Etymology of Words and Phrases, Part 4:

No country has a closer association with the language of Olde Englande than the USA. From the days of the first Puritan settlers to recent cross-Atlantic tweetings, the two countries have shared in the development of English.

Many words and phrases used in the USA have retained their Elizabethan English meanings and pronunciations that have long disappeared in England itself. There are many American phrases which are used in the USA but haven’t been adopted anywhere else. Example of this are:

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL: Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘blue plate’ as a restaurant dinner plate divided into compartments for serving several kinds of food as a single order and a main course (as of meat and vegetable) served as a single menu item.

One early citation of the phrase is in this advert for the Young Women’s Christian Association, printed in the Illinois newspaper The Decatur Daily Review, September 1924. However, it is believed that the term blue plate special first appeared on menus of the Fred Harvey chain of restaurants in 1892. These were located at stations along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. The blue plate special was designed to allow passengers to grab a quick bite to eat when the train stopped.

LEAD-PIPE CINCH: The ‘cinch’ that this expression derives from is the Spanish/Mexican word for a horse’s saddle-girth – cincha. The word is recorded in English, as ‘synch’ and later ‘cinch’ in various Canadian and US sources from the 1860s onward. From the 1880s the use was extended into a verb form and things which were tightly secured were said to be ‘cinched’ – for example, this piece from The Manitoba Daily Free Press, December 1882: “The next movement was to throw the bull, and then cinch a lasso and rope tightly around his body.”

The word cinch was also used in the USA as the name of sturdy fixing brackets, which were secure and unlikely to come loose.

The figurative use of cinch, meaning to tie-up or make certain, in non-animal contexts began around the same time. The usage was often in contexts where the rich and powerful used their status to form monopolies or indulge in insider trading in order to cheat the general public. An example of this comes from the Illinois newspaper The Morning Review, December 1889: “The briber and bribed would sit down to a game of poker and a lead-pipe cinch was nothing to the sure thing the legislators had.”

The common usage of ‘cinch’ now, that is, to mean ‘easy’ rather than ‘secure’, comes from this ‘easy money’ association. In October of 1891, The Daily Morning Republican, listed a number of ‘cinch’ superlatives to describe a punter’s certainty that his horse Firenzo would win the next day:

“The track will be heavy tomorrow, and I’ve got a copper riveted, lead pipe, copyrighted, air tight cinch. Firenzo in the mud – she swims in it.”

EIGHTY-SIXED: The term is American and originated in the restaurant trade. Both meanings loosely refer to something that was previously okay becoming not okay. The earliest known example of the expression in print is found in the journal of the American Dialect Society -American Speech, 1936: “Eighty-six, item on the menu not on hand.”

The actual origin is uncertain but is often suggested to be one of these: (1) Chumley’s Bar and restaurant at 86 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village NYC; (2) a reference to article 86 of the New York state liquor code which defines when bar patrons should be refused service; and (3) from Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York City. Item number 86 on their menu, their house steak, was often unavailable during the restaurant’s early years.

PRESTO CHANGO: Presto chango is a variant of the earlier exclamation ‘hey presto,’ which is used primarily in the USA. Before either expression was coined, conjurers and other stage performers simply said ‘presto!’ to draw attention to the culmination of a trick.

Presto is an Italian word meaning ‘quickly’ and it was used in England with that sense from the 13th century. “Hey Presto” began being used in England in the 18th century. The English writer Henry Fielding used it in 1732 in his farce The Lottery.

We go forward to the 19th century and ‘presto chango’ began being used in the USA. It took various spellings – ‘presto change’, ‘presto changeo’ and ‘presto chango’. ‘Presto! change’ is recorded in England in 1824 and it soon migrated to the USA and became ‘presto chango.’ One early US example can be found at the Pensacola Gazette & West Florida Advertiser April, 1824: “A tailor cannot drop his bodkin, a brick mason his trowel, or a grocer his cent per cent on coffee and candles; and become my Lord Coke or Hale by a presto change” Another was in the Ohio newspaper The Huron Reflector, February 1844: “Hey! presto! chango! as the juggler says – Kitty Grimes was not to be married to James Duncan after all.” Although ‘presto change’ was first used in the UK, the ‘presto chango‘ form can be said to be American – in fact, few people outside the USA would know what it meant.

Considering the debacle of an election we just experienced, I thought the following words were appropriate!!!!

CHEAT: Under medieval law a title to real estate could lapse in many ways. Property affected by such a lapse was called an “escheat” and became forfeit to the king. These cases were so numerous that some rulers employed escheators to look after their interests. Usually working on a commission basis, these fellows seized property at every opportunity. If they didn’t violate laws, they certainly trifled with justice. Because of the questionable practices of these royal agents, it became customary to call any dishonest person a cheat.”

CON MAN: Hard times following the Civil War forced criminals to resort to all sorts of tricks to gain relatively small amounts of money. One of the most common was the sale of fraudulent mining stock. Investors were reluctant to advance funds without examining property, so swindlers adopted the practice of asking a victim to make a small deposit “just as a gesture of confidence.” The full amount was to be paid only after a trip to the West on the part of the purchaser.

A swindler would take the money advanced and decamp. This type of trick became known as the “confidence game” because it worked only if the victim had confidence in the proposal. Anyone who practiced confidence games came to be called a con man. This title was applied to many types of swindlers and is now used to describe a shrewd thief who finds suckers [voters] by means of the Internet or e-mail.

FEET OF CLAY: Nebuchadnezzar II was the Babylonian king who captured Jerusalem in 587 BD, destroyed the city, and took the Hebrew people into captivity, ending the Judean kingdom. The book of Daniel tells how the young Hebrew captive explained one of the king’s strange dreams. Nebuchadnezzar had seen a giant image with a golden head, silver arms and breast, brass thighs, and iron legs. Every part was metal except the feet, which were compounded partly of iron and partly of potter’s clay.

Daniel said that his feet made the metal figure vulnerable, meaning that Babylon would be broken into pieces. Impressed by this dramatic story, English readers of the Bible seized upon the weak spot of the strange figure as a symbol of weakness in general. Today, any noted person with a vulnerable point is still said to have feet of clay.

KANGAROO COURT: When the English explorer Capt. James Cook returned from Australia in 1771, he was branded a liar. People disbelieved his reports of a strange animal that hopped about on two legs and stood as high as a man, which he reported the natives called a “kangaroo.” Many who heard his accounts doubted their truth and there was great joking about kangaroos.

When a few specimens were brought to Europe, they created a sensation. Anything marvelous or unusual was likely to be termed “kangaroo.” For example, an 1835 issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine described an eccentric horseman as holding his reins with “kangaroo attitude.” Settlers in the New World used the word to stand for any type of irregular gathering. During Reconstruction following the Civil War, a “kangaroo convention” held in Virginia made national headlines.

Criminals who adopted the odd word applied it to a “court” held by inmates of prisons. In such a proceeding, old-timers charged newcomers with such offenses as breaking into jail or being lousy and trying to scratch. Influenced by the prominence of irregular political gatherings, any extra-legal sham hearing came to be known as a kangaroo court.

SMARMY: “Smarmy,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, dates back to 1909 as an adjectival form of the word “smarm” or “smalm” which had been around for 100 years. Originally just a verb for smoothing, especially of hair, its meaning gradually moved to include the implication of a real smoothie. If you describe someone as smarmy, you dislike them because they are unpleasantly polite and flattering, usually because they want you to like them or to do something for them.

HISTORY OF SNOW GLOBES

You place the dome in your hand, turn it over and beautifully, magically the item inside is engulfed in a swirling slow-motion blizzard. Everyone can relate to them – evoking a childhood memory or nostalgia of a simpler time. The first mention of a snow globe featured a man with an umbrella displayed at the Paris Exposition of 1878. It was later suggested that the globes were created to commemorate the Tower’s inauguration.

This extremely rare LouisVuitton Eiffel Tower dome made of luggage is a whimsical example that sold for $995 in 2017.

A few years later, a Viennese man Edwin Perzy developed the same idea when researching a way to improve operating room light..He used a glass globe filled with water, hoping to create a magnifying lens by increasing refraction. To enhance the reflected light, Perzy put ground glass in the water. When it quickly sank, he tried semolina which floated slowly to the bottom of the globe. It did nothing to improve the light quality, but the snowfall inspired him to make his first snow globe: he carved a small house and inserted it into the globe.

Facsimile of Perzy’s first globe used in Citizen Kane

Mass production began in the US during the 1920s. Joseph Garaja of Pittsburgh was granted a patent in 1927, which altered how snow globes were made. His method needed the spheres to be assembled underwater, removing any trapped air. This ingenious method made it possible for the industry to go into mass production, which drastically lowered the prices of globes.

However, by the early 1960s, glass snow globes had been overtaken by plastic Hong Kong-made globes. It was soon discovered that the water in their spheres was filthy, obtained directly from their port. As a result, a Hong Kong snow globe producer got into significant trouble and was temporarily barred from entering the United States.

The “snow” in snow globes has a fascinating backstory as well. Snow was previously created in glass domes using tiny porcelain, bone chips, or ground rice. Camphor/wax, as well as meerschaum, was also used to make these snowflakes. Today, most “snow” is tiny particles or shards of white plastic. Also, the liquid hasn’t always been water; at one point, light oil was used. In addition, glycol (antifreeze) was added to help with the problem of freezing during winter shipping.

The snow globe fell out of favor in the 1970’s when it epitomized kitsch –but have evolved into something more sophisticated, intricate and valued among designers and collectors. Novelty gift manufacturers have upgraded the designs and components making them unique gift items often including beautifully modelled landscapes.

Some incorporate lights, music and motors eliminating the need for shaking. Many high-end department stores introduce a custom design every year to commemorate the Christmas season.

Snow globes have become an increasingly popular collectible for both antique and novelty globes. Actor, Corbin Bernsen may be the most prolific collector with about 8,000 – he began collecting snow globes in the ‘80’s. “There’s something that happens to a collector, this internal voice that says, ‘I want to have one of each that is in existence,’” Bernsen says.

Originally the globes were made of glass and the figures inside were made of porcelain, bone, metals, minerals, rubber or wax. The snow or “flitter” as it’s called, could have been ground rice, wax, soap, sand, bone fragments, meerschaum, metal flakes or sawdust. Producers tried everything. The base was either round or square and may have been of stone, marble, ceramic or wood. Some are quite bizarre!!!

“Snow domes are not only fascinating to look at, to hold, to play with, they are folk art,” says collector Nancy McMichael, author of Snowdomes (Abbeville Press). “They are a bridge back to an idealized past we think existed but is actually in our head. It is something we carry with us.”

Etymology, Part 3: Common Sayings

TAKES THE CAKE: The phrase “takes the cake” comes from the cake walks that were popular in the late 19th century. Couples would strut around gracefully and well-attired, and the couple with the best walk would win a cake as a prize. Interestingly, cake walk was soon used to describe something that could be done very easily, and it’s very possible that from there we get the phrase “piece of cake.”

PARTING SHOT: A parting shot, which is a final insult tossed out at the end of a fight when you assume it’s over, was originally a Parthian shot. The Parthians, who lived in an ancient kingdom called Parthia, had a strategy whereby they would pretend to retreat, then their archers would fire shots from horseback. Parthian sounds enough like parting, and, coupled with the fact that not a lot of people knew who the Parthians were, the phrase was changed to parting shot.

DEAD AS A DOORNAIL: One could certainly argue that a doornail was never alive, but when a doornail is dead, it has actually been hammered through a door, with the protruding end hammered and flattened into the door so that it can never come loose or be removed or used again. The phrase “dead as a doornail” has actually been around since the 14th century, about as long as the word doornail has officially been in the English language.

DOWN TO BRASS TACKS: “There are many theories about what “down to brass tacks” means, including that brass tacks is rhyming slang for hard facts. But it’s very likely that the brass tacks being mentioned here are actual brass tacks. Merchants used to keep tacks nailed into their counters to use as guides for measuring things, so to get down to brass tacks would be you were finally done deciding what you wanted and were ready to cut some fabric and do some actual business.

IT’S GREEK TO ME: “The phrase “it’s Greek to me” is often attributed to Shakespeare, but it’s been around since well before his time. An earlier version of the phrase can be found written in Medieval Latin translations, saying “Graecum est; non potest legi,” or “it’s Greek. Cannot be read.”

SMART ALEC: “You may have presumed the Alec in “smart Alec” was just a name that sounded good preceded by the word smart, but that’s not necessarily the case. Professor Gerald Cohen suggested in his book”Studies in Slang” that the original smart Alec was Alexander Hoag, a professional thief who lived and robbed in New York City in the 1840s. Hoag was a very clever criminal who worked with his wife and two other policemen to pickpocket and rob people. He was eventually busted when he decided to stop paying the cops.

HEARD IT THRU THE GRAPEVINE: “The grapevine people hear things through is a grapevine telegraph, which was the nickname given to the means of spreading information during the Civil War as a kind of wink at an actual telegraph. The grapevine telegraph is just a person-to-person exchange of information, and much like when you play a game of telephone, it’s best to presume that the information you receive has gone through a few permutations since it was first shared.

CAT’S OUT OF THE BAG: “Farmers used to stick little suckling pigs in bags to take them to market. But if a farmer was trying to rip somebody off, they would put a cat in the bag instead. So, if the cat got out of the bag, everybody was onto their ruse, which is how we use the phrase today, just not quite so literally. (We hope.)

OUT OF WACK: “Today, “out of whack” means not quite right, but it took a long time to get there. Whack appeared in the 18th century as a word that meant to strike a blow when used as a verb. The noun whack was the blow that was whacked on something. But whack also grew to mean portion or share, especially as loot that was being split by criminals. From there, whack grew to mean an agreement, as in the agreed share of loot, but it also meant in good order. If something was behaving as it was intended to, it was “in fine whack.” Eventually the opposite fell into common usage, and something that wasn’t in good shape was “out of whack.”

KIBOSH: “Evidence of kibosh dates the word to only a few years before Charles Dickens used it in an 1836 sketch, but despite kibosh being relatively young in English its source is elusive. Another hypothesis pointed to Irish caidhp bhais, literally, coif (or cap) of death, explained as headgear a judge put on when pronouncing a death sentence, or as a covering pulled over the face of a corpse when a coffin was closed. Today, “to put the kibosh on something” is to shut it down.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: “Some people think that the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” is a kind of sloppy reference to Odysseus. But in 1921, the phrase became a popular means of describing when miners had to choose between dangerous work for little or no money or definite poverty during the Great Bankers’ Panic of 1907.

GOT UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED: “The generally accepted origin of the phrases “get up on the wrong side of the bed” and wake up on the wrong side of the bed is ancient Rome, where superstition was rampant. Ancient philosophers equated the right side of anything as the positive side, and the left side of anything as the sinister or negative side. The story says that Romans always exited the bed on the right side in order to start the day in contact with positive forces. If one rose on the left side of the bed, he started the day in contact with negative forces.

MAD AS A HATTER: “The expression is linked to the hat-making industry and mercury poisoning. In the 18th and 19th centuries, industrial workers used a toxic substance, mercury nitrate, as part of the process of turning the fur of small animals, such as rabbits, into felt for hats. Workplace safety standards often were lax and prolonged exposure to mercury caused employees to develop a variety of physical and mental ailments, including tremors (dubbed “hatter’s shakes”), speech problems, emotional instability and hallucinations.

Etymology of Words and Phrases – Part 2

GABARDINE: Few movements in history have been more thrilling than the pilgrimages of the Middle Ages. Many people traveled to shrines throughout Europe and even to the Holy Land. Pilgrims continued to visit some of the shrines at enormous sacrifice of time and money. They wore an unofficial but characteristic garb: a gray cowl bearing a red cross and a broad-brimmed, stiff hat. Pilgrims carried a staff, a sack, and a gourd. They usually traveled in company with other adventurers, singing hymns as they walked and begging food from those they met.

Since a particular type of upper garment was worn by the pilgrim, it gradually came to be identified with the journey itself. A will filed in 1520 included this bequest: “Until litill Thomas Beke my gawbardyne to make him a gowne.” From the garment the term came to refer to the coarse material from which it was customarily made. Slight modifications in spelling produced gabardine – a kind of cloth that passed from the religious pilgrim’s vocabulary into general use.

RUBBER: On his second voyage to “East India,” Columbus found natives playing with a substance they called caoutchouc. It would stretch and then snap back into shape; when made into balls it would bounce. Scientists who examined the odd substance agreed that it was unlike anything known in Europe, yet they confessed themselves unable to imagine any use for it.

Small quantities of caoutchouc were brought to Europe, but it remained a curiosity for more than two centuries. Finally, someone discovered by accident that the material could be used for removing the marks of a lead pencil. Hence, bookkeepers termed it “lead-eater.”

Around 1780 Joseph Priestley experimented with a bit of caoutchouc, hoping to find some use more important than erasing errors made in ledgers. He failed and decided that it would never be of value except for rubbing out pencil marks.

Consequently, he called it “East India rubber.” Soon the nickname of the one-job substance was abbreviated to rubber. The name serves as a perpetual reminder that civilization was once at a loss as to what to do with a substance of a thousand uses.

MAP: Greek geographers of the sixth century BC developed considerable skill in making charts to guide sailors and travelers. Then the Romans extended the art by engraving scale representations of the Empire on fine marble slabs. These devices, and the more abundant clay tablets, proved to be extremely cumbersome, so someone thought of painting geographical charts upon cloth.

For this purpose, the most suitable material proved to be fine table linen, or mappa. This led to the practice of calling any flat geographical chart a map.

RECIPE: Since Latin was the universal language of medieval scholars, physicians used it in writing directions for compounding medicines. Virtually every prescription listed the ingredients in precise order and began with the Latin verb recipe, meaning “take.”

Care in measuring and blending the ingredients of a tasty dish is also essential. Therefore, when housewives began to master the art of reading and writing, they adopted the apothecary’s custom and made written lists of ingredients and steps in cookery. Inevitably, such a set of directions took the pharmaceutical name and became familiar to the household recipe.

BUDGET: Struggling with a budget is no new problem; it dates back to the days of the Roman Empire. Housewives had to be cautious in their spending and they kept money for household expenses in a little leather bulga (Latin for bag). This custom also prevailed among businessmen, who may have borrowed it from their wives or vice versa.

Centuries later, the Latin word was adopted into Middle French as bougette (“little leather bag”). When the British Chancellor of Exchequer appeared before Parliament, he carried his papers explaining the estimated revenue and expenses in a leather bag and then “opened the budget” for the coming year. Thus, budget (as it came to be pronounced) came to mean a systematic plan for expenditures, both for governments and for private individuals.

EAT ONE’S HAT: Many a man engaged in a contest of some sort has offered to eat his hat if he loses. In such a situation, a knowledge of etymology would be of great value, for the expression eat one’s hat once referred not to a Stetson or a Panama, but to a culinary product.

Napier’s famous Boke of Cookry, one of the earliest European cookbooks, gives the following directions: “Hattes are made of eggs, veal, dates, saffron, salt, and so forth.” In the hands of amateur cooks, the concoction was frequently so unpalatable that it required a strong stomach to eat it.

Even so, the early braggart who offered to eat a hatte had in mind nothing so distasteful as a felt or a straw!

FLOUR: During the Elizabethan Age, the word “flower” meant “the best,” as it does today in such expressions as “the flower of the nation’s youth.”

Millers of the period ground wheat by a crude process, then sifted the meal. Only the finest of it passed through the cloth sieve in a process called “boulting.” Reserved for tables of the nobility, this top-quality ground wheat was naturally called the “flower of wheat,” but in this context the word came to be spelled flour. The two spellings were used interchangeably until the 19th century. In Paradise Lost, Milton wrote the line, “O flours that never will in other climates grow.”

COOKING TERMS: There is at least one serious gap in European history. Her contemporaries failed to record the name of the woman who first thought of stuffing an egg. Nothing is known about her recipe, except that she was liberal with pepper. Her invention was so hot that folks who tried it were reminded of Beelzebub’s fiery furnaces. As a result, the tidbit came to be called a deviled egg.

Most other terms of cookery are prosaic by comparison. More than half were borrowed from the French – which suggest that English cooks were never very imaginative. Braise stems from French for “hot charcoal.” Toast is but slightly modified from “toaster” (“to parch with heat). Boil stems from a continental verb meaning “to make little bubbles.” Poach grew out of pocher, which meant “to pouch,” that is, to enclose an egg’s yellow in a little pouch of white.

Fry, grill, roast and baste were also adapted from French. Fricassee was taken as is from that language, but the ultimate origin is unknown.

The oldest term in cookery is probably cook, still much like Latin coquus. The Norse gave us bake, from baka (“hearth”). The Saxons contributed sear, spelled just as it is today. It originally meant to “wither with heat.” Scorch – the bane of a cook’s existence – has a long history that goes all the way back to the Old English scorkle, which started life as a term for skinning meat by searing.

Etymology of Words and Phrases

Someone posted something about etymology and it caught my interest – IIRC, I have Duchess to thank!

I decided to do an open about the subject since I have a book about it. But there is so much more in the book than I can put in one open, I expect I’ll be doing more in the future. If anyone has specific words or phrases they are curious about, let me know and I’ll include it in a future open.

First, the definition of etymology:

– The origin and historical development of a linguistic form as shown by determining its basic elements, earliest known use, and changes in form and meaning, tracing its transmission from one language to another, identifying its cognates in other languages, and reconstructing its ancestral form where possible.

– The branch of linguistics that deals with etymologies.

– That part of philology which treats of the history of words in respect both to form and to meanings, tracing them back toward their origin, and setting forth and explaining the changes they have undergone.

CURSOR

It is a Latin term for “flowing” or “running” that gave rise to the word “cursive” to describe handwriting produced in flowing style. The flow of letters that is produced when a pen is guided by skilled fingers is an impressive art. The name for this efficient and effortless writing style, in this computer age, soon was adapted and bestowed upon the small marker that moves quickly and gracefully across a computer screen. The cursor blinks until it is stimulated into action.

TO BOOT

Early computer programmers faced an obstacle: the memories of their computers were wiped clean each time the machines were turned off. To address this problem, the programmers needed to enter a short program called a “bootstrap loader” each time the machine was turned on. When the first desktops first came out, there was a “boot” disc that resided in one drive, while a data disk was in the second drive, where the work was saved. This is the portable laptop I used to take with me on business trips – note the 2 drives side-by-side.

Once this program was read, the computer could then perform more complex functions. The short program gave the machine a “bootstrap” it could then use to perform tasks; without it, the computer was useless. Over time, programmers figured out ways to design software so computers could perform this function automatically, and bootstrap loaders are now part of the basic make-up of any operating system. Pulling oneself up by the “bootstraps” is a means of restarting one’s situation. The expression lives on in the phrase to boot, which today simply means to turn it on, but reflects decades of efforts of computer programmers to make computers easier to use.

CD-ROM

As an abbreviation, this cluster of letters has come to function as a word naming a compact disc crammed with an immense amount of data, graphic material, music, or other sounds. The disc can be read and viewed and printed out, but can’t be altered, making deletion of selected portions impossible. Once the basic nature of this disc is understood, it makes complete sense that the abbreviation stands for “Compact Disc [with] Read-Only Memory.

HANDS DOWN

Plantation owners and merchant princes of colonial America took great interest in horse racing. For many generations major contests were supported largely by the wealthy. After the Civil War, promoters began bidding for attendance by the general public and racing then surged to new popularity and prominence.

Skilled jockeys made an art of timing the final spurt toward the ribbon; sometimes a fellow would be so far ahead of the field that he didn’t have to lift his hands in order to urge his mount forward. Expecting an easy victory, the backer of a horse would boast that his jockey would win hands down. Erupting from racetrack lingo about the turn of the last century, the phrase came to indicate any effortless triumph.

RAISE THE HACKLES

Medieval householders made wide use of flax, whose fibers are so tough they had to be carefully worked with a tool called the hackle. Farmers noticed that angry fowls have a way of raising the feathers on their necks. Disturbed in such a fashion, a bird looked as though someone had rumpled his feathers with a hackle. Hence by 1450, such feathers had taken the name of the combing tool.

Since visible hackles indicated anger, it was natural to say that anything causing an outburst of rage raised the hackles of the offended person.

DERBY

England has few families whose blood is a deeper shade of blue than that of the Stanleys. Descended from an aide of William the Conqueror, this family came into possession of the earldom of Derby in the 15th century. Their name entered common speech because the 12th Earl of a lover of fast horses. With no specific desire for fame, Derby established an annual race for 3 year old horses; first run in 1780, it quickly became the most noted race in England.

American sportsmen who took in the races after the Civil War were impressed by the odd hats some of the English spectators wore. They brought a few of the “Derby hats” back to the US, where a new model was developed. Made of stiff felt with a dome-shaped crown and narrow brim, the derby won the heart of the American male. By the time the first Kentucky Derby was run in 1875, the derby was standard wear for the man of parts. It is merely incidental that the hat also brought a kind of immortality to the distinguished house of Derby.

As a side note…..how did the Kentucky Derby get that name?

“The Kentucky Derby is America’s most celebrated horse race, but its inspiration comes from England.

Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark, founder of Churchill Downs, wanted to model the track’s major races after the English classics. The gold standard for Europe’s three-year-olds is the Derby at Epsom, which also stages the corresponding race for three-year-old fillies, called the Oaks.

Both the Epsom Derby and Oaks are contested at about 1 1/2 miles. And originally so were the Kentucky Derby and Oaks, in the early years since their inception in 1875. Both were eventually shortened, with the Kentucky Derby firmly established at its traditional 1 1/4-mile distance in 1896. The Oaks was subsequently held at distances ranging from 1 1/16 miles to 1 1/4 miles, finally settling at its current trip of 1 1/8 miles in 1982.

But why were the Epsom classics named the Derby and Oaks at their creation in the late 18th century? An aristocratic connection, of course!

The 12th Earl of Derby, Edward Stanley, was instrumental in the development of both. The fillies’ race was established first in 1779, and named after Stanley’s Surrey estate. Fittingly, he won that inaugural Oaks with Bridget.

That prompted the idea to create another classic, open to both colts and fillies, the following year. According to the oft-told tale, the new race’s name hung on the outcome of a coin flip. Was it to be named after the Earl of Derby, or after his friend, Sir Charles Bunbury? Luckily, the toss came up in favor of the Earl, and the first “Derby” was held at Epsom in 1780. Bunbury didn’t go home empty-handed: his Diomed triumphed in that first running.

With the Epsom Derby giving rise to so many spin-offs around the world, racing fans can be grateful for that toss of the coin. The “Kentucky Bunbury” just wouldn’t have the same ring to it.”

https://edge.twinspires.com/racing/why-is-it-named-the-kentucky-derby/

STEALING MY THUNDER

For more than two centuries, the English-speaking world has used the expression “stealing thunder” to mean the appropriation of any effective device or plan that was originated by someone else.

An obscure English dramatis was the father of the phrase. For the production of a play, John Dennis invented a new and more effective way of simulating thunder onstage. His play soon folded but shortly afterward he discovered that his thunder machine was in use for a performance of Macbeth at the same theater.

Dennis was furious!!! “See how the rascals use me?!?” he cried. “They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder.

COUNT DRACULA

Almost everyone is familiar with the movie image of Dracula, the smooth but sinister Transylvania count, elegantly dressed in evening clothes and a cape, who throws his disguise aside to reveal fearsome fangs that strike for the neck of his innocent victim. The vampire Count Dracula is the supreme creation of Irish writer Bram Stoker, now a century old yet showing no signs of losing his popularity.

But Stoker did not dream up his Dracula entirely from nothing, for historians have fixed on a plausible and horrific original for Dracula himself and there are many well-attested accounts of vampirism in modern and ancient times. Vampires are certainly not a product of the 17th century, as belief in the undead preying on the living has been extremely widespread, both in time and geography. The ancient Babylonian bloodsuckers were known as Ekimmu and according to Jewish tradition, the first woman on earth actually became a vampire, Lilith – before the creation of Eve.

They are known in folklore and legends from Africa, East Asia, Australasia, the Near East, the Americas and, of course, Europe. In Romania, from whence the probable original model for Dracula arose, according to folk tradition: “…there was once a time when vampires were as common as blades of grass, or berries in a pail, and they never kept still, but wandered round at night among the people.”

Vampires are real enough, at least in terms of ancient communities’ beliefs, but what about Dracula himself? Remarkably, there are good grounds for believing that Bram Stoker based him on a real character, Vlad the Impaler, the ruler of Wallachia in modern Romania in the mid-15th century AD.

Vlad bore a family Christian name, his father also being a Vlad, while “the Impaler” was a nickname he earned from his horrific behavior. He was born in Transylvania in 1431, becoming the heir to the neighboring princedom of Wallachia in 1437, after his father expelled the previous ruler. When the Ottoman Empire was completing it’s takeover of Greece, Wallachia became a strategic border state; the Turkish sultan took as hostages the young Vlad and his brother Radu in 1442 to ensure Wallachian loyalty.

Regardless, the Wallachians undertook a series of campaigns against the Turks, with some success, until the older Vlad was put to death after falling out with his allies, the Hungarians. The younger Vlad escaped captivity and embarked on a long campaign to regain his father’s throne, now occupied by a distant relative. His efforts finally bore fruit in 1456 with the assassination of his rival, and he became the Prince of Wallachia. Vlad’s subjects were soon to find out that their new ruler intended to crush any lingering opposition. He called a meeting of nobles and after testing them, and their making it abundantly clear how little they thought of the various Princes and Kings, he had his armed guards seize all 500 hundred, leading them outside, where they were impaled on sharpened stakes, along with their wives and servants, and left to rot.

Vlad’s cruelty became famous, as he turned against Transylvania, land of his birth, because of its economic control of Wallachia. He led a series of raids on the major towns from 1457 to 1460, massacring vast numbers of men, women, and children, with torture being followed up by slow impaling. Moreover, Vlad showed every sign of enjoying these horrors. According to a German pamphlet printed in 1499, he was perfectly at home sitting down to watch the death throes of his victims at the town of Brassoc: “All those whom he had taken captive, men and women, young and old, children, he had impaled on the hill by the chapel, and all around the hill, and under them he proceeded to eat at table and enjoyed himself in that way.”

But, appalling though the deeds of Vlad the Impaler undoubtedly were, where does the Dracula connection come in? Vlad was the son of Vlad Dracul. The Dracul part was a nickname with a double meaning – “dragon” and “devil.” The official version was probably “dragon,” since the elder Vlad had been invested with the Order of the Dragon in 1431. Thereafter, Vlad Dracul minted coins with a dragon symbol and flew a flag bearing a dragon. The alternative meaning of his name, “devil,” was not unwelcome, for his rule was based on fear.

Dracula means “son of Dracul,” and Vlad the Impaler actually signed himself “Dracula” on official documents. Perhaps he relished the idea of being known as the son of the devil. This may have been uppermost in the mind of the court poet Michel Beheim in 1463, when he composed an epic entitled “Story of a Bloodthirsty Madman Called Dracula of Wallachia.” Technically, he WAS a vampire, for he reportedly dipped his bread in the blood of his victims at his macabre feasts of the dying.

As in all of history, all tyrants come to an end eventually. After many years of fighting the Turks and overwhelming them with his wholesale slaughter, they left Vlad’s brother Radu behind when they retreated. Radu soon gained support among the aristocracy, who could not forgive Vlad’s massacres of their fellow nobles, while Vlad’s army faded away once the threat of the Turks had been lifted.

Vlad escaped to Hungary, where he was captured, tried on false charges, and confined for 12 years until Radu’s death, when Vlad agreed to subject himself to Hungarian control, converted to Catholicism and married a Hungarian princess. He regained his throne in 1476 but, in a final battle against an army of Wallachian nobles supported by the Turks, he was himself impaled by a lance. The Turks cut off his head and delivered it to the sultan, where it was put on display as proof that their deadly foe was finally vanquished.

*Snagov Monastery (where Vlad’s headless corpse is alleged to be buried)*

Vampires definitely existed in the strongly held beliefs of past people concerning the dead. Dracula was not a vampire in the folklore tradition, but he was certainly bloodthirsty in more ways than one!!!

Source: Ancient Mysteries

The Nazis Sent Franceska Mann To The Gas Chamber, But She Had No Intention Of Going Quietly

Franceska Mann knew she was going to die, but she was determined to go down with a fight.

In early 1943, Franceska Mann was transferred to the Hotel Polski along with hundreds of her fellow countrymen. Moved from the Warsaw Ghetto, the hotel seemed like a reprieve; rumors of being given passports and papers to be sent to South America hung over the crowd, a beacon of hope for those who had had little in the past.

They soon realized, however, that it was a trap. There was to be no deportation to South America. Instead, the hotel guests would be transferred to concentration camps like Vittel, Bergen-Belsen, and Auschwitz.

Before she had arrived at the Hotel Polski, Franceska Mann had been a ballerina and an accomplished one at that.

She’d placed fourth out of 125 in an international competition in Brussels in 1939 and had become a performer at the Melody Palace nightclub in Warsaw shortly afterward. She was widely revered as one of the most beautiful and promising dancers of her age in Poland and was said to be as smart as she was talented, a skill that would suit her in the last hours of her life.

While allegedly transferred to Switzerland, the SS officers stopped the inmates to be “disinfected,” at Bergen, a transfer camp near Dresden. They were told the aim was to get them to Switzerland, where they would be exchanged for German POWs. But in order to get there, they had to be stripped, cleaned, and registered. However, upon arrival, the inmates were not registered and instead taken to a room adjacent to the gas chambers and told to undress.

Inmates line up in a concentration camp for food rations. Keystone/Getty Images

At this point, Franceska Mann knew that there was little chance that the inmates would be set free, let alone get out of Bergen alive. She knew she was going down, and decided that if she went, she wasn’t going without a fight.

As the women were separated into their own room to undress, Mann noticed two guards leering at them through the door. Seizing her opportunity, Mann enticed them in, undressing slowly, and encouraging the other women to do so as well.

Josef Schillinger and Wilhelm Emmerich were indeed enticed, moving into the room. As soon as they were within range, Mann ripped off her shoe, striking Schillinger over the head with it. Then, she pulled the gun from his holster and fired three shots. Two of the bullets hit Schillinger in the stomach, the third struck Emmerich’s leg.

Inspired by Mann’s actions, the other women in the room joined the revolt and attacked the two men. According to one report, one of the officers had his nose torn off in the attack while the other was scalped by the angry mob. Schillinger ultimately died from his wounds, while Emmerich’s did not prove fatal.

Before long reinforcements arrived, alerted by the noise of the revolt. The gas chamber was turned on, trapping whoever was inside it. The women who were between the gas chamber and the undressing room were all gunned down by machine guns, while the women in the chamber were taken outside to be executed.

Still determined to go down on her own terms, Mann turned Schillinger’s gun on herself, taking her own life. Though she was unable to save herself or the women in the room with her, Franceska Mann ensured that she left the Bergau camp with one less Nazi than they’d had before.

Elvis & Sullivan

Already owning a Number One hit with “Heartbreak Hotel,” Elvis had been on television before, but nothing compared to his debut on The Ed Sullivan Show when 60 million viewers tuned in. It was a high profile cultural moment and national event when 82% of the television viewing audience watched Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show.

This young man, whose sound and raw, energetic performances went against everything the conservative Eisenhower era stood for, captivated the youth of America. That night on the Sullivan show, Elvis entered living rooms across the country and created a cultural revolution that changed musical tastes and entertainment forever.

An average student, Elvis found inspiration at The First Assembly of God, the church his family attended, and where he learned to love gospel music. On his eleventh birthday, Elvis was given a guitar by his mother and, inspired by southern gospel singers like Jake Hess and country artists like Hank Snow and Roy Acuff, he taught himself to sing and play the instrument by ear. As he grew older Elvis became more passionate about music and immersed himself in the sounds of his new home — Memphis, Tennessee.

By 1955, at the age of 20, Elvis Presley was emerging as a regional star in the south, touring and playing shows from Tennessee to Texas. Known for his lively performances and on stage gyrations, Elvis played a unique blend of R&B, country, gospel and rock ‘n’ roll. At this early age, Elvis was taken under the wing of well-known music promoter Colonel Tom Parker who heard about Elvis and the audience reaction he was getting whenever he performed. Elvis was recording for producers Sam Phillips and his Sun label. Parker got RCA to buy Elvis’ contract for an outrageous sum at the time — $35,000. Elvis’ first single, “Heartbreak Hotel” was released on January 27, 1956 and his self-titled debut album two months later. “Heartbreak Hotel” became Elvis Presley’s first Number One single and his debut album quickly went gold.

To give his artist a national showcase Colonel Parker booked Elvis’s first televised appearance on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey’s Stage Show. To get him on the show, The Colonel sent the show’s producer, Jackie Gleason, a glossy photo of Elvis with a note reading “JG: This is Elvis Presley. About to be Real Big…- Colonel.” The deal was for six appearances, and although Stage Show was not a major variety show it brought Elvis his first national exposure.

Soon after, Elvis’s national popularity was on the rise, and Hollywood wanted in. Elvis signed a movie contract with Hal Wallis and Paramount Pictures. The Colonel next booked two appearances for him on The Milton Berle Show. For the first show broadcast, April 3, 1956, Elvis was filmed on the flight deck of the USS Hancock in San Diego. Hundreds of sailors were in attendance. In the second show, June 5, 1956, Elvis’s playful performance of “Hound Dog” drove the teens wild, but the press and some adults were outraged. The controversy over his bumps and grinds and gyrating hips only served to fuel the fire. When Ed Sullivan was asked if he would book Elvis on his show, he said he would not. He didn’t want to be the recipient of scathing criticism from the nation’s media.

Then on July 1st, 1956, Elvis appeared on NBC’s new Steve Allen Show, which aired opposite CBS’s The Ed Sullivan Show. Due to the backlash from Presley’s second and last performance on The Milton Berle Show, Allen decided to dress Elvis in a tuxedo and have him sing “Hound Dog” to a basset hound. While many of Elvis’s teenaged fans may not have appreciated the comedic intent of the song (Elvis personally hated it), The Steve Allen Show crushed Ed Sullivan in that week’s ratings. On Monday, Ed Sullivan sent Steve Allen a telegram reading: “Steven Presley Allen, NBC TV, New York City. Stinker. Love and kisses. Ed Sullivan.”

By Monday morning Ed Sullivan caved and decided to book Elvis on his Sunday night showcase. Sullivan and Colonel Parker agreed to have Elvis appear three times for the then mind boggling sum of $50,000, the highest amount ever paid to a performer to appear on TV. Ironically, before Elvis had appeared nationally on television, Sullivan had turned down the opportunity to book Elvis on his show for $5,000. He passed on the opportunity, because he wasn’t sure that Presley would be a good fit for his show’s family audience. But after getting trounced in the ratings by Steve Allen, Ed had to concede and he paid dearly. It would be a show business marriage made in ratings heaven.

A month before Elvis’s Sullivan debut, Ed was involved in nearly fatal automobile accident that left him hospitalized for weeks. By the time September 9th, 1956 rolled around, Ed was still recovering from his injuries and was unable to host Presley’s historic appearance. British actor Charles Laughton hosted the show from Ed’s New York studio and introduced Elvis to the television audience. “…and now, away to Hollywood to meet Elvis Presley!” 60 million viewers were transported to CBS Television City in Los Angeles for Elvis Presley’s performance of “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Love Me Tender,” the latter being the title song of his first Hollywood feature film.

Later, it was again back to Hollywood where Elvis returned to perform Little Richard’s hit, “Ready Teddy” after which he thanked “Mr. Sullivan” for the opportunity and wished him a speedy recovery. Continuing his serious tone, Elvis then introduced his next number, “As a great philosopher once said…’You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog!’” Elvis held nothing back, snarling and gyrating and stirring up controversy all over again. Contrary to what many believe about CBS insisting that cameras only shoot Elvis from the hips up, the TV audience had a full view of Elvis Presley that evening.

By the time of his next appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, October 28th, 1956, Sullivan had recovered from his injuries and resumed his duties hosting the show. Following an innocent act by an Irish children’s choir called The Little Gaelic Singers, Elvis Presley took the stage and sang, “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Love Me Tender.” After Señor Wences’s ventriloquism act, Elvis returned to perform “Love Me.” During this song the camera moved in for a close-up of Elvis’ face, and then, as if on cue, he smiled and snarled his upper lip. The studio audience went wild. Elvis closed with another performance of his hit, “Hound Dog.” Again viewers were shown a head-to-toe Elvis.

Following the broadcast, which again enjoyed huge ratings, Elvis was burned in effigy by angry crowds in Nashville and St. Louis. The popular press was also critical of his style and movements. Rock and roll was increasingly attacked and there was growing opposition to its supposedly negative influence on America’s youth. The more the establishment pushed back, the more Elvis’s support grew from millions of teenagers.

Elvis’s third and final appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show took place on January 6th, 1957. He shared the stage with Sullivan impressionist Will Jordan, ventriloquist Arthur Worsley and a rising comedienne, Carol Burnett.

Elvis’s sexy gyrations had stirred up enough controversy across America that CBS censors demanded he be shot only from the waist up only!

Elvis performed a number of songs that night including “Hound Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Too Much,” “When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again,” and a gospel favorite, “Peace in the Valley.” At the end of the show Ed Sullivan went out of his way to compliment Presley, “I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country that this is a real decent, fine boy, and wherever you go, Elvis, we want to say we’ve never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we’ve had with you. So now let’s have a tremendous hand for a very nice person!” With that endorsement, Elvis Presley bowed, was clearly appreciative and exited the Sullivan stage for the last time. He went on to become one of the most famous and beloved artists in the history of entertainment.

In 2006, The History Channel selected the September 9th, 1956 Elvis Presley appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show as one of the “10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.” Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show was a key stepping stone on The King’s path to worldwide fame. Today Presley remains a cultural icon and a global legend, the best selling solo artist in the history of popular music, and perhaps thanks in part to Elvis’ three historic appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Source: https://www.edsullivan.com/artists/elvis-presley/

Identification of the Desert-Bred Arabian

Header pic lists the ancient Classic Egyptian bloodlines of my Saba Kharazaarouf, which was his full registered name. His sire was Zaaris (dapple gray) and his dam was Kharoufa (chestnut); there was also strong black in his bloodlines, and my ultimate dream Arab was always a black – not that I didn’t dearly love my Z, mind you! But we hoped to get a black foal from him. He shared bloodlines with Cass Ole, the horse from “The Black” movies. I have a pic of HB standing on a step stool next to Cass Ole in his paddock – we went to a Lippizzan show at the Capital Center outside DC and he was in the lobby.)

When I posted some Arabian horse pics recently, I commented briefly about the physical characteristics and was going to go into a detailed explanation of all the others, then a little voice came to mind: “That would make a great open!” Yes, Pat – I hear you! LOL

So, here it is! These are all stock pics and all of the specific descriptions I am using are for this first picture. I’m going to test you to see if you can point out the similarities in the others!😉😉😉 Open the pic in a new tab and enlarge it, if you need to.

This is the pic of the blood bay Arabian I posted – spitting image of my Z:

Let’s start with the head: Look at the top of the ears, which are a scimitar shape, moving down to the forehead – see the bulge? Note the very broad jaws, rather short head, the foreward-and-wide-set, big eyes, quickly tapering to a dish-shaped, slender face and nose, ending with the huge nostrils (which is why they are called “Wind Drinkers”), yet a small, almost dainty mouth.

OK….moving on….go back to the top of the head/neck. Note that it is a short neck with a dramatic arch, set high into the shoulders, which are broad and well-muscled, set into the short barrel of the body. The concave profile and flagging tail are not the only peculiar features of the Arabian. Many also have one less lumbar vertebrae, pair of ribs, and tail bone than other horse breeds. Also note what is called the “tabletop back,” i.e., straight and level, with the tail set high up into the spine.

Back to the front: note the wide-set front legs, very well developed chest, straight and unblemished legs, wide and substantial knees, slender, almost fragile looking cannon bones (main bottom leg bone), clean, small ankle, with a short, straight, upright pastern (between the ankles and the hooves).

The knees of young Arabians do not “close” as early as other breeds. There is a gap in the center of the knee that does not fuse until around the age of 4. This is why it is wise not to do any strenuous training that will stress the knees until then; when Arabians age, the knees are often where the damage shows up first. Nine times out of ten, it is because they started training too soon. Trained and cared for properly, Arabians can continue to thrive and perform well into their 30’s!

Even newborn’s show the basic conformation – that nose would be called an “extreme” tea cup dish face)

As to the hooves of desert-bred Arabs, in a natural setting they rarely need a farrier to trim their feet. Given a “normal” pasture/grazing area with the occasional stones/rocks/gravel, and their clean, proper conformation, they wear off naturally. Under normal life, barring stepping on something and injuring the heel or frog of the foot or being out in wet, muddy ground for an extended period (which can cause a disease called “thrush”) or being a “working” horse, they don’t require intervention.

I had my Z for 17 years and not once did I ever have to call a farrier. That entire time, a farrier looked at his feet twice – I wanted to make sure Z was good and, since they were there anyway, they agreed to check him out. First guy, said nope, doesn’t need anything. Second guy looked, shook his head, dropped Z’s hoof in disgust, and said, “These damned Arabs!!! I’d go broke with just them!!!”

Note the difference in the conformation, specifically of the hooves, between the Arab and this one. You can clearly see the dropped heels, the long toes, the slightly slanted pastern. Of course, you can also see the difference in conformation overall.

I can’t identify which breed this is but it seems to be a pony of some type.

Most people not in the horse world have never heard the phrase “showing at liberty.” That means the horses are not on leads and are running free, oftentimes without even a halter. This is a video of a woman with her Arabians working at liberty:

Another Arabian show event that I always loved is the Costume competition!!!

5 Crowns

5 Crowns is a fun card game for 2 or more players. It’s similar to Rummy, with some notable exceptions: there are 5 suits, no aces or deuces–but there are jokers, additional rotating wild cards and 11 rounds!

The object of the game is to be the player with the lowest score at the end of the 11th round. After shuffling both decks together (each deck has 58 cards each), the game begins by dealing 3 cards to each player. Each round, the number of cards dealt increases by one. In the second round deal 4 cards, in the third round deal 5 cards and so on until the last round when each player is dealt 13 cards. Similarly, the rotating wild cards are based on the number of cards dealt that round. So, when 3 cards are dealt, the 3s are wild, when 4 cards are dealt, the 4s are wild and so on until the last round when the Kings go wild.

Place the remaining cards in the center of the table to make the draw pile and flip over the top card to start the discard pile. Start your turn by drawing a card from the draw pile OR picking up the top card from the discard pile. You can only take the top card. Keep all of your books and/or runs in your hand until you are able to go out. Complete your turn by discarding one card.

Going Out: Start your turn as normal, then lay down your entire hand in books and/or runs on the table in front of you before discarding your last card. You can only use the number of cards you were dealt to make your books and/or runs. You must have one card left to discard. Your discard can be a playable card.

Books

A book consists of three or more cards of the same value regardless of suit. For example:

Any card in a book can be replaced by a wild card. For example, if 8s are wild, a book could be:

You can have as many wild cards in a book as you wish and they can be adjacent to each other.

Runs

A run consists of a sequence of three or more consecutive cards of the same suit. For example:

Any card in a run can be replaced by a wild card. For example, if 7s are wild, a run could be:

You can have as many wild cards in a run as you wish and they can be adjacent to each other.

Once a player has gone out, all other players have one more turn. Start your last turn as normal, but lay down any books and/or runs you can before discarding. All unused cards will count toward your score. You are not allowed to play on another player’s books and/or runs. The cards used in books and/or runs are not scored. Players add up only their unused cards. The scorekeeper records and tallies the scores. Card Values: Each number card is worth its face value, Jacks are 11 points, Queens are 12, Kings are 13, Jokers are 50 and the current wild cards are 20 points. Play continues until the 11th round when each player is dealt 13 cards and the Kings go wild.