out of the fog

You'll have to forgive me as I just cleared the fog of a 3 day hangover, but I'm going to give writing sentences a shot. If this goes well I might shoot for coherent sentences tomorrow.

Someone used the phrase "bum rush" the other day. As in, " he was standing there and the other guy bum-rushed him". This got me wondering about the origins of this and other common phrases. For whatever inane reason I had a vague idea that bum-rush was referring to your behind/buttocks/your bum. So that bum-rushing someone was running up behind them. How this related to Public Enemy's Bum Rush Da Show I'm not really clear on, but I hadn't really thought about it that much. Then someone pointed out the obvious that it probably had origins that deal with bums...ie hobos, vagabond, transients, etc. I'm not exactly sure how THAT makes sense either, because I'm not sure I've even seen a bum "rushing" exactly, they usually seem rather unhurried. And I really couldn't envision a group of bums closing in on someone...not without kinda laughing anyway. But here's what I found. Its all sorta clear as mud.

This line of thinking also provided me another revelation. My father has always used the phrase "cotton picker" or " cotton pickin" instead of swearing. Now the fact that he going out of the way to not swear should give some insight to the fact that he's a rather conservative guy ( Ward Cleaver conservative, not Rush Limbaugh conservative). The guy doesn't drink and I've never heard him say anything racist in his life. So up until a week ago,I never actually thought about the phrase he so commonly uses. I mean it should have been obvious to both he and I, but I guess it was just one of those things that you just never notice. I can only imagine my shock will pale in comparison to his reaction when I point it out this weekend. I'm SURE he's used the exact phrase, " Ahhhh I just sliced that cotton picker into the sandtrap " while playing with his African-America golfing partner.

And then there's " She built like a brick shithouse " which I just assumed to mean solid...but hardly flattering. I'll let straight dope handle that one.