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old hand
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Why would someone be out of their "cotton picking" mind?
When did this saying arise - and why?
stales
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear States: "cotton picking" is a pejorative, in that only
the lowest socical stratum got involved in picking cotton
by hand, which was incredibly tedious, backbreaking (because of constant bending over) and hot.
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Carpal Tunnel
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got this from WordOrigins:
Cotton-Picking
Believe it or not the adjective cotton-picking comes from Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes cartoons. He may not have been the first to use it, but he gets credit for first recorded use.
But the noun cotton-picker is older. It dates to around 1919 and refers to a contemptable person. Those who worked in the fields, usually blacks, were beneath notice. The racial overtones have mellowed over the years, but it is still a derogatory term.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Tennessee Ernie Ford was on American television form the med-fifies through the mid-sixties and often ended his show by saying to the audience, "Bless your little pea-pickin' hearts."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeah, you've got to give peas a chance.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, Connie, they were given some prominence in 13th century England, where a famine in 1273 in Northern England reduced the whole population of the area to eat peas and nowt else for nearly three months. The Lord of the Manor, however, had a herb garden which had not failed, so his family and immediate retainers were able to relieve the tedium of such a uni-vegetative diet by adding thyme to the cooking pot.
The peasants heard about this, and, believing that the Lord of the Manor had penty of thyme on his lands, got the priest to utter the prayer in church one Sunday, in front of the Lord of the Manor and his family, "Grant us thyme in our peas, O Lord!"
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Pooh-Bah
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And he gave it to them, of course, since there's no present like the thyme.
Somewhat along the same lines, I heard a long time ago that the Italians are going to make the Leaning Tower of Pisa into a clocktower -- after all, what's the use in having an inclination if you haven't got the time?
TEd
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Some company has come out with what amounts to pea pod chips. I think they dry the pods some way, and season them. They might be ground-up peas or pods re-formed into the pod shape; I don't really remember. But I do remember my local grocery store offering free samples. They have a consistency on a par with puffed corn (like baked Cheetos), and they taste...absolutely horrid.  Something else at the store stopped me in my tracks a couple of weeks ago. They now stock something called--I kid you not--"Healthy Hemp Sprouted Bread". Yes, it does have the plant in it.
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How positively oxymoronic -- the more you eat the hungrier you get!
TEd
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Healthy Hemp Sprouted Breadgoes well with Stoned Soup... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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I agree with you Jackie, they are just horrible. I can't imagine anybody eating them. The ones I tasted didn't even have the grace to be of the consistency of puffed corn...more like gyproc.
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thisone of them linguistic words, I think... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Oops, I guess it's not called the same in English. I think it's ??gypsum board??
It's that board you put up on the two-by-fours when you make walls. It has a chalk-like middle covered in heavy paper. You cover the joints and then paint it.
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Plaster board, wall board of gypsum.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Very funny, etaoin.  OK, so you know what this tastes like, bel?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Also sheetrock or drywall.
Thanks for the link, Father Steve.
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How positively oxymoronic -- the more you eat the hungrier you get!
That's not oxymoronic, TEd. That's moronic.
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old hand
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Wow - from slaving in the fields to petrophagy in less than 10 steps. Gotta love AWAD!!!
To add to the ideas on cotton picking; I noted a reference somewhere to cotton pickings; the leavings / lowest grade of the cotton crop. I imagine them to be the cotton equivalent of daggy wool.
Another potential source of the term praps?
stales
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Praps. BTW, the answer to Why? is because.
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Pooh-Bah
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And he gave it to them, of course, since there's no present like the thyme.
You are correct, TEd - the Lord of the Manor was also a sage. (The fact that he was married to Lady Rosemary has nothing to do with the case.)
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Re Leaning Tower clocktower -- after all, what's the use in having an inclination if you haven't got the time?True. But will they have to set the clock ahead? Time could be ticking against the tilt. This would make it a Leaning Tock Clocktower. Moral: When time is ticking against you, lean the other way.
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Pooh-Bah
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A clock in such a position will, at the very least, put some sense into N.F.Simpson's One Way Pendulum
(EDIT At least, it could do - depends which way the clock is set into the otwer, ackershally)
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depends which way the clock is set into the towerAgreed. If you want to set the clock on time, you'll have to set it ahead. Time heals all wounds. But, sometimes, you have to give it a hand.
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Pooh-Bah
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I'll give a hand to anyone who's in the movement.
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I'll give a hand to anyone who's in the movement
As will I, but he can't expect a handout if his hand is in the works.
On a more scientific note:
When time is ticking away from the perpendicular, allow a minute for each degree.
This is known as the Law of Chronological Inflection [or "chronoeccentricity", for short]
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I'll give a hand to anyone who's in the movement
On the other hand, this sounds like a case of the right hand in the wrong place, in which case the left hand doesn't know what the minute hand is really doing.
When the minute hand is out of joint, the movement is only a second away from serious trouble.
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Pooh-Bah
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Which makes it difficult to escape - so one just has to face up to it.
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one just has to face up to it
It may have a pretty face, Rhub, but will it give you the time of day?
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Pooh-Bah
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"The town clock in the market square
stands waiting for the hour.
While its hands they both turn backward
and on meeting will devour
Both themselves and also any fool
Who dares to tell the time.
Then the sun and moon will shudder
and the signpost cease to sign."
- Homburg, Keith Reid
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Carpal Tunnel
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What is that, CK? It gives me the shivers.
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What is that, CK? It gives me the shivers
These folks have nothing but time on their hands, Jackie. And that's just the way they want to keep it!
Keeping time is a waste of time for people who only have time for spending it wisely.
When you spend time wisely, you have absolutely no reason to save it. Or to keep it.
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Who are These folks?
They are the original "quality" timers.
When "the signpost ceases to sign", it is more of a sign of our times, than it is of theirs.
The place where they live actually has a name.
It's called "Asychronicity".
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Ah--found it. Homburg is a song by Procol Harum. No wonder it sounded faintly familiar. So, grapho, methinks you were probably right. The person in the song spent some time apparently very unwisely.
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Re photo of "slaves picking cotton before the Civil War"
A picture is worth a thousand words, Jackie. It brings us back to where we started:
"Why would someone be out of their "cotton picking" mind?"
Anyone who had to pick cotton for a living, never had a chance to pick anything else.
Anyone who could pick and choose, would be out of their "cotton picking" mind to pick cotton.
Choosers keepers, losers reapers.
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