U Is For Upside-Down Cake, You Know

/ Ally Bean / 37 Comments
Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 11.02.33 AMPiece of [upside-down] cake

… is my modified version of a slang saying that means something is easy to do.  Not tricky at all.

I’ve added “upside-down” to this saying because I have nothing for the letter “U” within my theme of Food: Talking The Talk.

I guess you could say that finding something to post for the letter “U” … [wait for it]… has not been a piece of cake. 

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Screen Shot 2016-04-16 at 7.56.44 AMIn fact, if I might, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you, my gentle readers, that this challenge has been, like I suspected, a great deal of work.

I’m not complaining, mind you, but I want to be clear that for me doing this challenge with a theme, as per the guideline suggestions, takes more effort than merely showing up to my blog each day– and writing something.

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Screen Shot 2016-04-21 at 5.08.19 PMMy only regret is that I can’t visit + comment on more A To Z Challenge bloggers’ blogs.  Each day my stats page shows me that people from around the world have visited The Spectacled Bean, many of them leaving comments or liking what I wrote.

But instead of having the time to return all the visits, here I sit at my desk each morning writing, researching, writing, adding links, writing, editing, writing, adding images, writing.

Just saying.  No disrespect intended.

T Is For Turnip, Like Totally

/ Ally Bean / 46 Comments
Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 11.02.08 AMJust Fell off the Turnip Truck

…  is an idiom meaning that someone is naive or gullible.  It refers to the idea that someone riding on top of the produce in the back of a flatbed truck is a country bumpkin who will be taken advantage of in the city by the smooth-talking folk.

I’ve never seen a truckload of turnips, which probably comes as no surprise to you.

What will also come as no surprise to you, my gentle readers, is the fact that I’ve got nothing to talk about on the topic of turnips.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I could tell you that I have a t-shirt that has a turnip printed on the front of it with the words “turnip the volume.”  It’s a dumb pun, but the shirt is comfy.

But do you care about that t-shirt?

Probably not.

So instead of pretending I’ve something to say, allow me to suggest that we once again agree that I showed up here, in good faith, and posted something as per the challenge guidelines.

Thus I hereby declare that I have written about the letter “T.”

And the A To Z Challenge continues on Monday…

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{ SOMETHING TO DO FOR FUN }

Here’s a link to a lovely downloadable “fabric swatch” that features, among many vegetables, ye olde turnip.  Very cute.

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S Is For Succotash, So Sayeth I

/ Ally Bean / 46 Comments
Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 11.01.38 AMSufferin’ Succotash

… is what Sylvester the Cat says when confronted with yet another dilemma.  Sylvester James Pussycat, Sr., is a Looney Tunes star who almost always fails at what he’s trying to achieve.

But did you know that his famous saying, “sufferin’ succotash,” is an example of a minced oath?

A minced oath is a term that refers to a word or phrase modified from rude, crude &/or blasphemous to a more benign saying that does not offend, but still imparts the same message.

For instance, when you say darn it to heck, that is a minced oath of damn it to hell.  When you say egads [and you do say egads, right?], that is a minced oath of oh god.

And when you say sufferin’ succotash, that is a minced oath of suffering savior, which at one time was vile thing to say.

[… and you doubted the value of a liberal arts education!  How else would I know something this obscure, yet arguably, interesting?  Hmmm?]

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R Is For Rhubarb, Rightly So

/ Ally Bean / 52 Comments

Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 11.01.10 AM“Lady, you know what happens at a sale, when two women get hold of the same dress? THAT’s a Rhubarb!”

~ Rhubarb, a 1951 baseball movie

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I chose rhubarb as my letter “R” because, beyond knowing that it’s a tart vegetable with great health benefits, I knew there was a cute old movie about baseball and a cat named Rhubarb.

I remember seeing the movie somewhere along the line, and from that movie I knew that rhubarb was a slang term in baseball meaning a disagreement or a fight.

What I did not know when I started researching rhubarb is that the word is sometimes defined as nonsense.  As in you might say: “Jane is talking rhubarb.”

I also did not know that “rhubarb” is the word that extras in a play say while onstage to create background noise.

I also did not know that “on a rhubarb” was WWII fighter pilot slang for being on a strafing mission on enemy ground.

Finally, I also did not know that “hitting the rhubarb” is slang for getting so drunk that you can’t drive without going off the road.

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And that, kids, is today’s installment of my A To Z Challenge theme, FOOD: Talking The Talk.