The Phrase Finder says that the expression means someone is talking nonsense, and that they are pretending to have knowledge on a subject on which they are ignorant. Reference is given to Farmer and Henley Slang and Its Analogues, 1888: “Dis is only a bluff dey’re makin’ – see! Dey’re talkin’ tru dere hats.” The possibility is raised that the expression originated from the practice in the UK parliament where you had to be seated and wearing a top hat to raise a point of order. This is followed by “topping,” or “talking out a bill,” which means filibustering with rambling nonsense. However, it is pointed out that stories about top-hatted members of the UK parliament becoming a dominantly U.S. expression doesn’t seem to be likely. There is speculation the idiom originated from men holding their hats over their faces while pretending to pray. I think it is more likely that it is a variation of “talking off the top of your head,” where an empty hat would set, which means you are speaking speculatively without much knowledge.
The Apple of My Eye
World Wide Words says this phrase was used in several Bible passages and by Shakespeare, but that it has been around “as long as the language.” The first recorded example was in the words of King Alfred at the end of the ninth century. Sight is considered to be precious, the pupil of the eye was called the apple, and to be called “the apple of my eye” was considered the highest form of endearment. The Latin original for pupil was pupilla, or “little doll.” “It was applied to the dark central portion of the eye within the iris because of the tiny image of oneself…that one can see when looking into another person’s eye.”
Pakistan is More Dangerous than Egypt
The focus of the world is on the demonstrations and clashes in Egypt, and there are many reasons why that is worrisome. There is always cause for concern when economic pressures make large numbers of people willing to march against a repressive government. However, we should be more concerned about Pakistan, which has about 100 nuclear weapons and is not the picture of political stability.
Pakistan has been a nominal ally of the United States and has been at war with India three times. BBC News reported the recent assassination of Governor Salam Taseer by one of his bodyguards. The guard said he killed Taseer because the Governor had voiced opposition to the blasphemy law when he came to the defense of a Christian woman who had been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Taseer had also recently spoken out about “illiterate clerics” who had issued the fatwa religious decrees resulting in assassination of the two Bhuttos. There were demonstrations calling the guard a hero for carrying out the assassination of a man who was defending a blasphemer, and other demonstrations mourning the loss of the Governor who had advocated moderate reforms.
The NY Times reported there are tens of thousands of Pakistanis working in their nuclear weapons programs, and part of their efforts involve building reactors to make a new generation of plutonium weapons. (You can see Pakistan join the nuclear club toward the end of the 15 minute “Video of Nuclear Detonations 1845-1998” available in the December 2010 archive on this site. India exploded its first bomb in 1974 and Pakistan’s was in 1998.) Pakistan countered criticism of their expanding nuclear programs with reports emphasizing their belief they are following “…a responsible policy of maintaining credible minimum deterrence…”
There are reports that the United States has provided hundreds of millions to Pakistan to secure their nuclear materials and weapons. However, it is difficult to imagine the possible futility of those expenditures and the consequences if Pakistan would fall to a government friendly to Iran.
Tickled Pink
The Phase Finder describes this idiom to mean you have had a happy experience that has caused you to flush with pleasure. The expression apparently originated from observation that emtional pleasure causes the same kind of flushing of the face created by physical tickling. I recall reading that tickling can become tortorous if carried too far. The companion expression “tickled to death” is used to descibe someone who could not be happier, but the literal meaning is that someone has been tickled to the point breathing becomes difficult. The term “tickled to death” appeared in the St. Nicholas childrens magazine in 1907, and the term “tickled pink” was used by an Illinois newspaper The Daily Review in 1910. For those who want a scientific explanation, the flush (or a blush) is caused by an emotional response that tells the brain the tiny vessels in the face need more blood.
Tickle Your Fancy
The community.livejournal says this idiomatic expression is used to describe something that pleases you or strongly engages your interest. As I expected, it is also a euphemism for sexual interest. “Tickle” means a spontaneous excitement such as when someone is physically tickled. “Fancy” can be a notion or whim. The expression was used in Abraham Tucker’s 1774 In the Light of Nature Pursued, with a passage about animals “…whose play had a quality of striking the joyous perception, or, as we vulgarly say, tickling the fancy.” The expression went even further to the vulgar side after World War II, when the slang for a male homosexual “Nancy” was noted to rhyme with “Fancy.” An alternate is “strike your fancy.”
Merchant of Power, Samuel Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis
This book by John F. Wasik is an ideal follow up to the one by Petr Beckman about the best way to produce electrical power, because it is an excellent reference to understand how electricity became so important in our lives. The book tells the remarkable story of Samuel Insull, who escaped an impoverished childhood in England by travelling to America to become the trusted secretary of Thomas Edison. His willingness to work tirelessly combined with his ethical nature endeared him to Edison. He became Edison’s accountant and marketer responsible for finding investors. He had to be aggressive and creative in the constant search for money, because Edison was often on the verge of being broke. Edison arranged to lay the power lines to light Wall Street, but he did not have a method for measuring electrical usage. He made his profits selling light bulbs. Insull eventually split from Edison’s endeavors, moved to Chicago, and built an empire with power generating capacity and a power grid to light Chicago and other metropolitan areas. He saw everyone without electricity in their homes as a potential new customer. (Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit mocks the residents of Floral Heights and their desire to keep up with the neighbor’s most recent electrical purchases.) Insull built General Electric with financing from J.P. Morgan, and marketed electrical appliances. He became a very wealthy man, which set him up to lose massively in the Depression.
Insull pioneered “massing production,” which was later shortened to “mass production” by Henry Ford. His plants made generators and distribution systems, and he developed and implemented the idea of the government regulating electrical rates. Continue reading