Posted on 05/05/2016 5:03:45 AM PDT by harpygoddess
"Hang up the phone." comes from one specific kind of land-line phone that had a kind of hook you'd hang the handset from when you were done. Doing so would pull down the hook that was connected to a switch inside the phone that would disconnect the line.
And lots of nautical stuff:
Groggy - In 1740, British Admiral Vernon (whose nickname was "Old Grogram" for the cloak of grogram which he wore) ordered that the sailors' daily ration of rum be diluted with water. The men called the mixture "grog". A sailor who drank too much grog was "groggy".
Leeway - The weather side of a ship is the side from which the wind is blowing. The Lee side is the side of the ship sheltered from the wind. A lee shore is a shore that is downwind of a ship. If a ship does not have enough "leeway" it is in danger of being driven onto the shore.
Pipe Down - Means stop talking and be quiet. The Pipe Down was the last signal from the Bosun's pipe each day which meant "lights out" and "silence".
Slush Fund - A slushy slurry of fat was obtained by boiling or scraping the empty salted meat storage barrels. This stuff called "slush" was often sold ashore by the ship's cook for the benefit of himself or the crew. The money so derived became known as a slush fund.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
The arrangement of characters on the QWERTY keyboard was to speed up transcription from American (not International) Morse.
Check out article, The Origin of QWERTY.
I hate to admit it, but I remember phonograph stores with listening booths. However, I had always associated the phrase “take it for a spin” with automobile test drives, though I certainly can’t come up with a rationale for that one.
Eleven years ago the gun shop for which I was working part-time required an inventory of their rare, tough-to-find, antique-ish ammunition.
We discovered a bunch of older (1920s vintage) ammunition for British sporting rifles - the sort used to hunt elephant, or lion or rhino, in Britain’s African and Indian colonial possessions back then.
Neck annealing was unknown then, and quite a number of the old rounds had developed cracks at their necks.
We pulled the bullets from a couple and found the charge retained by a card wad. Underneath the wads were strands of a reddish-brown material, up to two inches long. Looked very much like whole-wheat pasta, dried.
Placing a couple strands on a metal plate, we touched them off with a lighted match. They flared up and sizzled out in a very short time, just like smokeless powder will when unconfined.
Cordite.
The smoke & fumes smelled nothing like modern US smokeless powder, nor anything US smokeless powder from back in the day.
Hahahaha! Looks like a moth or something, I misremembered the roach!
Maybe the milk would freeze in NY but not in Houston! ; )
I remember a horse drawn wagon that brought fresh vegetables to our house too. I remember how disappointed I was when the man got a P/U truck. I liked petting the horse.
” ... “The Whole 9 Yards” also from WWII. The machine-gun belts were 27 feet long, so when the gunner fired the entire belt, he gave them the whole 9 yards.”
Whatever the origins, this has become an internet urban legend. The other attributions (kilts, baseball) probably have a more credible claim as to origin, as it could not possibly have originated from fighter aircraft in the Second World War.
By the late 1930s, all (allied) aircraft guns (fixed or flexible) used disintegrating metal-link belts, which do not have any fixed or standard length. They were pieced together round by round and link by link, to the exact size required to fill the ammunition boxes of any particular airplane and application (some aircraft mounted both fixed and flexible guns - B-25H, A-24, Grumman Avenger, A-26, B-26 are some).
No two different makes/models of aircraft were equipped with the same ammunition boxes.
US and British fighters (and nearly all other aircraft flown by those two countries) were armed with Browning guns during WWII. “Standard” fabric belts were still used at that time for ground guns and they held 250 rounds in the 30 cal version. Just a minute or two with a ruler can tell you that such a belt will never be nine yards long.
If there is any chance that the slang originated in ordnance circles, it likely dates to the First World War. Canvas belts for the British Vickers gun held 250 rounds when standard-built; the cartridge pockets are spaced quite differently than those in a Browning belt. Length is remarakbly close to 27 feet.
The Maxim, the other widely used gun of the day (very extensively by Germany and Russia/USSR in both World Wars), used a belt of very similar configuration and size.
Threads like these are what define the greatness of Free Republic.
“Threads like these are what define the greatness of Free Republic.”
Pretty exciting, I know. At times I have to struggle to keep the blood pressure within safe limits.
I worked in a "smart building" and it was fun to watch people do this even when lights came on automatically.
The last hour of John Galt's speech is far more powerful in the audio version.
I think my next purchase will be "Once an Eagle", by Anton Myrer.
That is a great story; thanks for the info.
I have read about cordite and its’acrid smell my whole life, but cordite per se predates me.
I took a basic computer class about the same time. The first thing the instructor asked the class was if we had all had a keyboarding class in high school. Another lady and I raised our hands and asked him if typing class counted. The look on his face was priceless.
I took typing in the 7th grade with Mrs. French. How I hated it, but I am glad I did it.
It must be the same way with many kids forced to take piano lessons...
I heard this story a couple times removed, but I believe it’s true. One guy’s father like to play practical jokes on his kids. The kid had gone out to see some scary movie. A little while before kid’s due home, dad starts soaking his forearm and hand in cold water. When kid pulls into the driveway, dad goes into kids room, turns off lights and puts his hand over the light switch. Kid comes in, automatically smacks his hand where the light switch should be...and feels a cold clammy hand. Kid took the screen door off the hinges getting out of the house.
I have never entered a dark room since without thinking of that story because one day, I know...
Ice picks...no one knows what they are any more. My mother had an assortment of ice picks and church keys in a can on top of the fridge.
Haha... good stuff!
“I cringe every time I read “cordite” in a book that isn’t set in the 1800’s.”
Exactly! LOL. Yeah, a guy is using a modern firearm and loads his ammo with cordite, lol.
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