Just for Fun
There have been a few comments made to me recently that made me wonder about why we came up with these words that we use.
Someone was telling me that something gave them the willies. Willies? Who decided to name this feeling Willy? Why not Fred? Or Brenda? “I just walked into the place and something gave me the Freds.” Maybe not as classy, maybe more. Maybe it should be formal, like Fredericks.
Now what about the poor maligned Charley Horse? Charley? Or should it be Charlie? Is spelling important? What if it were the Jonathon horse? And why do none of these have women’s names? What about the Antoinette Horse, or the minor version, Toni Pony?
And then there’s the heebee jeebees. “I was talking to them and got the heebee jeebees.” Is this the male version? Is there a female version, maybe the sheebee jeebees?
And animals. Why animals? Horse? What about chicken pox? Why a chicken? Why not something else like a fox. Hmm, Fox Pox. At least it has a rhyme to it.
And the disease, the crabs. Why not the lobsters or some other shellfish? Years ago in Baltimore where hard shell blue crabs is a local specialty, there was a sign on a place that sold crabs that read… “Mom, don’t cook tonight. Dad’s coming home with the crabs.”
And I hear enough about the prefix “dis”. When we put it in front of something, it means the opposite. For instance, disease, or dis-ease. Meaning a person not at ease due to illness. One program a few years back looked at disaster, or dis-aster. And when things went right, they were “feeling the aster.”
I get a lot of people coming to me telling me they are out of whack. This tells me they are out of sorts, not quite right. But I’ve never heard anyone feeling good telling me they were in whack. Why not?
Just some crazy things to ponder when you have nothing better to do. And here’s hoping you all are well and in whack.