title: Re: DAILY BRIEFING
Post by: rufusredtail on June 25, 2022, 09:32:51 AM

DID YOU KNOW ?

BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND A FEW MARINES

Explanation of lucky accomplishment.
Although  General  MacArthur  never  actually  made  the  "I  shall return" speech, he did indeed 
return  to the Philippines in October 1944 to oversee their liberation. Among the first ashore was
Battery B of the  11th Gun  Battalion,  three of whose finest  PFCs -  Frank Pinciotti, Shelby
Heimback, and Walter Dangerfield -  decided to put up a large sign announcing: "By the Grace of God
and the Help of a Few Marines  MacArthur  has Returned  to the Philippines:' This started a rash of
similar signs, some of them parodies on the first and far tOOJisque to explore here, but the
Marines' sign was nothing new. Brigadier  Albertus  Wright Catlin  (1868-1933)  was one of  the
most celebrated officers of the US Marine Corps, and his World War I exploits  were well known. On
June 6, 1918 he and his command fought a valiant action  in the woods at Belleau, abutting  the
River Marne, during which he was invalided out and returned to the US to write of his adventures in
a blockbuster entitled With the Help of God
and a Few Marines (1919).