I honestly cannot believe another week ahs ticked by and this year is vanishing right in front of us. Personally I can't wait to write this one off yet I still think we are in for a rough 2021 somehow. I know of some companies who are only expecting to go back to their offices in April next year even though the lock down has ended here. The problem is the cost for companies with 500 staff or more to comply to the social distancing regulations and it is cheaper to leave everyone at home.
Enough of doom and gloom and onto the Friday post where I will fill up the grey matter with some things you will want to remember and many things you wont but still will. Amazing to think how much useless information we all have like my army number which I know off by heart. That leads us into the first one today.
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Learn it off by heart
Learning something by repetition so you know it backwards.
This came about from the Ancient Greeks who believed that thinking happened via the heart and not the head. Learn by rote (rota) is Latin for wheel which means learning from the wheel turning over and over again until you know it off by heart. Turning your thought over and over again much like a wheel turning until you know something.
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Similar to the con men we see today with the bottle caps.
Fast and loose
Someone who is unreliable and inconsistent. Not your date for the weekend as I know we used to look for fast and loose women during the army days. Normally we would end up drunk somewhere, broke and with no women lol.
This saying actually comes from a cheating game where a stick and a piece of string is used. The person trying to win the money would try and place the stick between the folds of the string only for the con man to move it so quickly he would lose his money. Seems there have been con men around from year dot looking to trick us out of our hard earned money.
A lame duck
Someone or something that doesn't work properly or is broken. Someone that has no chance like a duck in someone's shotgun sights. Not used that much but pops up from time to time.
Had no idea where this one originated from and not a farmer shooting ducks which you might think, but from the sock markets. In 1771 it was reported stating the bulls and the bears with one lame duck. Bulls and the bears have been around that long which I didn't know but a lame duck was someone who had no assets. Most likely someone who had lost everything and now was worthless as an investor a bit like many in the crypto world.
Last but not least
Referring to something that maybe last but not less important than what has happened before.
This comes for the theatre when the main or star performer normally came on last. First was used in 1580 when it was published in a book. I would stick to the theatre version though as that makes more sense as that makes more sense and why it carried on being used.
