The Official Did You Know Thread

[Radbird]

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?

[SHOW]

A. One thousand

[wart57]

Our Lit teacher put this out there:

According to witch-hunters during the height of the witch trials (c. 1645), the witches’ mark (also called a witches' teat) indicated that an individual was a witch. The witches' mark, witches' teat, and the devil's mark are all terms applied to essentially the same mark. The beliefs about the mark differ depending on the trial location and the accusation made against the witch. Evidence of the witches’ mark is found earliest in the 16th century, and reached its peak in 1645, then essentially disappeared by 1700.[1] The Devil's mark was believed to be the permanent marking of the Devil on his initiates to seal their obedience and service to him. He created the mark by raking his claw across their flesh, or by making a blue or red brand using a hot iron. Sometimes, the mark was believed to have been left by the Devil licking the individual. The Devil was thought to mark the individual at the end of nocturnal initiation rites.[2]

So that's where the phrase 'Colder than a witches t*t comes from.

why is it cold?

Well, according to our professor (I was thinking the article mentioned it), the mark was a black wart or maybe a birth mark. It was believed that the wart was a pathway to hell, which was very cold for whatever reason.

My next dog is going to be named Cerberus....

[heyzeus]

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?

[SHOW]

A. One thousand

Asterisk. I think "one hundred and one" counts.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Alberta Martin, the last person collecting Civil War widow's benefits, died in May 2004, 139 years after the end of that conflict.

[go birds]

pls 4 'more you know' pic in OP:

[Leroy]

Huh?

[MrCrowesGarden]

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?

[SHOW]

A. One thousand

Asterisk. I think "one hundred and one" counts.

Disagree. That's the same as saying "ninety and nine."

[TabascoElvis]

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible for the English soldiers to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore incapable of fighting in the future. The famous bow was made of the English Yew tree and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" or "pluck you". Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won the battle and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French and saying "We can still pluck yew. Pluck you". Since "pluck yew" is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F' and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger salute. It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird". And yew thought that yew knew everything.

[Spider John]

I've always been under the impression that the F word comes from a shorthand used by English bobbies, who when recording an arrest of a prostitute "for unlawful carnal knowledge" would shorthand the offense by using only the first initial of each word.

[Maclowery]

I have multiple slang dictionaries, and none of them mention that as the origin for the FBomb.

The largest and easily most thorough one is the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. It has twelve full pages devoted to origins, use, phrases, and quotes regarding the F-Bomb alone.

It is, in the opinion of this and my other slang dictionaries, assimilated into early modern English through Germanic tonges - Middle Dutch fokken 'to copulate, to thrust', Norwegian fukka 'to copulate', Swedish focka 'to strike or push', etc.

Basically, people were saying something that sounds very much like our F-Bomb, and referring to it in a sexual sense. It has nothing to do with a shortening of Plucking a Yew. Although that's a pretty cool fake story. It's kind of funny to me that you quoted that article off of The Straight Dope which then clearly rejects it as false.

Good times. I like words.