From a sap to a sock

 From a sap to  a sock






      Language is not static and over time phrases get changed by a newer generation. Modern English is filled with sayings and words that users really don't understand or appreciate. A guy says "the whole nine yards" but he had no idea if it comes from a football reference, the length of a machine gun ammo belt, the size of a grave, a bolt of materials or a nautical term. The great linguist Richard Lederer wrote nine columns on this one phrase with no solid answer. In Sheehy linguistic history there were many phrases said that we did not understand but loved to hear. John used to twist the old saw "colder than a well-diggers's ankles" to "colder than a well-digger's ass." One of Greg and I's favorites was "the snow was ass-deep to a tall Indian" but no one had a clue about tall Indians or snow depth. My Mom used to describe anything assembled in a hap-hazard way as "whopper-jawed" and when   my siblings and I misbehaved my grandma would say to us "children...don't be ugly" However, this tale can be traced back to John and Greg watching one of those thousands of football games on Sunday afternoons that sucked four hours out of our lives with little value. In this case the linguistic lesson made the time worthwhile during the tumultuous times of the late sixties and early 70's. Broadway Joe Namath was famous as an excellent passer but also for having bad knees. Joe had four knee-replacements and won a SuperBowl on fragile knees that the New York Jets protected with all they had. His legs in his prime were called the $400,000 knees. So John and Greg are watching Joe slice up the Detroit Lions with their savage and ruthless linebacker Mike Lucci hunting the tormentor. John shouted with increasing rage about the dirty Lucci aiming at taking out Namath by going after his knees on every play possible. Finally, after another cheap shot Namath limped off and Lucci smiled as he left the field. John yelled "you see that! you know what I would do to a guy who pulled that on my team? I would take a sap and...NO TEETH...right at the gumline!" As he yelled he drew a line with his pinky across the top, front teeth from canine to canine where his sap would have knocked out Lucci's teeth. Of course, like many quotes from professor Sheehy we repeated the phrase many times when seeing things that outraged us. In time though the statement softened just a bit and the threat would become "i would like to take a sock full of soft shit to this guy!" right here! see pinky being dragged across the top front teeth. 




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