When you’re hit out of the blue, something (usually bad) happens without warning. I assumed this phrase refers to aerial bombing during a war. But Phrase Finder say it comes from an older “bolt from the blue” referring to lightning.
The earliest citation is Thomas Carlyle, in The French Revolution, 1837: “Arrestment, sudden really as a bolt out of the Blue, has hit strange victims.”
Another variation is “out of the clear blue sky.”
This is a repost, but I think it applies more than ever: I attended a lecture by Dr. Benjamin Cline at Western New Mexico University: How to Talk About Religion and Politics Without Being a Jerk. The world would be a better place if we all tried.
Cline discussed why our passions run so high on these topics: religion and politics are at the core of what makes life worth living for each of us. They underlie much of what we do. Our ideology is tied to the meaning of life as we each see it. It’s our basis for deciding what’s valuable and what sources of information to trust. Cline asks us to forget the old etiquette advice to avoid these subjects. We need to talk about them, and to succeed we need to stop being jerks. Continue reading
The tide of language sweeps ever along, and it
carries you with it whether you like it or not. Do not struggle foolishly against it. slate.com
English is a living language, which means words are always coming, going, and changing. Dictionaries don’t try to freeze language – they try to keep up with it. Grammar is more important to written words than it is to spoken. Because it lacks the subtle clues of tone and gesture, written language is less communicative.
This can be hard on those of us who struggled to learn the rules, and suffered under the presumptions of teachers decades behind us in modern usage. Teachers who thought I, for example, should love Shakespeare – even if I needed annotations in the text to follow the near-foreign language.
Once upon a time, “thank you” was invariably followed by “you’re welcome.” This arbitrary expression of politeness is falling from usage – it’s become common to reply “thank you” right back.
Now, apparently, the double thank-you is sliding into the past.
“Thank you” brings “no problem” as a rejoinder. Or maybe, “no worries” if you’re fond of Australian English (and who can resist?)
Does this grate on your nerves? Perhaps you never got used to the mirror thank-yous and still long to hear “you’re welcome.”
Get over it.
“Are you telling me that I, a human being with certain inalienable prerogatives, have no right to dislike this particular phrase? Must I remain silent forever? Have I no recourse to complain?”
That is exactly what we are saying… You will be nobler for it.
And stop grinding your teeth over “organic bananas,” complaining that no fruit is based on silicon chemistry.
You know who you are.
New readers to this blog may not know, but our contributors worked in America’s nuclear weapons complex. We love our country and are called (by Congress – honest, they wrote this into legislation) Cold War Warriors. You can’t get more patriotic than plutonium.
I’ve been conflicted over NFL players dropping to one knee during the national anthem and have struggled to decide what I think of the protests.
At the last Bills vs Broncos game I watched a player drop to one knee with his hand over his heart. Hand on heart for love of America. Take a knee to demand we live up to our ideals. It was beautiful.
My feelings have finally crystalized.
Take a knee for America.
Presidents aren’t always free to craft their legacies. George W. Bush didn’t campaign on – or expect to confront – the terrorism of 9/11. Barak Obama didn’t campaign on – or expect to confront – the second greatest financial crisis in American history. So we voters didn’t choose them because of policies to tackle their greatest challenges.
That’s why character and trust are important.
For most of my life, I believed policies were more important. I tried to read politicians’ proposals and study analyses from friends and foes.
Silly me.
One of my favorite books, reviewed here, tried to explain, and as much as I liked that book, I still didn’t get it.
It makes sense to vote based on values.
Does the potential President care about underdog groups? Have a sense of fairness? Who receives their loyalty? Do they inspire respect? Have noble goals? The last election gave me poor choices and a miserable outcome.
I don’t believe Donald Trump actually has any policies – only expediencies to get crowds roaring. The fact that those expediencies are disliked by two thirds of Americans doesn’t seem to bother him.
Trump doesn’t want my support and he’s not going to get it. At this point, it’s hard for me to imagine what he could do to change my mind. Maybe unravel the bellicose standoff on the Korean peninsula, or bring Israel and Palestine into talks that lead to a satisfying conclusion. Really create a roaring economy. Actually provide good healthcare for all. But, based on decades of history, that’s a lot to ask.
A rational opposition opposes the policies of those in power because they expect those policies will, perhaps unintentionally, hurt more people than they help. But that’s not the only reason to “resist” and may not even be a primary motivation.
Studies show that people are willing to punish bullies and tyrants even at high cost to themselves. That means that some of my fellow citizens are willing to see terrible things happen to America on Trump’s watch, just to prove to the nation we made the wrong choices in 2016. I recall seeing the same reaction to Obama’s election. Human beings are weird.
The GOP elite in Congress are worse than Trump because they plan to implement policies that will change the nation – and I don’t trust them. Tax reform, healthcare, infrastructure, immigration – these are all problems that need to be addressed and I don’t know what to do. I need to trust my leadership if I am to follow them.
In the past I’ve felt the Republicans had good – even better – ideas on how to solve national problems than the Democrats. But today I don’t think the GOP wants to solve them. Where their fiscal philosophies have been tried, as in Kansas, Republicans seem blind to negative outcomes – something I’ve accused Democrats of in the past. “Doubling down” makes no sense to me.
So I don’t trust Congress’s motives, which means I’m not likely to support their policies. I can justify my position by, for example, pointing to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis that says millions of people would lose healthcare coverage under the “mean” GOP bills – so different from the good, cheap, healthcare-for-all Trump promised. Congress seems to feel no need to implement his promise and Trump doesn’t make any proposals of his own. They’ve all lost my support.
Can the Democrats offer a better answer? Will America swing from one extreme to the other as fanatics at each end fail in turn, but double-down?
Perhaps we’re witnessing the dissolution of both major political parties. Such things have happened before. Even though the current balloting structure entrenches Republicans and Democrats today, that could change. As Gzep says here, perhaps it’s time to try something else. Perhaps, sometime in the future, scholars will say we were privileged to live on a cusp of history. Unlucky for us, we have to live through it.
As the English expression purported to be a Chinese curse says:
May you live in interesting times.
Waywordradio attributes the origin to a commercial use that sounds plausible to me:
In the 1930’s, the catch phrase Now you’re cooking with gas, meaning “you’re on the right track,” was heard on popular radio shows at the behest of the natural gas industry, as part of a quiet marketing push for gas-powered stoves.
Stackexchange is more specific. They say:
The phrase has been attributed to Deke Houlgate [by his son], who after working in the gas industry, wrote the line for Bob Hope or maybe for Jerry Calonna.
It was used on a radio program “around” December 1939 and then promoted by gas companies. I can understand putting the phrase in the more-famous mouth of Bob Hope, and he apparently did say it in the 1941 movie The Road to Zanzibar.
Other citations include Lou Holtz and Fanny Brice on Good News of 1940, the 1942 movie The Big Street, and Daffy Duck in 1943’s The Wise Quacking Duck.
The phrase seems to have become popular quickly – a tribute to radio, movies, and the demise of wood-burning stoves. I recall a great-aunt of mine who finally allowed her old wood-burning stove to be hauled away when it was replaced by a combination wood and electric appliance. Only propane would have been available to her but I don’t know if she ever tried that. Perhaps if she’d been cooking with gas she’d have given up the wood-burning oven altogether. She would have made great bread no matter what.