Dry Water; Pronking; Possum out of a polecat

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Mon Apr 26 17:08:01 UTC 2004


   Greetings from the really slow internet here at the Mokuti Lodge, just outside of Etosha National Park.
   My guide also guided Vice President Al Gore (in 1996) and Henry Kissinger (Nobel Peace Prize winner, now chiefly famous for writing a preface to an Andrew Smith book).  Kissinger's security people required the guide to surrender his guns.  "But what about the linons?" the guide asked.  "We'll take care of the lions," Kissinger's security men told him.

PIG'S EARS--Yes, these are also Butterflies and Elephant's Ears and Palm Leaves.  I've seen "pig's ears" only in the German, though.

WHOLE NINE YARDS--I spotted the same citation, but didn't post it because it wasn't the earliest.  I took a trip to the War College a few weeks ago.  I look at DOOM PUSSY and the books around it, but found nothing at all, not even that the Montagnards were called Yards.

BOBBY PIN--Three years ago, I'd traced this to 1926.

DRY WATER--Etosha is the "place of dry water."  OED?

PRONKING--What the springbok does, sometimes, as a gait.  Also called stotting.  OED?

LOPSIDED AS A FAT MAN ON A SEESAW--The great television here gets American professional "wrestling," and this was used.  I don't have research time here.

YOU CAN'T MAKE A POSSUM OUT OF A POLECAT--From the Missouri man on this tour.

THAT'S WHAT THEY SAID AT THE MILL, BUT THEY KEPT GRINDING--Also from the Missouri fellow.

NO WORD FOR "FUTURE"--What we we told at a native school about a native language.  They have only the word for "tomorrow."

AFRICA--I asked my tour guide and the school teacher about the meaning of this place name.  No one knew.



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