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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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the expression for striking another vehicle broadside does not refer to the steak of the same sobriquetwhy is a T-bone steak so called then?I was a little baffled by that comment, too. I was reminded of the famous (although probably apochryphal) student paper statement about The Iliad not having been composed by Homer but by someone else with the same name. A t-bone steak is so named because it has a T shaped bone in it. http://www.mailameal.com/jpgs/kitchen5/43.jpg
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Thanks for the description of the TCH, Bean. It doesn't sound like a drive you would make for fun - maybe as a challenge! You used an expression I have heard before but not understood; here's my chance to find out. What is a semi-trailer, please?
dxb.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Thanks for the picture, Faldage. Big aren't they. Sort of beef chops.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
(non-meat-eaters, DON'T CLICK)If you look carefully at this picture, dxb, you'll be able to make out the T-shaped bone (jmh knows a lot about cross-pondial beef cuts, I hope she'll chime in): http://food.orst.edu/images/MEAT/tbone72.jpg
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
I know I shouldn't dilly-dally when Faldage is on the loose. Oh, well, dxb, now you have two pictures!
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Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
The specific "hang back" or "slack off" sense of "sandbag" you're wondering about comes from poker, where it originally described a player who held off raising the stakes in order to lull the other players into a false sense of security. The poker sandbagger would pounce late in the game, clobbering the other players with his good hand. More generally, "sandbag" has come to mean to under perform any task in order to gain some advantage. -The Word Detective
the reference to "clobbering" gets at the ultimate origin, which is the use of a sock filled with sand to strike someone, the object of this being to inflict pain without leaving a mark.
>Aha! I was right! Sandbagging should refer to the act of performing up to capabilities not the act of laying back in preparation.
was anyone else as nonplussed by this sequence as I was? if not, I will consider myself sandbagged and cash in my chips.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Well, if sandbagging refers to the clobbering with a sock filled with sand, this would be analogous to the final phase of the procedure and not to the preliminary phase of allaying suspicions. In actual use I have always interpreted the phrase to mean the laying back in the early stages; the racer who barely qualifies and then blows everybody away in the race itself is said to have been sandbagging in the prelims.
I was nonplussed by the assertion that the phrase originated in poker; I was not and am still not aware of socks filled with sand being standard equipment in poker games. Perhaps I've never played with sufficiently serious players; my poker experience is not extensive.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Its all too confusing. I conclude that sandbagging is hitting a racing driver with a poker after coming up on him/her from behind whilst pretending to be in front. But it would be quite a stretch from one car to another. Maybe you have to use a long poker.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
What is a semi-trailer, please?dxb, it's a big truck (lorry?) used to transport big shipments of goods over long distances. Here's a pic: http://www.man.de/unternehmen/bag_nutz1_e.html. The defining quality of a semi-trailer is that the front part (the rig) can be connected to whatever sort of trailer it needs to haul whatever it is hauling. We may have broached on this before. So what do you call the thing in the picture? A USn term is "tractor trailer" I believe.
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