Dec
15
2015
I remember plenty of family picnics in the 1950s. After the eating was over the adult male relatives would gather round the picnic table, break out frosty bottles of Schlitz beer, light up cigars, and commence to play penny ante poker.
But seriously, how many people smoke cigars today? Nevertheless, “Close, but no cigar!” is an idiom that still has currency today and is as instantly understood in the way as it has been for more than a century. Continue reading
5 comments | tags: Annie Oakley, Annie Oakleys, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, Close but no cigar, Havana’s Best cigars, Idioms, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, Schlitz beer, Toby Walker, W.C. Fields | posted in More Idioms!
Oct
29
2015
They’re wild, they’re zany. They are more than a hundred years old. They come from a time before women had the right to vote and cars had to be hand-cranked to start. And yet the Keystone Cops live on, at least as a figure of speech.
The Keystone Cops.
Continue reading
1 comment | tags: Adam Kessel, Al Jolson, Benny Hill, Bing Crosby, Charles Bauman, Charlie Chaplin, Don’t Change Your Husband, Footageworld.com, Getting Acquainted, Gloria Swanson, idiom, Keystone Cops, Keystone Studios, Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Marie Dressler, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, The Jazz Singer, W.C. Fields, Yakety Sax | posted in More Idioms!
