Thank you for illustrating my point. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Here is one of Monty Python's skits about the lumberjack that you might get a chuckle out of. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zey8567bcg&feature=related
The second criticism I accept as valid. The preponderance of citrus fruits on this continent I perhaps extrapolated to the United Kingdom under the mistaken assumption that if the British Navy had access to limes, then surely there were oranges as well. Mea culpa. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Once upon a time maybe. Defence cuts and what-not... (OTOH we no longer operate wooden sailing ships). I can't remember the last time I saw an actual lime (although I'm not, and never have been, navy. Wrong shade of blue).
Perhaps it is the loss of the wooden sailing ships that has resulted in the scarcity of oranges then......just kidding.....Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's been a 'slice'. Duty calls at present. Later.....Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I don't think it has anything to do with that. Rather, it seems to be a phrase formed based on a productive pattern that may have become empty of specific meaning by now. One of the original phrases to start the trend may have been "a can of worms," which still has a full meaning. But a phrase like this may have given rise to the pattern "a container of stuff" and then we can fill in specifics for "container" and "stuff."
Please stop looking up Mental Health Services in the Yellow Pages. I don't know the expression "bag of oranges", but how old did you say your wife was? (source)
You sucker , What you channeling Me . Well better than a poke in the eye with a dull stick Even when I was a child we got nuts and oranges in our Christmas stockings . Yeah back in the day an apple was as good as any treat . A luxury . Plums at harvest time. Can you imagine if you had no accesses to fruit now a days . We are spoiled little brats in comparison . I think it is a good thing expressions survive to this day. When Yeltsin visited the U.S. so he could see how to improve distribution in Russia it is rumored He laid down on an average American Grocery store and wept like a baby because of the abundance and quality . So we had this other thing . See if you head of it ? Belch Nickles , He came at the new Year . We would keep our Christmas stockings up to the new year and Belch Nickles would come before day brake and belch nickles in our stockings .
Wait...there's not an abundant, cheap supply of limes in Britain? Why do I find this weird? Yes, I know they don't grow there, it's too cold...they grow here, therefore I know they would not grow there. That's the way it works-very few plants are adaptable enough to make it in both temperate and subtropical climates. You'd think there would be a lot of limes in Britain though, imported from Spain, where the climate would support them. Limes stay fresh for long periods of time, that's why the British navy used them. Dywyddyr...you can't have margaritas with fresh lime. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Um, no. They used them because they prevent scurvy. If it was simply a question of lasting a long time they would have taken rocks on a voyage. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! That's okay. I don't have margaritas at all.
"...it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world...".
Well, we're both vampires from the year 1600, so...oh, I see what you mean. And yes, it was meant as a positive thing. As in: "it was no bag of oranges, let me tell you".
Nice story about the Christmas oranges, Cifo.... For those who may have missed it, I am re-posting the link. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-1201-story.html
How about this? Saint Nicholas was passing through when he heard the villagers talking about the girls. St. Nicholas wanted to help, but knew that the old man wouldn't accept charity. He decided to help in secret. He waited until it was night and crept through the chimney. He had three bags of gold coins with him, one for each girl. As he was looking for a place to keep those three bags, he noticed stockings of the three girls that were hung over the mantelpiece for drying. He put one bag in each stocking and off he went. When the girls and their father woke up the next morning, they found the bags of gold coins and were of course, overjoyed. The girls were able to get married and live happily ever after.[1] This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas. Sometimes the story is told with gold balls instead of bags of gold. That is why three gold balls, sometimes represented as oranges, are one of the symbols for St. Nicholas. And so St. Nicholas is a gift-giver. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_stocking#History An orange represents a bag of gold. There are few pictures of Santa with a bag of oranges to be found online. Here's one: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iZrwGy57p44/TMgwKOSdB1I/AAAAAAAAAbE/Razz_JQSIBY/s1600/SantaOranges1.jpg
For the task of getting the modern kid to bed, perhaps the quip should be: "It's no bottle of Ritalin".
Maybe you will have to go straight to the crux of the issue. What is the easiest object in the world to manage? Could it really be oranges? So easy as to base an expression of pure ease off of?
Wow!! Do black mambo slave side kicks play into that ? Why does that make Me think of Midgard Serpents , World Serpents seem to be some kind of world theme in many cultures . Celtic knots ? Weaving ? I don't know . I am going to buy a bag of oranges for the holidays . My son is selling em . It is the annual fund raiser for the school band . Tangerines , Oranges, Grape fruit . The Grapefruit is a forty pound bag . Who is going to get one of those ? I think I will stick with the Tangerines . They are only an 18 pound bag . Might have to buy a couple of them and sneak em in someones socks or shoes . Can you imagine being late for work and some idiot stuffed a tangerine down in toe part of your shoe . You had not warn the shoe from Dec . To June . Your late and it is the only shoes close enough to grab cause you are late .
Sheesh, Me-Ki-Gal! You are trained in the ways of the wild, or so you tell me, lol.... One always turns their footwear upside down and gives it a shake, by light or by dark, to make sure there are no critters contained therein. Spiders, snakes, scorpions etc. depending on what part of the world you hail from. I turned over a rubber boot I had not worn in months yesterday to find that a mouse had been relocating kitty kibble and using it for storage. Two cats in the house, and a flaming mouse is raiding their dish while they doze by the fire. Fire those cats, I say, or feed them less canned tuna and cream. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Oranges don't seem to be attractive to mice, that I have observed.
I have never shook my shoes out . One time my step father and his buddy Mac White told us kids rattlesnake stories all day. About how we need to roll up our sleeping bags in the day time or a rattle snake might crawl in and when we get into bed we would get bit . Then they tell us about a guy that got bit 20 times before he could get out of his bag . They left for the bar in town and left us kids at camp . We found this long piece of rubbery foam about as big around as a snake and 3 about a meter long . So they had left there bags unrolled . We shoved that sucker right down into the step fathers bag . They came rolling in about 2 :30 as the bars close in California at 2:00 Oh shit soon as that piece of rubber hit the skin he was up jumping around and couldn't get the sipper down . We was laughing so hard I almost piss my self . Us kids rolled are bags faithfully for many years . Now I don't remember the last time I rolled my bag up at camp . I bit rattlesnakes , They know to stay away . I got lots of rattlesnake stories . True stories cause well we eat rattlesnakes and when your are a predator you have close encounters.
