light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
Any specific source for this expression about motivating procrastinators?
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... but it brings up images of WB cartoons. I can see Bugs doing this to Elmer Fudd while he is sitting with his back against a tree or sumthin'... that kwaazy wabbit!
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
It's an old nautical expression.Probably from slave ships.Uh-huh.
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
Curious about the nautical reference DT. Can you cite?In all my Navy days, we never referred to any part of the ship as the "Ass"
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
I'm afraid Dr T is wrong. This expression dates from the invention of the ASS fast-boiler (Anthracite burning Superheated Steam) by T. Gooch in 1849 for the Middlewich- Muckynge light railway. To...
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
The expression is also in Japanese, though in that language you light the fire IN someone's ass. Must be how they got so much done..I'm not making this up.Shiri ni hi wo tsukurimasu.
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Now that's a phrase that *really* means business. Which part of it means "ass"? Or rather, arse (me being Brit, and all).
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
>Curious about the nautical reference DT. Can you cite?I was being facetious and cynical. Sailing is the source of many expressions in English, but also the source of many false etymologies. These...
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
Shiri, which basically covers the "cheeks".Koshi, is the hips/small of the back.Mune is the chest.Thusshiri (butt) ni (in, weird coincidental inversion pronounced like the knights who say..)hi (fire,...
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
Why are you insisting on "in"? It could just as well be "on" in that sentence...which is pretty much the same as "under" here.I would say it means IN the ass only insofar as one would also say "kick...
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
[quote]"I was being facetious and cynical."[/quote]Sorry DT, I definitely see the humor the second time around. As with so much good sarcasm, yours was lost due to the inattention of the recipient.
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I would just like to point out that *I* actually did catch the sarcasm! Which is more than I can say about others on my "euphemism" remark....
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
Which is more than the western equivelent it ain't shita.The reference I had said "in", and I find that easier to do than on. Whatever, it's still touching..
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
Prepositions are slippery things in languages that *do have them, let alone trying to translate into them from a language that doesn't.
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Actually, Japanese DOES have prepositions, Faldsie...it's just that they use "ni" rather widely, to cover situations where we'd use "in", "on", "at", "from", "to", etc.There are other...
View ArticleRe: light a/need a fire under my/your/his/her ass
Not quite a fire, but Absalon, the would-be lover of The Miller's Tale," has a hot iron applied to his nether regions by his successful rival, Nicholas. This "precipitates" a cry for water &...
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