God's Waiting Room

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Greetings from New York City, where waiting for a bus from LaGuardia Airport takes longer than a flight from Chicago.

--------------------------------------------------------
GOD'S WAITING ROOM

   A USA TODAY, 19 June 2000, pg. 8B, col. 1, story about nursing homes mentions "Florida, God's waiting room."  I've heard comedians use that (Rita Rudner), but it's not in the RHHDAS.
   Today's USA Today also has an article about NYPD BLUE language (hump; IAB; rat squad; the job; juice; lawyering up; PAA; reaching out; skel), but it's nothing much.

--------------------------------------------------------
MONKEY WRENCH (continued)

   I posted the Scientific American "monkey wrench" 1857 cite here, but I though I had also posted something about Charles Monckey.
   From the CHICAGO EVENING JOURNAL, 21 September 1886, pg. 4, col. 4:

   Charles Monckey, inventor of the Monckey wrench (ignorantly called the monkey wrench), is living in poverty in Brooklyn.  He sold the patent for $2,000, and now millions are made annually out of the invention.

--------------------------------------------------------
MISFITS (continued)

   From the CHICAGO EVENING JOURNAL, 9 September 1885, pg. 2, col. 3:

   From New York divorce court slang a new word has been coined for divorced persons, or married people not living together--namely, "misfits."

--------------------------------------------------------
THE WORLD OWES ME A LIVING

   I always thought that this phrase came out of the Depression.  It certainly was popular in the 1930s.  J. L. Rhys wrote THE WORLD OWES ME A LIVING (1939).
   From the CHICAGO EVENING JOURNAL, 10 October 1885, pg. 2, col. 1:

   The world does not owe anybody "a living" till he has earned it.

   Back to work.