And by the way, shouldn't the word Simpson used be spelled "teat"? The "tit" pronunciation of "teat" is seared in my memory, because once, years ago, I read the phrase "colder than a witch's teat" and pronounced it "teet." Apparently, at least in some sectors — possibly including Wyoming — you sound like a fool if you say "teet." It's "tit." "Tit" for "teat."
Discuss!
IN THE COMMENTS: Charlie Martin said:
You're correct about the pronunciation. /tit/ is the common pronunciation for most country folks and is listed as the preferred pronunciation in some dictionaries, and is the technical term in dairy farming for the place where the milk comes outta.Anne B. said:
/teet/ is the preferred pronunciation for the sort of little old ladies that say the table has "limbs" and city folks who think what the milk comes outta is a cardboard box.
I'm pretty sure Mencken used it first, or at least used it earlier. "A milch cow with 125,000,000 teats" was his description of the second FDR administration.She's right!
Still fits, of course.
Why did Simpson retreat? He could have made his critics look dumb and elitist by pointing out a literary reference they didn't get and a country-style pronunciation they weren't in touch with.
CORRECTIONS: I made 2 little corrections: adding a "d" to "pronounce" is paragraph 2 and deleting the stray word "embarrassed" after "look" in the last paragraph. I don't always note superficial tidying up like that, but I'm doing it this time because I just have the feeling that Althouse-haters are quoting the "embarrassed" mistake and saying I should be "embarrassed." I'm not trying to hide that I'm capable of typing and editing mishaps, only trying to make things as readable as possible.
ADDED: Simpson's comment was made by email, so he chose the spelling "tit."
Posts
135 comments:
"Carnation Milk is the best in the land!
Here I stand with a can in my hand.
No tits to pull, no hay to pitch.
Just punch a hole in the sonofabitch!"
--Ancient hoary old ad industry joke
But not "tit for tat."
And wouldn't that have been a nation of 620 million teats (albeit, most nonfunctional)?
There was also a joke with the punchline, "She laughed 'cause there was no tit for Tat!" but I can't remember it; and my 86 year old dad who has Alzheimers probably can't remember it either.
@Clyde: Jinx!
You;re correct about the pronunciation. /tit/ is the common pronunciation for most country folks and is listed as the preferred pronunciation in some dictionaries, and is the technical term in dairy farming for the place where the milk comes outta.
/teet/ is the preferred pronunciation for the sort of little old ladies that say the table has "limbs" and city folks who think what the milk comes outta is a cardboard box.
Teats are neat,
but tits make me titter.
And candy is dandy,
but liquor is quicker.
Back in the day when we milked cows by hand, they were called teats on the dairy farm. Now that the cows are milked by robots, they're still called teats.
'Tits' is a little shorter and faster and is considered entirely appropriate in the barn. Dunno what the Mexicans call them. They deal with them more than most these days.
BTW, I fed that SS cow every day of my working life. Now, at age 65, Simpson begrudges giving me some milk? Shame on him.
Jots and tittles.
Be very careful what you say on this topic.
One man's nutter may be another man's mutter.
...city folks who think what the milk comes outta is a cardboard box.
Speaking of which...
Q: What's gray and comes in quarts?
A: An elephant.
wv: spewh
Liberals are so prudish and repressed.
Remember Earl Butz's take on what motivates African Americans?
I'm offended that these women's groups are comparing women to milk cows.
Lefties will go on demagoguing the social security issue up to and including total collapse of their perfidious ponzi scheme.
Last January, I started my second year of sucking on the teat that is Social Security.
Important question: If you're paying into Social Security, yet not old enough, or disabled enough to be sucking on the teat, might you not be a bigger sucker? And the younger you are...
"And candy is dandy,
but liquor is quicker."
Candy is dandy,
but sex won't rot your teeth.
Scott:
That would have been a Little Audrey joke: "But Little Audrey just laughed and laughed because .....!"
"Teats are neat,
but tits are titter!" ?
"It's a standard expression. Simpson came up with a brilliantly memorable variation to describe social security: "a milk cow with 310 million tits." Then he let himself get pushed back by people who spewed faux outrage to keep anyone from using the powerful phrase ever again."
Just a reminder that "nigger" is a standard expression as well. Is there another "powerful phrase" that will be off limits next?
@Hagar: Yeah, but I forgot how it began. I think it was something like,
"Little Audry's friend Maybelle had three baby boys, Tom, Ted, and Tat. And Little Audry just laughed and laughed, 'cause there weren't no tit for Tat!"
Which is why I heard it from my Dad. It's 1930s and mildly racist.
@LarsPorcena: But candy doesn't leave hair in your teeth.
@AllenS: Congrats.
Like every working American, I get the annual statement from the Social Security Administration telling me how much they'll pay me if I retire at different ages.
Which is a joke, because by the time I retire, todays $1 will be worth $0.15 . The Democrats plan to pay for entitlements by inflating the currency and not adjusting the tax brackets.
A three-titter is a cow who has lost the function of one of her "quarters". My vet says never buy a three-titter. If she loses another "quarter" she'll be a two-titter and the only place for a two-titter is in the house.
...not to mention an udder failure.
I had been taught that teats are for animals and tits are for women. Maybe that is the "outrage". Visual image of people and women's tits.
Your story is not exactly what he said. For ACCURACY: his actual quote:
"I've made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know 'em too. It's the same with any system in America. We've reached a point now where it's like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work"
He is absolutely right.
SSI, NOT Social Security, is paid to people who are gaming the system and who mostly have never ever worked a "lick in their lives"...to use another rural colloquialism.
The "American System" (welfare, unemployment, Medicaid, SSI, disability) has become a way of life for many people who suck from those who work.
The better analogy would be more like "ticks on a coon dog". 310 million ticks sucking the lifeblood from the American worker and the American economy.
The permanent professional blood suckers are "as useless as tits on a boar".
y'all need to get out of them thar big cities onec't in a while.
Tom Tit Tat was a famous Grimm's fairy tale that we used to read my daughter when she was little. It's a variation of Rumpelstiltskein: "Your name it TOM TIT TAT!!!"
One creepier tale.
Actually it is a pretty apt metaphor.
The only thing he could be accused of is relying on a cliche. But that sort of truism is a classic.
Fake outrage should be met with a puzzled How is what I say inaccurate?
It's depressing to me when someone else's outrage spurs an apology. There is no guarantee -- nor should there be -- in America to live an outrage-free life.
Damn fingers SPAZZIN on the keyboard this morning. Nnn-nnh.
Once again, we mistake offense for injury.
@phx: Use your nose. Slow but accurate I bet.
It's one of the worst features of our age - fake outrage. Don't front. Both sides love their fake outrage.
Scott, oh this is so much better!! Thanks pal!
I'm willing to to bet that the largest percentage of
THESE people
are permanent recipients of my tax dollars.
Scott - one version goes:
There once was a woman from Begat
who had three sons, Nat, Pat, and Tat.
Although fun in the breeding,
They were hell in the feeding,
for it seems there was no tit for Tat.
The sight of Simpson makes me nuts. He was in the Senate for years and it along with the House and various presidents are responsible for this system.
Now, we are supposed to trust him to fix it? It's like hiring a contractor to build an addition on your house but he knocks your whole house off its foundation. Then you pay the same contractor to fix everything.
Simpson and his Senate colleagues should be arrested for gross malfeasance in office. He should be out on bail and sweating the thought of going to jail for the rest of his life. Instead he is an insufferable arrogant prick.
I'm with Dudley -- I've paid into Social Security since I was 16, and have been paying the annual maximum for over 30 years. Now that idiot Simpson thinks I'm not entitled to get at least some of that back?
Oh! Wait! The Professor wants us to discuss mammary glands.
Great to look at, even better in braille.
I thought folks from WI would know the milk talk.
In California, you know, where they have happy cows:
Our cows had teats, and the milk maids had tits.
I never heard a cow complain, but several milk maids were incensed if their tits were called teats.
it's a size thing
Dust Bunny Queen said...
I had been taught that teats are for animals and tits are for women. Maybe that is the "outrage". Visual image of people and women's tits.
DBQ and I were brought up on the same California cow talk :)
He shoulda gone with "nipple". But nipple is inherently dirty.
Nipple.
Nothing makes me want to use a word like hearing a liberal tell me I can't.
He shoulda gone with "nipple". But nipple is inherently dirty.
And sounds funny too.
I snicker everytime my husband talks about nipples and male adaptors in his plumbing business.
teee heee
These another bovine aspect to this story...
bullshit
I like Simpson: plain speaking, sense of humor, reasonable
Just another Lefty trying to find something to be angry about. So let's be mad Simpson used a simile(?) involving a slightly vulgar colloquialism, rather than The Zero's idiotic and counterproductive spending.
The Blonde, she of the legendary bosom, Ohio-born and -raised , has always used 'tit' for all creatures great and small, although the proper word, and pronunciation, would seem to be 'teat'. Can't ever recall 'teat' being pronounced 'tit'.
PS The 'colder than...' metaphor Ann quotes must be a Midwest thing. It never crossed my ears in SE PA.
The Blonde is into Wicca and all that and only her hands are cold - and that's just in winter.
@John: Thanks!
It's always funnier when it's a limerick. :)
C3- sorry but IMO you are not looking closely enough. He looks down on the little people who "just can't understand these complex issues". It's not complex, we paid in our money and creeps like Simpson spent it. Now he wants to fix it- I say indict him.
So far, no one in govt has been fired for 911, bank failure, housing collapse, Fannie Fweddie insolvency, and the insolvency of medicare and social security, states insolvencies, etc. Why is that?
Teats are an anatomical feature of female mammals.
Tits is colloquial, and more or less bawdy depending on the context.
I remember that while in office Simpson was famous for his humor. For example, he used to end campaign speeches with, "Those are my views, and if you don't like them, I'll change 'em."
On the one hand this is annoyingly flip, but on the other hand it beats the way President Obama ends his speeches (at least implicitly): "Those are my views, and if you and a majority of other Americans don't like them, I couldn't care less, and I'm going to ram them through anyway, because I won! MWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!"
Wickett just e-mailed me to say he respects a woman more if she lets him nut on her teats.
@DBQ, if you'd married an electrician you'd have heard him talking about male-female connections all day.
Just a few random remarks:
One of my husband's favorite weather expressions is:
Cold as a witch's tit in a brass bra doing pushups on an iceberg.
DBQ- I too was raised to think of "teats" on cows and "tits" on women. But I didn't get to say the last one out loud. It was considered a bad word.
LarsPorsena:
Candy is dandy,
but sex won't rot your teeth.
Careful there. Sometimes sex can rot stuff even more important than your teeth.
I'm pretty sure Mencken used it first, or at least used it earlier. "A milch cow with 125,000,000 teats" was his description of the second FDR administration.
Still fits, of course.
"Teats are an anatomical feature of female mammals. Tits is colloquial, and more or less bawdy depending on the context."
Yes, but Simpson was speaking. How do we write down what he said? My point is, write what he said "teats" and the problem is nonexistent. But he's apologized, so opportunity lost.
...or tat.
Scott said...
"Carnation Milk is the best in the land!"
The burns and allen first commercial:
The Milk from Contented Cows.
Like every working American, I get the annual statement from the Social Security Administration telling me how much they'll pay me if I retire at different ages.
This year, mine had a whole article about how people say SS will be broke by the time I retire, and it totally will, but I’ll still get money just 30% less. It was mind boggling and not terribly convincing. We’ll be broke, but you’ll still get money, we swear! Even if the law changes! Even if we have no idea how the law will change! Oh and btw, you have enough credits to retire but you’ll have to 67 or 69 or something to do so. I’m sure nothing will change in the 30+ years it will take me to get there.
Important question: If you're paying into Social Security, yet not old enough, or disabled enough to be sucking on the teat, might you not be a bigger sucker? And the younger you are...
It's not like you write a check (unless you're self employed). They yank it out of your pay before you ever see it. And they take it from your employer. I have no idea why people my age aren't more vocal on this.
DBQ, you nailed it.
Rube
So NOW wants him booted from the commission for saying "tits"? That's funny. I remember the president of NOW being interviewed during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. Her remarks were something along the lines of not having the time to follow every accusation of sexual harassment (even if it was against the President of the United States). I guess they just have a lot more free time on their hands these days.
Shanna, good point. Few realize that there is no difference between the "employee contribution" and the "employer contribution". The employee earns both and the employer pays both. Your true salary is 106.2% of your salary and your true FICA contribution is 12.4% of your salary or 11.7% of your true salary. And this ignores your Medicare contributions which make it look even worse. The self-employed are very aware of this as they lose 15.3% of the first and every dollar they earn to FICA and Medicare, up to the FICA limit, whatever it is now.
I think that older women's league was just excited that they could act like real protesters. You know, outrage, press releases, demands for apologies. Beats bingo.
Shanna:
Your generation will wake up to what they are facing and revolt at the ballot box. That will rip off the bandaid Simpson and his pals applied to the problem.
Dad:
I'd like to see a poll ask Americans "Do you know that the govt gets 15.3% of your earnings for FICA and Medicare?"
Ken Burns Civil War documentary includes a story of Lincoln hurrying through the lobby of the Hay Adams, when asked: "How's it going, Mr. President?"
"Too many pigs for the tits, sir, too many pigs for the tits."
Of course that was before the internet and so might be apocryphal.
I love those Wall Mart shopper pics. The diversity of the human form and fashion sense is awesome. It's amazing what is possible with too much or too little effort.
Who'da thunk that modern feminists would have so fully embraced Victorian patriarchal prudery?
And don't you dare call 'em chicken br**sts.
Oh my, the vapors!
How about a tattoo artist who only does breast tattoos? He/She could call his/her shop:
"Tat for Tit"
[rimshot]
Lucien said...
Ken Burns Civil War documentary includes a story of Lincoln hurrying through the lobby of the Hay Adams, when asked: "How's it going, Mr. President?"
"Too many pigs for the tits, sir, too many pigs for the tits."
Of course that was before the internet and so might be apocryphal.
Don't count on it. When Christopher Spencer was showing Abe his repeating rifle (which the Army refused to buy - it later became the most popular repeater of the War), he said it must be difficult running such a vast country during such a terrible war.
Lincoln replied, "It is with the help I have".
"seared in my memory"
Oh really? Do you have the hat to prove it?
Dad:
I'd like to see a poll ask Americans "Do you know that the govt gets 15.3% of your earnings for FICA and Medicare?"
Actually not Dad. The SS employee contribution is 6.2% that is matched by the employer. I know you like to lie about stuff out of context in threads that have nothing to do with what you want to post, but why don't you post the truth for a change....and by the way, SS is capped.
Wow. I knew I was wasting my breath.
I don't know who you think you are talking to, but I don't know what you are talking about with your "I know you like to lie about stuff out of context in threads that have nothing to do with what you want to post, but why don't you post the truth for a change.." I have rarely commented here, for just this reason.
You quoted not me, but someone who asked me a question. If you go back and read my post you will see that I mentioned that there is a cap on FICA. I would reiterate that there is no difference between the employee and the employer share, but I think it's over your head. If you wish to continue to believe that you only contribute 6.2% to FICA, be my guest.
"Actually not Dad. The SS employee contribution is 6.2% that is matched by the employer. I know you like to lie about stuff out of context in threads that have nothing to do with what you want to post, but why don't you post the truth for a change....and by the way, SS is capped."
Actually if you are self employed or have self employed income of any kind (and many people do) you pay 15.3% (your half and what would be your employers half) which is the social security tax capped at somewhere over 100k and the medicare tax which is uncapped.
DBQ,
Electronics is even better than plumbing, because while both have male and female connectors, only electronics has hermaphroditic ones.
"Actually not Dad. The SS employee contribution is 6.2% that is matched by the employer. I know you like to lie about stuff out of context in threads that have nothing to do with what you want to post, but why don't you post the truth for a change....and by the way, SS is capped."
Anyway you slice it is money that is taken from the employee's paycheck and money that COULD have been used by the employer to either give the employee a raise or other benefits.
6.2 for social security
1.45 for medicare
matched by the employer for a total of 15.3% of compensation. Poof.....vanished into the maw of the government wasteland.
Ask the employee, especially YOUNG people, what they would rather have. Future benefits (ha ha ha ha) or a 7.65 to 15.3% raise.
Don't forget that we also get to pay State Income Taxes, SDI.....and the unemployment insurance premium taken from the employer's cash flow.
Now with the new added mandatory medical costs or penalties the employer will have even LESS to use to grow the business, hire new employees, pay existing employees more money.
Coming next...mandatory retirement plan funding for small businesses and the confiscation of those funds by the government. For our own safety ....of course.
Is it any wonder that we are in a recession/depression and businesses are not hiring?
@joewxman: But you're still a liar. Harold says so. Lie, lie, lie. So go to hell.
And you too, DBQ. You're a liar. Harold says so. Nyah.
bago
>>I love those Wall Mart shopper pics. The diversity of the human form and fashion sense is awesome. It's amazing what is possible with too much or too little effort.<<
So true. I feel great compassion for some when I see the obvious pains they take with their bodies. Too bad the site is looking down on people for trying.
DBQ
>>SSI, NOT Social Security, is paid to people who are gaming the system and who mostly have never ever worked a "lick in their lives"...to use another rural colloquialism.<<
If you please'm, do you endorse government surveillance of SSI recipients to ensure they are legitimate beneficiaries?
Hypothetical
I make a dollar #1.00
minus SS & medicare and SDI 8.75% (pretaxed)
1 - 8.95% = .91 rounded
minus
State income taxes 9%
Federal Taxes 28% (or more)
.57 left out of my $1.00
oops...forgot about the co pay on medical insurance, local taxes in some cities.
And then of course sales taxes, gasoline excise taxes, property taxes (if you can afford a house) and really looking forward to that VAT and Cap and Trade program.
Yup.
Lucky to keep .20 out of my dollar. And that's just the employee's perspective. Try being the employer.
Hdhouse's answer to my poll question was "no I did not know that the govt gets 15.3% of my earnings".
What a looser! Heh.
My father, may he rest in peace, had no patience for anyone who said "teets" when they shoulda said "tits" 'cause they meant "teats." He was also very insistent that human offspring are "reared," never "raised." His vehemence on these matters made me suspect that perhaps they originated with his father, who was a schoolteacher.
If you please'm, do you endorse government surveillance of SSI recipients to ensure they are legitimate beneficiaries?
Damn straight I do.
There should be a reward system to turn in the cheats. I know several people right now that I would be thrilled to report.
There are many legitimate and needy beneficiaries of the system. SSI and welfare shouldn't be an open door no questions asked proposition.
I also advocate drug testing. If you are doing drugs on my tax dime, you go to jail and have to pay it back.
If you are collecting disability and are chopping wood as a sideline or working under the table. DO not pass GO. GO straight to jail or work for free and pay back the money you have stolen.
We work our asses off and are lucky to keep 20 to 30% of our own money. We are constantly told how selfish we are because we have made successes of ourselves through our own hard work and that we must share the wealth. BULLSHIT, I say.
I have no compunction about turning in the "cheaters" and making them suffer.
Simpson is from Wyoming right? Home of the Grand Tetons?
Or is Grand Tetons more Heidi Montag related?
wv = tiersale Not in SFO!
@Beldar: Sounds like he was a cool guy. I bet a Merriam-Webster Unabridged -- Second Edition -- was his prized possession.
BTW, anyone who portends to have travelled the American West, but who has missed Wyoming, has missed the Great American West.
See it before Yellowstone blows sky high.
Hdhouse's answer to my poll question was "no I did not know that the govt gets 15.3% of my earnings".
Heh.
What a looser!
My biggest internet pet peeve is Advice/Advise. It is everywhere! I advice you to take my advise….
Scott wrote: I bet a Merriam-Webster Unabridged -- Second Edition -- was his prized possession.
#buttinski That was a grand volume--before the meddlers got to the language. Sadly I settled for owning a Third Edition.
Sometimes I think Ann Althouse is really not very bright.
Simpson is co-Chair of Obama's commission to review federal finances. He has insulted Social Security recipients in this statement, basically calling them parasites.
So, why should we trust his fairness or his judgment? the actions they've reportedly (from Simpson) taken to slash Social Security are beyond the authority and charge of the commission anyway.
Beyond that he denigrates people who ask real, substantive questions about what this secretive commission is doing, in lieu of providing substantive answers. In now way is this BS Commission deliberating in a fair way. They've reached their conclusions: a) slash benefit programs, b) protect low tax rates for the wealthy, c) don't even look at the massive military and intelligence spending.
Obama should fire his ass. Today. And then can the Commission.
DBQ, I agree. I had and uncle who spent a long time trying to game the system to get SSI, and finally succeeded.
What stops you from reporting the cheats you're aware of?
I have no compunction about turning in the "cheaters" and making them suffer.
I'll go you one further. If you've retired from Govt Service, no pension until you STOP WORKING.
That means no to double dipping.
Pensions are for when you aren't working because you're retired. They're not some reward for working 20 or 30 years then stopping.
I might agree to, say, 25% pension, or something like that, just to get people out of Govt work at the top-end salaries.
What stops you from reporting the cheats you're aware of?
Other than the fact that nothing happens. There is no enforcement. No one cares. It is a waste of time.
The only people who do get recourse on the cheats are those private companies that hire private detectives to ferret out the disablity cheats.
The government and government lackeys who work in those departments don't care and it is too much 'work' to do anything.
This will be the election of fake outrage. The libs got nothing else.
Trey
"Sometimes I think Ann Althouse is really not very bright."
You think?
Wow.
Who knew?
Trey
Hdhouse's favorite Beatles song is
"I am a looser!"
wv = alion [what happens when Bite Me Biden opens his amouth]
Social security disability could be replaced by an insurance policy I guess. Maybe take $1,000 per year out of the FICA tax from everyone in the first five years of their work life to fund a pre-paid subsistence disability policy.
But liberals would never agree to that - some insurance company might make a 4% or 5% profit. And we can't allow that!
Of course, it's always the lefties who the militant breastfeeding advocates -- you'd think they'd approve of something so natural and wholesome!
He retreated because he's a RINO.
The SS cheats are the government agencies who transfer the SS money into the general fund, and spend it.
There is nothing like the smell of fake outrage in the morning. Simpson is doing his job of performing the straight man role for the Dems who will condemn such a bad attitude and thus divert attention from fixing things at a level less than Grinch Simpson threatens. He is the designated target...like the servicemen in Afghanistan are deignated targets...all to make the Congress cons in DC look like they care about protecting citizens more than cash earmarked as loot for their buddies.
Oh, great. Althouse is trying to stir up the feministing hive again.
Eli Lapp: You never had your hands on a teat before.
John Book: Not one this big.
====
In the movie I think it was pronounced "tit".
Hmm, what's more offensive to women?
1) She's got a nice set of tits.
2) She's got a nice set of teets.
3) If she turned to the side and stuck out her tongue, she'd look just like a zipper.
I was a dairy farmer for years and the word is tit. People think it should be teat, but amongst themselves the folks who actually milk those cows call them tits. A blogger from Wisconsin should know this. Just kidding.
The Dems have their mid-term tit caught in Obama's wringer.
What a bunch of cry babies and humorless scolds.
I find it amusing that AlphaLiberal is outraged that Simpson is on Obama's fake deficit reduction commission.
A commission that Obama created to avoid doing his job must now be purged of the insensitive.
Comedy gold.
I tired of outrage -- real, fake and otherwise.
It's become incredibly boring.
It's not fake outrage. Leftists will *always* be outraged at any speech that identifies and clarifies what their euphemisms are designed to obscure.
When I was in residency I came across the term 'tit sign' as a descriptor for a gastrointestinal lesion identified in a barium contrast study.
I used it in radiology rounds the next morning.
Didn't go over too well.
Dow 9,985.81 -74.25 -0.74%
Nasdaq 2,118.69 -22.85 -1.07%
S&P 500 1,047.22 -8.11 -0.77%
Ever get the feeling that some day soon, the whole udder will be gone? I wonder what Barack and Michelle did today? Are they eating well?
@Scott said:
"Speaking of which...
Q: What's gray and comes in quarts?
A: An elephant."
A: Battleship Paint.
There, fixed it.
"Now the fun stuff starts!" The "fun stuff," about one-sixth of the total cost, is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis to make green energy, green building and green transportation real; launch green manufacturing industries; computerize a pen-and-paper health system; promote data-driven school reforms; and ramp up the research of the future. "This is a chance to do something big, man!" Joe Biden said during a 90-minute interview with TIME.
Oh, boy! Let's do something big, man.
[Sigh] Let's go to the OED, where the word "teat" refers to "the small protuberance at the tip of each breast or udder in the female mammalia" is pronounced "tit", "tyt", or "titte" and has the ever popular diminutive "tittie".
Then we have the word "tit" which is defined as "a sharp or sudden pull" or, in the phrase 'tit for tat' "one blow or stroke in return for another", or "as a term for a small animal or object", or "a name for a horse small of kind", or a deprecatory term for "a girl or small woman" ('a silly tit'), or in nail-making "a loose piece of steel used to jerk the finished nail out of the bore".
Sorry, but nowhere in the OED does it define the word "tit" as part of the breast or udder (udder, heh) of the female mammalia. So there.
The only thing I disagree with him on is the choice of milk cows. A sow is a much more apt comparison. Each piglet attaches itself to a particular nipple shortly after birth and returns to it repeatedly until weaned. Our government has become one big sow.
How come nobody is calling it the T-word?
Why did Simpson retreat? He could have made his critics embarrassed look dumb and elitist by pointing out a literary reference they didn't get and a country-style pronunciation they weren't in touch with.
Because there's no way he could win that argument. Every day he didn't apologize would be another day that Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would have their teats in a wringer, and the explanation would never be heard.
Slow Joe Biden should be the poster boy for what's wrong in our government and in Washington, DC.
But to be fair, I think the Bidens suffer from a lack of blood flow in their brains.
AST,
"How come nobody is calling it the T-word?"
Because Al Sharpton ain't "outraged" about it.
How come nobody is calling it the T-word?
Brian: You don't need to put your P in a V right now.
Peter Bretter: No, I need to B my L on someone's T's.
A quote in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall which means, Blow my Load on someone's Titties.
I am reminded of Henry Ford's refusal to build other than four cylinder cars because he had "no use for an engine that has more spark plugs than a cow has teats."
Didn't stop him from buying Henry Leland's Lincoln plant, though.
"Sucking the government tit" to mean accepting money for value or not is a very, very old expression. Simpson needs to get booted with the rest of the crowd I disparaged yesterday if he hasn't the balls to defend such an eminently correct statement.
AllenS said...
" I wonder what Barack and Michelle did today? Are they eating well? "
spoken by one who doesn't appear to have missed too many meals....
Oh and by the way AllenS, the Dow was in the middle $7000 the last day of Bush's presidency....so what was your point again?
My grandfather raised milk cows and sold Surge milking machines. I still have a glass they gave away as a promotional item, which had their marketing slogan during the middle of the last century. It was a farmer pointing at a cow with only one of the items in question. He was saying, "If I had only one cow, and she had only one tit, I'd still user my Surge milker!"
HD House: Remind me, what was the unemployment rate when Bush left office?
Oh and by the way AllenS, the Dow was in the middle $7000 the last day of Bush's presidency....so what was your point again?
Well, the Democrats did promise a "New Direction" during their 2006 campaign.
Unfortunately for everyone, the direction the Democrats decided to take America was down.
Sometimes I think Ann Althouse is really not very bright.
Imagine, then, what we think of you.
Michael said...
HD House: Remind me, what was the unemployment rate when Bush left office?"
higher than now and we have added about 3 million new persons into the measured pool of eligble workers...what is your point?
BJM said...
"What a bunch of cry babies and humorless scolds."
yeah that john boehner is really something and mcconnell...a regular laugh riot...
anyway, you are right....although i scold myself for every letting Bush get near the oval office and it does wring the humor right out of me to think that anyone misses that dolt.
HD: So the unemployment rate 18 months ago was higher than now? Thanks for a liberal's view. Glad things are demonstrably better under the new leadership.
HD: Oh, I forgot, my point. My point is that you shouldn't post when drunk or hungover which puts a window of about 5 mid day hours. Tops. That was my point about the unemployment rate being about twice the rate now as at the end of GWB. You dumb fuck.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm
What? No tit bits? Is there an anglophile in the house.
Just for a while.
Michael said...
"That was my point about the unemployment rate being about twice the rate now as at the end of GWB. You dumb fuck."
now now little Michael. I know reading with comprehension is a challenge to you. The stats you cite were "yearly average" unemployment rates not "when Bush left office". If you look back you'll find that in the beginning of 2008 the non-adjusted unemployment rate was under 5%. In the last 3 months of Bush's term and during the first 4 months of 2009, the mess THAT BUSH CREATED rose to present levels. The true unemployment rate is probably twice what is recorded at BLS which is what they and most experts freely admit. And you can scream "don't blame bush" all you want but his policies were a catastrophe of mismanagement, greed and bungling. Simply put, the economy went into the crapper under his "leadership" and was in freefall when Obama took office.
No one is arguing that there isn't rampant unemployment right now and that jobs are scarce. The point, numbnuts, is that unemployment took hold under Bush and accelerated at the fastest pace since the depression.
Don't get so touchy about being stupid ok? I understand your need to vindicate that looser but your dog just doesn't hunt. Take comfort in the fact that you aren't alone - half the world is below average.
HD House: You are wrong. Under no system of measurement was the unemployment rate as high at the end of Bush's term as it is now.
Stupid. Drunk. Fool.
HD - Bush left office on Jan 21, 2009. It was Obama who promised that the Stimulus bill would keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8 percent. After 18+ months in office, 63 percent of stimulus funds spent, and a 9.5 percent umemployment rate - its past time to pin the rose on the Obamaman.
Unadjusted in the last month of Bush's office the unemployment rate had climbed to 7.6 percent. I read somewhere that it could be higher today, but then I live in the real world and am not scraping by in the cheap seats on the east end of the long island.
I'll certainly concede that on the day numbnuts left office unemployment was just under 8% seasonally adjusted. I'll also concede that it peaked by the end of last year above 10% and has at least halted its wild ride up.
I won't concede that Bush's policies pushed the economy over the edge of the cliff and it was a miracle that Obama could rescue things and keep them from going to unrecoverable depths.
I fail to see how Obama is responsible for Bush's disaster...but then again when 9-11 happened that was blamed on Clinton so I guess there is some precedent for blaming the guy before you. Right folks?
Oh and Bob...no roses yet for the Obamaman but if you want to pin the tail on the donkey, I think Bush is in Texas hiding out. Can't miss him. Looks like Alfred E. Newman without the flicker of intelligence.
Perhaps this is small beans, but the proper term is milch cow not milk cow.
thanks,
tommyp
Thanks, DBQ.
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