This expression was suggested by a former co-worker and friend who reminded me of a mutual project where somehow the drawings of a waste disposal drum indicated, obviously absurdly, that the inside diameter was larger than the outside diameter. “Blivet” was the term used by the U.S. Army in World War II for “ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag.” Mad magazine had a corresponding term “three-pronged poiuyt” on the March 1965 cover. The term is used to describe something really ugly, unmanageable, damaged, or even a self-important person. You really need to look at the Wikipedia link to understand the impossibility of the illustration.

The expression is often used to  describe the quandry of being faced with two unacceptable choices. The Phrase Finder, one of my favorite sources for explanations of meaning and origin of expressions, says that the Committee to Ascribe a Nautical Origin to Everything (CANOE) tried unconvincingly to say it originated with something to do with ship maintenance. More logical is that it came from Greek mythology when Homer’s Odyssey refers to Odysseus being caught between the six-headed monster Scylla and Charybdis, a whirlpool. (Note that the word “Blue” was added when Cab Calloway recorded the song in 1931.)

A grandson and I were discussing the origin of the names for coins, and “quarter” was obvious, since that coin is a fourth of a dollar. “Nickel” is a bit less obvious, but it is named for one of the metals used in the composition of the coin. We wondered where “dime” might have originated, and I said something to the effect that it probably comes from a French word, or something equally boring. Good guess! The “disme” was a coin struck in 1792, and that name came from an obsolete French word for “tenth.” Apparently colonists didn’t enjoy talking in obsolete French when making their purchases, and “disme” morphed into “dime.”

President Harry S. Truman had a sign on his desk that had this expression on the front and the phrase “I’m from Missouri” on the reverse. The Phrase Finder reports that Fred M. Canfil, a friend of Truman’s, had seen the expression on a sign and had another made and sent to Truman. It is likely that Canfil had seen the sign on the desk of army officer Colonel A. B. Warfield, who had the sign on his desk as early as 1931. Truman intended for people to know that he would not “pass the buck,” which, as was posted previously, means to pass responsibility. Poker players often used a knife with a buck horn handle to indicate the dealer. That person would “pass the buck” or responsibility for dealing the next person.

According to Merriam Webster the term is used to describe “a shot taken from ambush at a random or easy target.” It is more commonly used to describe critical remarks made in “…a random or sporadic manner. The first known use was in 1858, and was used to describing a shot that was unsportsmanlike and only worthy of those whose only object was to fill the cooking pot.

Yahoo observes that this phrase was made popular by one of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches in 1864 in explaining it isn’t wise to change leaders. He said, “An old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.”

This expression was posted on this date because the country decided yesterday to keep Barrack Obama on as President.