Pages

Showing posts with label sayings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sayings. Show all posts

Sunday, June 23, 2024

Insults with Class

 These insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words. Insults then, had some class!


1. "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play;
Bring a friend, if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.

"Cannot possibly attend first night, I will attend the second...If there is one."
- Winston Churchill, in response.

2. A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows, or of some unspeakable disease."
· "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

3. "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

4. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
- Clarence Darrow

5. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

6."Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas

7. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
- Mark Twain

8. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.."
- Oscar Wilde

9. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
- Stephen Bishop

10."He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
- John Bright

11. "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb

12. "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson

13. "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
- Paul Keating

14. "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
- Charles, Count Talleyrand

15. "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
- Forrest Tucker

16. "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
- Mark Twain

17. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West

18. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde

19. "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... For support rather than illumination."
- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

20. "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder

21. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx.

22."He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Winston Churchill

Tuesday, July 07, 2020

Paraprosdokians


Do you know what Paraprosdokians are? No? Well, they are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence is unexpected; Winston Churchill loved them:


1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
2. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
3. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
4. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
5. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
6. They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to Tell you why it isn't.
7. To steal ideas from someone is Plagiarism. To steal from many is called Research.
8. In filling in an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify who: I put Doctor
9. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
10. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the Street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they look Sexy.
11. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a Successful man is usually another woman.
12. A clear conscience is the sign of a bad memory.
13. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.
14. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Nor is there any future in it.
15. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
16. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than Standing in your garage makes you a car.
17. I 'm supposed to respect my elders, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Paraprosdokians

A Paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence is unexpected.

If I had a dollar for every girl that found me unattractive, they'd eventually find me attractive

Today a man knocked on my door and asked for a small donation towards the local swimming pool, so I gave him a glass of water.

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
 
I'm great at multi-tasking--I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at once.
 
If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.
 
My wife and I were happy for twenty years; then we met.
 
Hospitality is the art of making guests feel like they're at home when you wish they were.

Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.
 
Ever stop to think and forget to start again?
 
Women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend thinking.
 
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
 
Is it wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly?
 
I was going to give him a nasty look, but he already had one.
 
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
 
I was going to wear my camouflage shirt today, but I couldn't find it.
 
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you. 
 
If tomatoes are technically a fruit, is ketchup a smoothie?
 
Money is the root of all wealth. 

CONFUCIUS DIDN'T SAY

Man who want pretty nurse, must be patient.

Passionate kiss, like spider web, leads to undoing of fly.

Better to be pissed off than pissed on.

Lady who goes camping must beware of evil intent.

Squirrel who runs up woman's' leg will not find nuts.

Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.

Man who eats many prunes get good run for money.

War does not determine who is right, it determines who is left.

Man who fight with wife all day get no piece at night.

It takes many nails to build crib, Only one screw to fill it.

Man who drives like hell is bound to get there.

Man who stands on toilet is high on pot.

Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement.

Man who fish in other man's pond often catch crabs.

CONFUCIUS SAY: A Lion will not cheat on wife, but a Tiger Wood.

Friday, September 09, 2016

Ever wonder where certain sayings originated?

Here are some facts about the 1500s which lead to common sayings we use now.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low. The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof... Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive... 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. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.