Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Climbing Back Into The Saddle

Missed posting for a bit as I had a little flareup up Sunday. Got so wasted I couldn't raise my head to drink and was dehydrating from a fever spike. My wife had to go get some straws from Madri our neighbor so I could get some fluids in. By Monday night it had gone down enough so I could make it to the bathroom without it being a huge task, but didn't even make it to the computer until this morning for a short session. Caught up with my email then had an appointment I couldn't miss and was wiped out by the time I got home at noon. After a bit of rest, and a little solid food, I may have been able to do something this afternoon but a big wind blew in and the electric kept going in and out so didn't want to boot up. No budget to replace my machine if it gets fried.

We had a thunderstorm, which is pretty unusual for a January in West Virginia, lightning and the whole nine yards. Now where did that expression come from? Certainly from no one who regularly watches American football, where you need to get a total of 10 yards in 4 chances or give up possession to the opposing team. So why don't people say "the whole 10 yards" which is significant, whereas 9 yards is a failure? Idiomatic expressions, go figure.

In any case, I am just blathering on instead of doing any real work to make a post. As usual, whining about my declining material body, but what can I say, I am used to this one and having to trade it in seems to be a lot of bother just now, so I do tend to focus on it more than I probably care to in order to get a few more miles out of it.

2 Comments:

At 10:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The whole 9 yards" expression comes from the delivery of pre-mixed concrete in trucks.
These trucks hold "9 cubic yards" of concrete. The only person who climbs to the top of the rotating drum to look in is the driver- NOT the buyer.
Therefore the expression "Give me the whole 9 yards" was born from an apparent need............ you get the gist.

 
At 11:43 AM, Blogger Madhava Gosh said...

That seems to be a rock solid answer. :-)

 

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