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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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Just my $0.02 on sandbagging...
I had always thought that to sandbag someone meant to ambush them in one way or another, and the origin was from the use of sandbags in theaters. Sandbags were (maybe still are) used as counterweights on pullies, to hold up the large backdrops and other set pieces used on stage. By cutting a rope a sandbag could be made to fall vertically onto an unsuspecting passer-by. Thus the heavy sandbag would drop upon the person with calamatous effect, and the person would never know what hit them.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the origin was from the use of sandbags in theaters
It would seem to make more sense to have sandbagging trace back to sandbags rather than socks, but.
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more sense to have sandbagging trace back to sandbags rather than socks
Sock it to me straight, mate, I won't have any truck with shady sandbaggers.
There's something sneaky and surprising about sandbags - they hit a lot harder than you expect (can even knock you senseless), and don't leave a mark.
But I suspect there is something in Alex's theatre theory - if you have sandbags suspended at a great height and they fall down when you're underneath and not prepared , you'll really know about it (assuming you're not dead). In a large theatre it would take experience to know where the sandbags are and where they're going, and thus to work safely backstage.
Duck!
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The idea of smacking someone with a heavy bag of sand is inherent in the use of the word in cards.
I've never heard it used with reference to poker, but it's common in pinochle. It means to pass [in the bidding] with a good hand. The objective is that if the dealer is well ahead in the scoring and likely to win in the next hand or two, you "stick" him with the bid. (In pinochle, the dealer bids last and if no one else bids, he must play the hand, no matter how bad; or, in some circles he can "throw in", i.e., be penalized the amount of the minimum bid without playing the hand and without the other players, including sandbaggers, being able to score meld.)
Hence, using the old rules where the dealer must play out the hand, a sandbagger not only has a good hand to assault the dealer with, but a lot of meld score as well, which is like coshing him.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>I bet it's not pronounced the same. Is it ar-TIC, just like ar-TIC-ulated? (As opposed to AR-tic.)
No AR-tic or quite often, just to confuse people - ARC-tic. I'd always wondered if people were thinking it was to do with the arctic or just adding an extra consonant because it sounds better (you know how we like those extra letters).
Never heard of semi- or whatever trailer but maybe that is what they are called technically. I don't think that our roads are straight enough for more than two linked together. Sometimes you see really huge things on the motorway with accompanying police motor bikes to warn people, especially if it is an extra wide or slow load.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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> a T-bone steak...We don't seem to have them in the UK > We do, David, just they're not tremendously common (sirloin tends to be the cut of choice, followed by rump as the cheapo option, with fillet for very special occasions). Ah - whatever happened to the t-bone steak? I remember them well, a candle-lit dinner at the Berni Inn, the music (Demis Roussos for preference), a bottle of Mateus Rose and a t-bone with foil-wrapped baked potato and lashings of butter. Well, that would have been my father's view of heaven in the seventies. Maybe you're just too cool David? Here's some UK seventies nostalgia for those old enough to remember: http://tv.cream.org/thecore/adbooze.htmI think the the t-bone simply went out of fashion with the seventies style steak house (until it was banned for a while as part of the beef-on-the bone stuff in the midst of BSE) or had too many calories (to be replaced by calorie loaded chicken tikka masala) or priced itself out of the market (although fillet steak is still on the menu). I dunno. Here's a guide to British cuts of beef (veggies, don't look) for the more serious minded http://www.hwatson.force9.co.uk/magazine/2000/05-2000/beef.htm
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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quite often, just to confuse people - ARC-tic
Probably just hypercorrection.
really huge things on the motorway with accompanying police motor bikes
Y'all get the cops to do the accompanying? USns have an accompanying pickup with a WIDE LOAD sign and flashing yellow lights.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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wide loads rate cops here in NYC area... and to get into manhattan, they have to be scheduled. but last year, in a bit of morbid comic relief, i got stuck in a traffic jam just out side the toll booths for the George Washington bridge (a major portal from NJ) the traffic jam was caused by a convoy of wide load trucks (carrying massive cranes and earth moving equipement) that because of the emergency was going thro during daytime hours --only it wasn't -- the load was too wide for the toll booths, and they had move "zipper" barriers to open up the spaces...
do your artic travel down the road in convoys? tailgating each other, riding in each others slip stream? 10 or 20 in a row? I saw a convoy this summer in canada.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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>Do your artic travel down the road in convoys? tailgating each other, riding in each others slip stream? 10 or 20 in a row? I saw a convoy this summer in canada. You do sometimes see them in groups but I don't think convoys are such a big deal hear. There was quite a funny rip off of the "Convoy" song years ago with names like "plastic chicken" and "rubber duck" http://members.tripod.com/~Cybertrucker/convoygb.htm - I suspect we're not so good at taking these things seriously. Here's a "sad" story (Eddie Stobart is a haulage firm - there was a thing about honking your horn when you saw them a few years ago): http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/july02/26th/stobbart.asp
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Here's a "sad" story.. Eddie Stobart Nothing sad about spotting and counting "Stobbies" and "Nobbies" (Norbert Dentressangle lorries, French competitors, boo hiss) on a long Motorway trip*, Jo! It's yet another way of keeping the kids distracted, and I'm all for that.  *about 30 miles and over for us Brits
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