skydog757
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- 465
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- Thumb Area, Michigan
Don't forget, "let's dance" and "let's tango!"
Also "It's 'Go' time!"
Don't forget, "let's dance" and "let's tango!"
" the catbird seat" expression is an old southern term, frequently still heard down here. The grey catbird is a mimic, like the mockingbird, and always chooses the highest branches in the tree to perch and sing his song. Red Barber popularized the phrase to a wider audience back in the day.Yep, popularized by Dodger announcer Red Barber, who called his autobiography "Rhubarb In The Catbird Seat," said "catbird seat" being a position of advantage -- another Barberism which was very popular in the Era but has since faded away.
Barber's surviving broadcasts are a gold mine of colorful language. I heard him describe one particular game as being "as tight as a new pair of shoes on a rainy day," and immediately mourned for all the thousands of games he broadcast over the years for which no recordings exist, and all the brilliant bits of language we'll never get to enjoy.
Around here, a rowdy fight is known as a "knock-down drag-out."
Some things just shouldn't be questioned.When Dodger pinch-hitter Cookie Lavagetto broke up Yankee Bill Bevens' no-hitter with a game-winning double in the 1947 World Series, Red Barber famously exclaimed "Well I'll be a suck-egg mule!" He himself was never able to give a reasonable explanation of what, exactly, a suck-egg mule is, but it perfectly fit the moment.
When Dodger pinch-hitter Cookie Lavagetto broke up Yankee Bill Bevens' no-hitter with a game-winning double in the 1947 World Series, Red Barber famously exclaimed "Well I'll be a suck-egg mule!" He himself was never able to give a reasonable explanation of what, exactly, a suck-egg mule is, but it perfectly fit the moment.
I remember you explaining to me the expression, a suck egg mule. I just couldn't crack that lyric when I first heard Glenn Miller's: "Doin' The Jive."Red Barber famously exclaimed "Well I'll be a suck-egg mule!" He himself was never able to give a reasonable explanation of what, exactly, a suck-egg mule is, but it perfectly fit the moment.
It used to be a phrase to say "cutting a merry dido" to describe someone whooping it up or engaging in wacky antics. You don't hear that one anymore either.
Webster's Second defines "Dido" as a proper name from classical mythology, the queen and reported founder of Carthage. In Virgil's Aenied, Dido entertained Aeneas and his followers, fell in love with him and then killed herself, as mythological queens are wont to do, when he did not reciprocate. Possibly the meaning of "merry antics" has to do with the way in which Dido entertained her guests.
Someone given to cutting didoes was also known as a "merry andrew," for whatever that's worth.
The use of the possessive to refer to a business is still in use here in Northern California. The differentiator appears to be if the business name is based on the name of a person it gets the possessive, e.g. Tadich's, Leopold's, Lang's, Goodwin-Cole's, etc. If the name is not so personalized it does not get the possessive, e.g. BevMo, Bi-Mart, Tower, etc.
I've lived in southern California my entire life (so far), and it's been quite common to hear someone say, for example, "Green Bay beat Chicago last night," or "The Packers beat the Bears last night," during a conversation about the previous day's/night's sports event. But I've never heard it phrased as "The Chicagos beat the Dallas' last night," so you're probably right.I still (rarely) hear professional sports teams called by the names of their cities, but in the plural, as in "the Green Bays beat the Chicagos."
Such usage is almost never encountered in the West. Perhaps it never was...