Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
I want to see "Hurt Locker," which has been universally praised, but I think the reason I didn't see it in the theater is I didn't know what to make of the title. It sounds like part of a lame schoolyard taunt, like "You better watch out, son, or you might wind up stuffed inside my hurt locker," or "Don't make me reach for my hurt locker, because I'll pull out a can of whoopass."
The British phrase, "Take the piss out of," is interesting. I know it's supposed to mean that you're taking someone down a peg, but if I take the piss out of someone, am I not doing them a favor? "You mean you're going to remotely extract my waste fluids? Sweet! Thanks bro!" My guess as far as the origins of the phrase was that it had something to do with being "full of piss and vinegar," like piss is somehow correlated to vitality. But according to the BBC, the origin is thus: "When men sleep, the build-up of urine in the bladder puts pressure on the man's prostate gland, resulting in an erection. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a man who was thought to be unnecessarily arrogant would be described as 'piss-proud.'" Didn't see that coming.
