Common vernacular with objectionable origin

[YGIFS 19452]

19 hours ago, Jerry Callo said:

We have a bunch of purple ground cover plants here outside the office.  These plants fall into a variety of the Tradescantia species which are collectively known as wandering Jew.  I saw that some have started referring to them as wandering dude.  Does anyone really care if they continue to be referred to as wandering Jew?

csb/ A few months ago, or maybe a year...armybrat posted a photograph on here of his desk with an atlas and some national park brochures.  It freaked the ever living shit out of me because I had the same road atlas out (2007 Rand-McNally) and the same USNP map on a similarly colored desk around the same time.  I posted my photo shortly after his.  And Armybrat is much like the wandering Jew in that he's been alive for centuries.  And groundcover aside, the weirdest part is it sparked a long lost memory I had from Toledo, Spain when I was living in Spain....where the Wandering Jew, Cartaphilus was often spotted.  Just that same year, my mother's side of the family had done a deep dive on family history from Chicago to the Rio Grande Valley to Monterrey, Mexico to the Iberian Peninsula.  In doing so, they learned they were all half-Sephardic Jews.  Decades later, it would be confirmed by DNA testing.  And we were on a tour bus to see some sites in Toledo (I was living in Salamanca at the time).  And there was a man in a white shirt fixing his car in a parking lot.  And we locked eyes and I asked him in Spanish, if he needed any help.  And a few folks I was with remarked that he looked exactly like me.  And he did, but i didn't notice it at the time.  And after I helped him out (not that I knew jackshit about whatever European coupe he had 30 years ago), he asked if I was Sephardic despite my very non-Sephardic sounding name because we looked alike and maybe we had the same ancestors.  And before I could think of what to say in Spanish from the English reply I had in my head...he told me that his name was Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew.  I thought him crazy at the time, Pilot's gatekeeper fixing a busted up car outside a Toledo tourist trap.  But I look at the photo my friend took and we looked like twins.  And he knew I was a Sephardic Jew before I got off the bus.  Kinda weird.  

And that Wandering Jew's name?  You guessed it Frank "ArmyBrat" Stallone.  

[Brisketexan 105177]

Well...that's a wonderful story, and you tell it so well.

I remember from nearly 30 years ago, I was a young lawyer on a case, and the opposing party was a big dealmaker type, who happened to be jewish.  During a break from a deposition, we were having some sort of discussion/argument with his counsel about scheduling, and how we needed to get things moving on this case, and the partner I worked under said something along the lines of "we need to make progress, we don't want to wander the desert for 40 years," and the opposing party bowed up - "is that an antisemitic remark?!?!"  We were all taken a bit aback.  I mean, yeah, it was an OT reference, so....the parties involved in that reference were indeed jewish, but to us it was simply a biblically literate idiom about wasting time.

But....I haven't really used it since then.

[Gatorubet 30270]

8 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

But they were too cheap to pay for the paperwork?

[shadow_operative 15932]

a bit coincidental as my mom (5’3” coach and teacher who is about ~30 lbs lighter than she was three years ago) came home today and told me about how twice this week she’s run into people at school who she hasn’t seen for a few years and how they told her that she looked great. she doesn’t have IBS and therefore wasn’t triggered, but even if she did have IBS and had lost the weight via sickness, she i and i both agree that it’s more reasonable for the person with IBS to recognize an innocent compliment and to not make it a deal than it is for everyone else in the world to refrain from complimenting anyone they know who has lost weight and who looks great. to us, that’s what’s reasonable and sensible. 

Edited December 15, 2023 by shadow_operative

[Parliament 14270]

10 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

a bit coincidental as my mom (5’3” coach and teacher who is about ~30 lbs lighter than she was three years ago)

Many I hate to call you out on this, but...we have rules.

[HouTex 1887]

I don't follow PETA--maybe they have already objected, but if not, it's only a matter of time that they complain about using animals in old sayings.  I'm waiting for these to be a problem:

Crazy like a fox. (even though actually a complement)

Strong as an ox.

Hungry as a bear.

So hungry I could eat a horse.

Beat a dead horse.

Hold your horses.

Stubborn as a mule.

Poor as a mouse.

Madder than a wet hen.

Scaredy-cat.

Like a bull in a china shop.

Snake in the grass.

800 lb. gorilla.

Elephant in the room.

Wild goose chase.

In the doghouse.

Cat got your tongue?

Kill two birds with one stone.

 

 

[TexasHooch 5122]

1 hour ago, HouTex said:

I don't follow PETA--maybe they have already objected, but if not, it's only a matter of time that they complain about using animals in old sayings.  I'm waiting for these to be a problem:

Crazy like a fox. (even though actually a complement)

Strong as an ox.

Hungry as a bear.

So hungry I could eat a horse.

Beat a dead horse.

Hold your horses.

Stubborn as a mule.

Poor as a mouse.

Madder than a wet hen.

Scaredy-cat.

Like a bull in a china shop.

Snake in the grass.

800 lb. gorilla.

Elephant in the room.

Wild goose chase.

In the doghouse.

Cat got your tongue?

Kill two birds with one stone.

 

 

Oh, they've got you covered..

https://www.peta.org/teachkind/lesson-plans-activities/animal-friendly-idioms/

[Deej 76858]

Fucking PETA doesn't think dogs should be pets. 

Thousands of years developing a symbiotic relationship with humans and we should just set them all free, or in PETA's opinion, kill them all.

Fuck those wackos. My dogs have a better life than most people.

[TexasHooch 5122]

14 hours ago, Deej said:

Fucking PETA doesn't think dogs should be pets. 

Thousands of years developing a symbiotic relationship with humans and we should just set them all free, or in PETA's opinion, kill them all.

Fuck those wackos. My dogs have a better life than most people.

Yeah, we all know PETA sucks.  There's no need to feed a fed horse here.

[YGIFS 19452]

But can we still beat a horse as hungry as a human.?

[scottsins 1968]

I just learned two years ago about “luck of the Irish”.