You know how I am. (If you don’t just pretend and play along) I was commenting on a post (again) and emailing Blue (again) and some things popped up that bother me. I don’t know why these things bother me but they do. So I had to write about them. I know, shocker!
The old saying “clean as a whistle” is one of the stupidest sayings I’ve ever heard and yet it is commonly used. Think about that one for a while. Can you think of anything as disgustingly filthy as a whistle? Picture a ref at a football or basketball game. (Bear with me non-sports fans, this isn’t a sports take it’s a whistle take.) He runs around sweating like a pig and salivating like an overweight black lab, blowing constantly into his damn whistle. Can you imagine how that bad boy would smell after the game? What if he’s a smoker or worse yet a tobacco chewer? What if he needs a belt of whiskey (strictly for medicinal purposes) before each game and during his halftime break? What if he doesn’t have good oral hygiene? What if he had a garlic onion limburger sandwich for lunch? Nope. Anyway you look at it, a whistle is not clean. Stop saying that.
Another thing that struck me as stupid or at best unnecessary is the word “past.” We already have the word “passed” as in the times passed you by. Since something in the past is actually something from a time which has passed, we don’t need two different words here. Who decided past was required? The past tense of pass is passed. Why can’t it be: the passed tense of pass is passed? Isn’t history things that happened in the passed? I call superfluous wordage!
Posted by Hippie Cahier on September 17, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Well, while you’re on a roll, exactly how fit is a fiddle?
Posted by Rich Crete on September 17, 2012 at 9:58 pm
That’s a great point. If a bass fiddle used to be called a violin, it isn’t very fit.
When was the last time you saw a fiddle busting a sweat on the bike path? Or in a zumba class?
And since we’re on the topic….what the hell are “fiddlesticks”? Just say “shit” like the rest of us when you stub your toe.
Posted by Hippie Cahier on September 18, 2012 at 12:31 am
Fiddlesticks is one of my favorite curse words!
Posted by omawarisan on September 17, 2012 at 10:13 pm
I think the ball in a whistle is made of cork. That wouldn’t absorb a bunch of influenza juice from the blower, would it?
Posted by Rich Crete on September 17, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Nah! Perfectly safe. But just to be sure….you use it next instead of me K?
Thanks for reading Oma!
Posted by Brown Road Chronicles on September 18, 2012 at 8:37 pm
I think you need the two words in case you ever need to say… “in the past, I have passed gas!” Or maybe not……..
Posted by Rich Crete on September 20, 2012 at 2:06 pm
In the past the gas you’ve passed has been ghastly.
Posted by GOF on September 19, 2012 at 9:39 pm
I completely agree…filthy germ-ridden whistle.
And what’s going on when something ‘tickles your fancy’? (it’s a common phrase use in Australia….not sure about your country)
Posted by Rich Crete on September 19, 2012 at 10:47 pm
Great question! And since that’s a saying….how come nothing ever tickles your ordinary?
Posted by El Guapo on September 21, 2012 at 2:55 am
And yet, you have added the phrase “superfluous wordage” to the lexicon, so methinks it balances out…
Posted by Rich Crete on September 21, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Point, Guapo. 15 love.
Posted by Linda Vernon on September 21, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Ha ha Rich! So true. This post made me delightfully sick to my stomach (in a good way)!
Posted by lgalaviz on September 25, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Are people really still going around using these sayings? We should hit them.
Posted by bschooled on October 1, 2012 at 9:07 pm
The saying “Easy as pie” always gets me. Not that I’ve ever made pie, mind you. (Or anything that doesn’t come in it’s own microwavable packaging, for that matter.) But I’ve eaten it. A lot.
And it tastes complicated.