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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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A lick and a promise
From Heavens to Betsy! & Other Curious Sayings, Charles Funk:
The "lick" pertains to the rapid lapping of the tongue; it’s a small quantity of a small amount, about the amount we mean when we say that so-and-so hasn’t "a lick of sense." The "promise" is of something which might be long deferred. The expression dates back at least to 1850.
From A Hog on Ice & Other Curious Expressions , Charles Funk:
The saying is common in both England and America, and is undoubtedly several centuries old, but examples of literary use are not recorded. <huh?>
Other licks:
Lick into shape
From Hog on Ice
The saying comes from the ancient belief that:
"Beres ben brought forthe al fowle and transformyd and after by lyckynge of the fader and moder they ben brought in to theyr kyndely shap." -- The Pylgremage of the Sowle, de Guilleville, as translated in 1400.
The belief probably arose from the fact that bears cubs at birth are hairless and very small, and the mother usually keeps them concealed for four or five weeks.
From Why You Say It, Webb Garrison:
Totally without foundation but circulated for at least a thousand years, beliefs about bear cubs lead us to say that when we’ve mastered a difficult situation or made something presentable, we have licked it into shape.
One’s best/solid/good licks
From Hog on Ice:
"Lick" in American speech came to mean a spurt of speed or burst of energy, and the phrases best/solid/good licks arise from that meaning.
"I saw comin’ my gray mule, puttin’ in her best licks, and a few yards behind her was a grizzly." -- Polly Peablossom’s Wedding, TA Burke (1851).
From me:
I’m guessing that the speed sense of lick is the basis for the phrase lickety-split.
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Anonymous
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One more meaning of lick, thought it doesn't really relate to the "and a promise" expression:
in music--jazz--one refers to a passage (particularly a complicated one) as a lick.
not sure when/where it originated. Kev? Jazzo?
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old hand
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old hand
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Hyla, were you in my house last weekend? I used that phrase for the first time in my life while looking sadly at the bathroom on Easter Sunday. My husband was dealing with our homemade beer and there was beer-making equipment everywhere, and beneath all that, the bathroom badly needed cleaning. As I said it, I thought I might quickly wipe up the counter with a wet rag (the lick part) and I promised to get to it later this week (this hasn't happened yet). And at that very moment the meaning of "a lick and a promise" seemed quite obvious to me, anyway.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh, bean you must clean your bath room-- It a messy housekeepers trick. In every other room of the house, you can talk, or offer tea or coffee, or in some way distract your guests....but they are all alone in the bathroom! They sit down, and have a minute or two to look around..
So, always have the top of the tank and anything that can be seen from the comode immaculate-- and use white towels.. they your guest come away with a sense everything is clean... and while you might have some temporary disarray from a recent project..(like beer brewing) your house is really kept clean!
When the bathroom is clean everything is clean. When its not, nothing else counts!-- (so simple to clean a 6 room house. Clean the bathroom, and run a dust mop over the rest of the place!)
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OP
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Observations on your approach to cleaning the bathroom, Ms. Helen:
1. One does not need to keep the top of the tank clean - that's where the reading materials live.
2. I find the most effective way to deal with a dirty bathroom, or an otherwise dirty house, is to go camping. You don't worry about it when you're away, and everything seems so much cleaner (although less pristine) than the forest/desert/mountains/beach upon your return.
Hyla
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old hand
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1. One does not need to keep the top of the tank clean - that's where the reading materials live.
This is slowly going way off topic but we keep our reading materials in a rack on the wall, like those ones on the doors in doctors' offices. Terribly geeky but I couldn't handle seeing magazines on every available surface, and dripping water on them.
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um, what *is* it about reading materials in a *bathroom*? i just can't understand why one would choose to extend their stay in a bathroom for longer than absolutely necessary. 
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My deepest apologies to the AWAD community for steering this thread in such a regrettable direction. That said, I'll just scat. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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ah Bridget-- Obviously not a water god! I think there are two kinds of bathroom readers--Comode (ugh!) and tub.
In the US, we tend to use one word (and one room!) for a comode, lav and bathtub. How much more civilized the Japanese are-- Bath rooms are for bathing-- they have large, insulated tubs in which you can immerse your self-- after you have first washed..
Comodes (with their two spectacular features, heated seats, and warm water for washing) and lavs are never found in the same room.-- these are people who understand simple comforts!
I've had many a book with wrinkled corners-- from turning the pages with damp fingers, read in deep tub, filled to brim with hot water. I learned early in life how to block the bottom half of the over flow to give myself an extra inch of water.
Bathrooms reading can be quite enjoyable..(and it keeps your fingers out of water-- so they don't turn into raisins!)
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so they don't turn into raisins!*great* helen, just great... did you absolutely HAVE to bring raisins into this conversation??? anyone who's had a toddler makes an instant association. blech.
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