quizmonster, god of language

[darth vader]

i know i often put QM on a plinth due to his knowledgeable answers in this section (we are not worthy), so my question is, has there EVER been a phrases and sayings question which has had QM completely baffled?

[incitatus]

test the monster......... what is the origin of the phrase " a load of dingo's kidneys"?

[PaulB]

*Bows in the presence of the Quizmonster*

[incitatus]

paul- never take your eyes off a quizmonster. they bite.

[woofgang]

....."shifty". I am AMAZED thay I got this in before treaclefight

[PaulB]

*rubs bite on leg* Point taken Incitatus :oP

[Janetex]

Baffled? I doubt it. Bet he's blushing now. And, inc, that should be "dingoes'". What ever did happen to Spelly.

[sft42]

Treacle is very busy right now....she has allocated QM grovelling duties to me for the moment.

All must acknowledge the wisdom and power of QM.

End of message!

[Quizmonster]

You are all most kind. Thank you. However, I have indeed been stumped many times, Darth...recently, for example, when the question asked was: "What is the etymology of the word 'nettie', Geordie for toilet?" After the questioner himself suggested the Italian 'gabinetto', meaning much the same thing, I offered the idea of an early trade-link between Newcastle and Naples swapping coal and fruit, say, to explain it. Italian sailors in a waterfront pub in Newcastle, 1820, after a few pints might well have asked for the necessary facilities and been misheard. I'm still none the wiser, but I'm always prepared to make a - more or less - 'educated' guess.

Re the dingo query, I, a Google search offers 20 sites with your spelling and 23 with Janet's. Perhaps you'll find something there of help. Personally, I'd guess it came from a sheep-station somewhere about 150 miles to the south-east of Darwin. There's a guy there whose hobby - after a long day in the shearing-shed - is creating colourful Aussieisms, such as "a crock of monkey-snot" and "a load of dingo's/dingoes' kidneys". And why not? The same thing happened in 1920s USA with their 'bee's knees', 'cat's pyjamas', 'monkey's eyebrows' and other expressions suggesting excellence.

Basically, I'm just a retired guy with too much time on his hands and a plethora of excellent reference-works to hand. "What ya gonna do?" as Homer Simpson says. Thank you all again.

[incitatus]

for reference qm, the phrase is one of Douglas Adams contribution to the lexicon of the twentysomething.

[darth vader]

nice responses folks. Three stars all round........

[KEJ2000]

He just got the Ivy League thing mixed up with the "seven sisters" thing, but even most Americans can't tell their butt from a hole in the ground about that one.

[Quizmonster]

Dear Kej, there was no mix-up re Ivy League/Seven Sisters on my part at all in the thread you refer to (qv). If you care actually to read all the material there, you will see that there were two separate questions. The first, headline question asked 'Why?' and 'Which?' about the Ivy League and for that my first link provided a complete answer - including, incidentally, the list of colleges' names!

Then someone else asked, within the thread, a subsidiary question about "which women's colleges were equivalent to the Ivy League". The only mistake on my part was to believe the American website that seemed to provide an appropriate answer and to pass that on to the questioner. Had you read to the end of that second link-page, you would have come upon this sentence: "A report on the U.S. Department of Education website suggests that these Northeastern colleges were dubbed the 'Seven Sisters' to associate them in the public imagination with the eight Ivy League men's colleges."

Obviously, I apologise to the questioner for the fact that - on an educational matter - the US Department of Education appears not to know what it's talking about. Personally, I'd never even heard of the Seven Sisters in an educational sense.

By the way, since the second question asked specifically about "women's colleges", it seems to me - given that most Americans appear to have no idea about the matter and that places such as Harvard are co-educational - that there are but two conceivable answers: a) There are no women's colleges equivalent to the Ivy League or b) The Seven Sister colleges which remain single-sex, if any, are that equivalent. I'd be perfectly happy to hear that either is correct. Cheers

[KEJ2000]

OK Quizzie, it is true that I didn't read any links provided, because I already knew the answers for myself (i.e., where the phrase "Ivy League" originated). I listed the eight of them because some people don't bother to follow links, they just prefer to see the answer right there in front of them.
Looking up info. on any Web page is dicey, because any moron with a modem can post any misinformation that he or she wishes to. Just because we read something on the Web does not make it a fact! We are all forgetting the proper way to research information, by getting up and walking to a library!
I will concur that "there are no women-only colleges equivalent to the Ivy League". The seven sisters aren't even for second-rate male and female students, as I had initially written, they are more for fifth-rate (or below!!) male and female students!!! Cheers!

[Quizmonster]

Dear Kej, Obviously everyone sets his/her own 'rules' as to how one should deal with matters on AnswerBank. One of mine is to study all responses already there - including any links provided. Only thus can I hope to know whether what I plan to say is a) still relevant and b) not a duplication of something already said.To me, a thread here is like a 'conversation', in other words. Were we all standing in a group talking, rather than typing in isolation, few of us would simply repeat someone else's statement from a moment before. I certainly would not criticise another's response without reading it - and any 'attachments' - in their entirety first. I am also always aware that others' responses are there for the benefit of the questioner, not mine.

Do you seriously imagine - gleaned perhaps from what little you may have learned of me from earlier answers - that I am not aware that reading "something on the Web does not make it a fact"? My error lay simply in believing that The United States Department of Education's website might be a reliable source on matters educational in the USA!

Regarding library research, one should never lose sight of the fact that not everything printed in books is reliable either!

I'm leaving it at that...life really is too short. Cheers

[KEJ2000]

First, my apologies to Darth Vader, for causing you to receive so many e-mail messages from AB as a result of posting my answers. Second, I wasn't "criticising" anything!!! I simply didn't want poor firefly to receive any misinformation. Misinfo. can be more dangerous than not having any info. at all. Anyway, none of us should take anything "personally" on AB, where we don't know each other personally, and cannot use tone of voice as a part of our communication. We must not assume that the tone of voice would be negative, if there were one. Third, it is true that not everything printed in books is reliable either. However, think of what sources of information a person may use when writing a master's thesis, a doctoral dissertation, or any scholarly paper. Info. from books is permissible, whereas info. from the Web is not. Cheers, and again, my apologies to Darth.