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The Kitchen Table

Phrase of the day 1/28

jim_1 (Zone 5B)

5 years ago

Making a monkey out of

This phrase goes back almost to the time of Shakespeare. Monkeys were used in carnival side shows as objects of ridicule and were teased or treated harshly in order to make them do tricks. So, if you were making a monkey out of another person, you were making a fool of him – or, worse, making him make a fool of himself.

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Comment (1)

Jasdip
5 years ago
Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards but only applicable to the 'Ace of Spades.'

To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren't 'playing with a full deck.'
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I worked on the designs of a line of furniture that we called Darby, which included a lounge chair, ottoman, dining chairs, bench, sofa, and settee. It started with the lounge chair before I was there, and then I worked on the rest. I made full-scale cardboard models of the dining chairs and bench. Back legs of the chair are laminated cardboard, to illustrate the curves. That's my only experience with Darby. We had a CFO named Joan.
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Interesting that many of our common phrases are from Shakespeare. I wish I paid more attention in high school :-/
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