Whimisical English!

Brain cancer is...

...taking time to ponder quirky comparisons.

You know it's a good day when the most important thing to contemplate is the English language.

On our way to the park this morning, Darrell said we "slept like babies" last night.  As we pondered our own babies, we concluded that they were always awesome people, but we wouldn't consider them the gold standard for sleepers. In fact, we decided, we know no parents who say that their babies slept better than they did.  Maybe some long-ago parents were just so grateful that their babies slept at all that they invented that saying.




At the park, we enjoyed watching the coots.  That got us thinking about the saying "crazy as a coot."  We assure you that these images are representative of the typical coot behavior we have observed.

 

Nothing remarkable, right?  Certainly the coots were no crazier than the ducks that came running toward us, blatantly disregarding the sign in the background that warns us not to feed them.

In fact, the park bird behavior that most closely hits the description of "crazy" came from these "crazy aggressive" Canadian geese in August.  This photo is after they left us alone; we were frightened!

We decided the most likely origin for "crazy as a coot" is the coots' "crazy cool" feet:

Source:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/189432728052760346/

By the time we turned away from the lake, we were sweating.  "Sweating like a dog!" Wrong again.  Despite the fact that Beowulf is 7 pounds and takes about 5 steps to our one, he evidenced no visible signs of sweat.  Whose dog sweats? 

Despite all these mysteries, Darrell and I are "as happy as clams" today.  Whaaat? It seems like a low standard for happiness, given the lack of any noticeable happiness in the clams we've observed, but it's good to have a baseline, yes? Okay, we are "at least as happy as clams" today, and probably far happier.

We hope you're exceeding the clam happiness baseline today too, Team D!