English!! To Funny To Ignore!!

While having a conversation, with my friend Cally the other day, about downloading the Phoenix Viewer; she said to me, " on second thoughts I will leave it until Saturday in case it all goes tits up and I cannot cover tomorrow!!" That conversation got me thinking about the English language. it is a difficult language to learn. Thinkie, my SL partner always says to me "Why do you have to use $10,000 words in your blog?"  I actually do it for two reasons; 1. as a writer I am constantly trying to improve my vocabulary and 2. I want to force people to think about what I write and maybe educate them a little.

The English language is full of sayings that intrigue me. Especially those sayings that have become native to the English language through the United Kingdom. After all; that's where the language originated. So I decided to try and find the origin of some of these sayings.

My method of research;;;Google of course, lol. I am using the web site http://www.phrases.org.uk/. It is quite informative on this subject.

Tits Up ~~ 'This is a 20th century phrase, probably of military origin. There's certainly no mention of it in print prior to WWII. It has been suggested that the term derives from the behaviour of aeroplanes' altitude indicators, which turn upside down when faulty and display an inverted 'W' resembling a pair of breasts. There's no real evidence to support this speculation and it seems more likely that the phrase is just a vulgar alternative to the earlier 'belly-up', which has the same meaning.'

 The bastardization(there you go Thinkie,,grab your dictionary) of words and terms runs rampart through the English language. I suppose that is true for all languages.

Bobs Your Uncle ~~ Used to describe the means of straightforwardly obtaining a successful result. Its origin is in question, Three possibilities have been  postulated; 1. British Prime Minister Lord (Robert) Salisbury giving his nephew a political job he was unqualified for and uninterested in caused the term to be used as a source of success, 2. a derivative of the term 'all is bob', meaning all is safe and 3. derived from the lyrics of the 1931 song 'Follow Your Uncle Bob' sung by Florrie Ford. The lyrics being:

Bob's your uncle
Follow your Uncle Bob
He knows what to do
He'll look after you

You will laugh when I tell you that I thought that this saying was a nautical one that derived from the sinking of ships and someone saying 'Your Uncles ship has sunk and he is bobbing on the ocean' makes sense to me, lol.

Indulge me please. One more.

Whoops-a-daisy ~~ An exclamation made when encouraging a child to get up after a fall or when lifting a child into the air.

Found in many different forms:

Upsidaisy
Upsa daesy
Upsy-daisy
Oops-a-daisy
Oopsy-daisy
Hoops-a-daisy

The interesting thing about this one is that it is a saying that is almost always spoken but rarely written. So no official spelling has ever been assigned to it.

I find the English language fascinating. please go to that website; there are hundreds of sayings listed there.

Yes I have bored you to tears so I will leave you with a copy of letter that has come into my possession so at least you will finish reading today's blog with a smile on your face.

Obviously he is on her again!!

Love ya,
Night

PS......Welcome to my readers in China, Iran and Thailand. Thank you for dropping by.