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Where did "piss poor" come from ?
Received via email | OldDog

Posted on 11/20/2011 5:11:29 PM PST by Jim Robinson

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To: arkady_renko
"Where did the phrase, ‘Taken with a grain of salt’ come from?
21 posted on 11/20/2011 5:37:18 PM PST by ThomasThomas ( If you can't laugh at your self, I will for you.)
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To: Jim Robinson

In Mexico they still piss on the hides to tan them!

If you buy mexican shoes, don’t get them wet, they will smell just like their tanning fluid!


22 posted on 11/20/2011 5:37:46 PM PST by dalereed (uity wise!)
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To: ThomasThomas

After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.


23 posted on 11/20/2011 5:38:52 PM PST by ThomasThomas ( If you can't laugh at your self, I will for you.)
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To: Jim Robinson

:-). Very cool! Thanks Jim!


24 posted on 11/20/2011 5:39:07 PM PST by GOP Poet (Obama is an OLYMPIC failure.)
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To: arkady_renko

To take a statement with ‘a grain of salt’ or ‘a pinch of salt’ means to accept it but to maintain a degree of skepticism about its truth.
Origin

take with a pinch of saltThe idea comes from the fact that food is more easily swallowed if taken with a small amount of salt. Pliny the Elder translated an ancient antidote for poison with the words ‘be taken fasting, plus a grain of salt’.

Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. translates thus:

After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.

The suggestion is that injurious effects can be moderated by the taking of a grain of salt.

The figurative meaning, i.e. that truth may require moderation by the notional application of ‘a grain of salt’, didn’t enter the language until much later, no doubt influenced by classical scholars’ study of Ancient Greek texts like the works of Pliny. The phrase has been in use in English since the 17th century; for example, John Trapp’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, 1647:

“This is to be taken with a grain of salt.”

The ‘pinch of salt’ variant is more recent. The earliest printed citation that I can find for it is F. R. Cowell’s Cicero & the Roman Republic, 1948:

“A more critical spirit slowly developed, so that Cicero and his friends took more than the proverbial pinch of salt before swallowing everything written by these earlier authors.”


25 posted on 11/20/2011 5:39:37 PM PST by mc5cents
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To: Jim Robinson

That’s a piss poor analysis to a piss poor question, on a piss poor Sunday.


26 posted on 11/20/2011 5:47:27 PM PST by ImJustAnotherOkie (zerogottago)
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To: Jim Robinson
During colonial times innkeepers would tell the girls serving tables to “mind their Ps and Qs” or Pints and Quarts. A cocktail was a hot drink with a rooster's feather sticking from the top of the glass. Just for looks.
27 posted on 11/20/2011 5:50:10 PM PST by 4yearlurker (I've been dipping into my jar full of Hope & Change just to buy gas!!)
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To: Jim Robinson

I thought it’s performance had been prevented with proper prior planning.


28 posted on 11/20/2011 5:52:08 PM PST by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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To: mc5cents

Does anyone know what made Bus wiser?

(ans: His wife came home with Schlitz in her pants.)

Baba ding!


29 posted on 11/20/2011 5:52:51 PM PST by basil (It's time to rid the country of "gun free zones" aka "Killing Fields")
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To: basil

Well—I screwed that one. Should have read:

Does anyone know what made Bud Wiser?


30 posted on 11/20/2011 5:54:20 PM PST by basil (It's time to rid the country of "gun free zones" aka "Killing Fields")
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To: me1og

That’s what I’ve always heard. If a phrase origin has a “tidy” or “cute” explanation, it’s probably made up. Like “Mafia” coming from the words ma and fia meaning “my daughter!” in Italian. Not true. Nor is it true about “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”. Although I’m not sure about “In like Flynn”. Supposedly referring to Errol Flynn’s sexual escapades. Maybe.


31 posted on 11/20/2011 5:54:43 PM PST by boop ("Let's just say they'll be satisfied with LESS"... Ming the Merciless)
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To: Jim Robinson

I always enjoy these tales about the history of your language, our sayings and customs.


32 posted on 11/20/2011 5:55:02 PM PST by Baynative (The penalty for not participating in politics is you will be governed by your inferiors.)
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To: Jim Robinson

BTTT


33 posted on 11/20/2011 5:56:18 PM PST by verga (I am not an apologist, I just play one on television.)
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To: 4yearlurker
Mind your p's and q's is a printer's warning.

The type for both p and q are almost identical and can easily be mixed up.

Learned that in printing shop, circa 19 early 60's

34 posted on 11/20/2011 6:01:46 PM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: Jim Robinson

****So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. ****

An old boy named Bateson made small belfreys with bells to do this work. People called him nuts, and the term “Bats in the belfrey” meant someone who was not quite right.


35 posted on 11/20/2011 6:10:23 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Jim Robinson

I knew of a snake who was so poor he didn’t have a pit to hiss in.

(rimshot)

Mind your “Ps” and “Qs” also was a caution to the printers who used hand type. Lowercase Ps looked awfully close to Qs but usually were caught by the proof reader.

“Worth his salt.” Roman soldiers (and probably others) were paid in salt (salarium), so if he was good at his job, he was . . . Hence our word “salary”.

[Distantly related to thread]

“The Earl’s Bastard” referred to a commoner’s firstborn. On the wedding night, if the woman was good looking, the Earl got first dibs.


36 posted on 11/20/2011 6:10:57 PM PST by Oatka (This is the USA, assimilate or evaporate.)
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To: Verginius Rufus

In an unrelated note..Pliny the Elder is the greatest beer I’ve ever had and the #1 ranked beer out of EVERY beer in the world on Beer Advocate....


37 posted on 11/20/2011 6:11:54 PM PST by JoshuaLawrenceChamberlain
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To: PieterCasparzen

I think the chamber pot was also called a thunder mug.


38 posted on 11/20/2011 6:12:02 PM PST by antidemoncrat
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To: mware

In the middle ages salesmen would sell pigs in a poke sack to farmers. Often the farmer found he had bought a dog or cat.
So, Don’t Buy A Pig In A Poke!


39 posted on 11/20/2011 6:14:40 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Forgot this! The item was known as Bateson’s Belfry and from there the term Bats in the Belfry meant someone who was not quite right.


40 posted on 11/20/2011 6:18:30 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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