Today is Sunday, February 25 and there are only 303 days until Christmas.  Start getting your lists together so people can hit the yard sales this summer for some real bargains.  Today we remember the birthdays of Walraad the Elder, Pierre Auguste Renoir and George Harrison.  On this day in 1751 the first performing monkey was exhibited in America, in New York City, and the admission was one cent, in 1870 Hiram Revels of Mississippi was sworn in as the first black member of Congress and in 1987 the US Supreme Court upheld Affirmative Action with a 5-4 vote.  In Kuwait it is National Day, in Mexico it is Coronado Day and in the US it is National Chocolate Covered Nut Day and National Clam Chowder Day.

Recently, the phrase “naked as a J-Bird” came up and I wondered what exactly was a J-Bird and how naked could one be.  Barbara and I assumed a J-Bird was a Blue Jay and started our research based on that.  We were unable to find anything connecting Blue Jays to nakedness or anything using J-Bird as a nickname for a Blue Jay.  Barbara then looked up the phrase and we found out that a J-Bird is not a bird.  In 1920s and 30s America, J-Bird was short for jailbird and when prisoners were brought in from the bus, they went to the showers, were given their kit and made to walk from one end of the prison to the other naked. Hence naked as a J-Bird – or jailbird.

This made me wonder about other sayings and where they came from.  I did some research and am going to share my findings with you.  One saying I always wondered about was “sleep tight.”  This 19th century expression isn't, as is often wrongly claimed, a reference to the tightness of the strings used to support mattresses. 'Tight' just means 'soundly/properly' and 'sleep tight' just means 'sleep soundly'. The word was probably chosen because of its rhyme with night, so people wished other 'good night, sleep tight'.  There are many meanings of the word 'tight' and it's no surprise that there are several theories going the around as to the origin of 'sleep tight'. One is that the phrase dates from the days when mattresses were supported by ropes which needed to be pulled tight to provide a well-sprung bed.  General wisdom believes that it simply means have a good sleep.

Another phrase I thought about was “going cold turkey.”  This refers to the abrupt cessation of a substance dependence and the resulting unpleasant experience, as opposed to gradually easing the process through reduction over time or by using replacement medication.  The term comes from the goose bumps that occur which resemble the skin of a plucked refrigerated turkey.  

A phrase that I always wondered about was to be “caught red-handed.”  The phrase means to be caught in the act of committing a misdemeanor, with the evidence there for all to see.  There have been a number of different explanations of its origin including the tale of how, in a boat race in which the first to touch the shore of Ulster was to become the province's ruler, one contestant guaranteed his win by cutting off his hand and throwing it to the shore ahead of his rivals.  Red-handed doesn't have a mythical origin however - it is a straightforward allusion to having blood on one's hands after the execution of a murder or a poaching session.

One that has always made me curious is “hoist on his own petard.”  So, what is the meaning of this?  Basically, it means to be hurt by one’s own plot or device intended for someone else.  A petard was a small engine of war used to blow breaches in gates or walls. They were originally metallic and bell-shaped but later cubical wooden boxes.  This bomb generally had a slow fuse, but sometimes went off prematurely, causing the engineer setting it to be hoist on his own petard.

Have you ever wondered about not “looking a gift horse in the mouth?”  So have I.  Here is what I was able to find about this gem.  Since horses' teeth grow over time, checking their length is a way of gauging old age. However, doing such a check would be a sign of mistrust toward the giver.  As horses develop they grow more teeth and their existing teeth begin to change shape and project further forward. Determining a horse's age from its teeth is a specialist task, but it can be done. This incidentally is also the source of another teeth/age related phrase – long in the tooth.  The advice is simple, when receiving a gift be grateful for what it is; don't imply you wished for more by assessing its value.

One final one and I will let you go.  This phrase has been around a long time and I always wondered what it meant to be “as pleased as punch.”   This derives from the puppet character Mr. Punch.  Punch and Judy shows, the popular summer-time entertainments on British beaches, have been somewhat in decline from the latter half of the 20th century onward, due to them being seen as politically incorrect. That's hardly surprising as the main character Punch is a wife-beating serial killer.  In performance, the grotesque Punch character is depicted as self-satisfied and delighted with his evil deeds, squawking "That's the way to do it!" whenever he dispatches another victim.  I have decided that I will no longer be as pleased as Punch.  Maybe I can start being as pleased as, I don’t know, how about Sangria.  From now on I will be as pleased as Sangria.

I hope you have not been too bored by this week’s episode.  I like to be able to give you obscure pieces of information that you can toss into a conversation occasionally.

This week our fact tells us that our hearing decreases when we overeat.  When we eat too much food, it actually reduces our ability to hear.  What?  Did you say something?