Hooray! Canadian Geese are extinct! How do I know this? THEY NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. It is that time of year when these migrating, flying poop machines start hanging out at golf courses, traffic circles, football fields, you name it. Eat, Fly, Poop if you wanted to write a book about it. TV stations start doing cute reports about all those "Canadian Geese stopping traffic by wandering off the golf course and in to the street. Yuk yuk yuk, back to you, Bob."
Canadian? Really?
I'm not sure who started calling them Canadian geese, but they are not. They are Canadas. A single one is referred to as a Canada goose, a flock would be called a flock of Canada geese. They are not Canadian geese because they are not Canadians - those are 1) people, who are 2) citizens of Canada. Whenever I hear someone call them Canadian geese I always ask them if they had little bird passports tucked under their wings, or had a hockey stick strapped to their back. Yuk yuk yourself, dude.
It's always a good day when you learn something new, right? So - all together now - CANADIAN GEESE ARE EXTINCT. LONG LIVE CANADA GEESE. Except for when they are pooping all over the place - I mean jeez, dudes, really.
Our next lesson will be debunking the saying, "The proof is in the pudding." In addition to being only half of the actual expression, it this form it makes absolutely no sense. It will make sense when you learn the full phrase. Your homework assignment is to look it up and write a one page report, single spaced, 1 inch margins, ink - not pencil. No fountain pens.
Class dismissed.
"migrating, flying poop machines" LOL! We have them too -- and they never leave -- they just spend all winter flying from one pond or field to another. They ruin the shorelines of our lakes and the grassy areas of our parks. I don't care what they are called -- talk about a nuisance!
ReplyDeleteYou mean I've spent all of that time convincing my children that they're now swans and I've been trying to teach them the wrong name?!
ReplyDeleteOne page single spaced..... here is my cut and paste.....
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's a sign of our increasingly fast-paced, short-attention-span society that even our old proverbs are being shortened and clipped down from the original full sayings. Word Detective and other etymology sites pointed out that the phrase originated as "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." It means that the true value or quality of something can only be judged when it's put to use. The meaning is often summed up as "results are what count."
According to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the phrase dates back to at least 1615 when Miguel de Cervantes published Don Quixote. In this comic novel, the phrase is stated as, "The proof of the pudding is the eating."
Word Detective and the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms note that the phrase came into use around 1600. However, a bulletin board quotes The Dictionary of Cliches, which dates the phrase to the 14th century. The board also mentions a 1682 version from Bileau's Le Lutrin, which read, "The proof of th' pudding's seen i' the eating." A page of pudding definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary also cites the author Boileau (Bileau) as the first to use the phrase. So it seems likely that the phrase dates back to the 1600s, though the identity of its author is disputed.
These days, some people shorten the phrase to simply "proof of the pudding." Even the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language trims it down. Occasionally, it is even further abbreviated to "proof in pudding," irritating purists who argue that the shortened versions don't mean anything on their own. Let's just hope it doesn't get further reduced any time soon. "Proofpudding" just doesn't cut it.
EXCELLENT!! Full marks! No ink smears! Well done!
ReplyDelete