Special English: Them jokers can go pee up a rope

@centrox,

As for the math behind it, I'd say the lad weighed around seven stones..

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Actually, to "piss up a rope" means to get knocked out and flattened.

The origin of the phrase came from an Ali fight in 1972 where he literally "knocked the piss out of" a guy (forget who, offhand).

Ali hit the guy about 20 times and he fell into the ropes, unconscious. Then he pissed himself and it started going up the rope he had fallen on, see?

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WEB Griffin has soldiers say "Go piss up a rope" in World War 2 and he is pretty good with dialogue.

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@centrox,

Well, maybe is was Jack Dempsy, ya know?

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I probably read too many WEB Griffin novels. At work the other day I described an obstructive rule-book type person at Head Office a "chickenshit feather merchant" and had to explain to my boss what I meant. He agreed.

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@centrox,

A lot of words that originated in, or acquired a different meaning within, military circles now have different, or additional, meanings in civilian venacular. Chickenshit, candyass, and feather merchant all share the general connotation of being "soft" (i.e. weak), for example, but also have more specific meanings.

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@layman,

layman wrote:

A lot of words that originated in, or acquired a different meaning within, military circles now have different, or additional, meanings in civilian venacular.

Yes, I know. However, slang used by US Marines at the time of Guadalcanal may need explaining to a 30-something Englishman.

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@layman,

layman wrote:

Chickenshit

I got the impression that if someone was chickenshit it had implications that they stood too heavily on procedure and routine and pulled rank just for the sake of it, e.g. a desk-warrior Captain telling a battle-hardened USMC Gunnery Sergeant not to argue with him over something operational or tactical. Chicken **** is even lower grade than bull ****.

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@centrox,

centrox wrote:

layman wrote:
Chickenshit

I got the impression that if someone was chickenshit it had implications that they stood too heavily on procedure and routine and pulled rank just for the sake of it, e.g. a desk-warrior Captain telling a battle-hardened USMC Gunnery Sergeant not to argue with him over something operational or tactical. Chicken **** is even lower grade than bull ****.

Yeah, I agree. That's one meaning--petty officiousness or, more generally, emphasis on minor crap.

But another general meaning is just plain old cowardice.

And, even more generally, something that's just "weak," and/or without justification. A person can be "chickenshit" in their thoughts, their actions, or both. Generally it's both.

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@layman,

layman wrote:

But another general meaning is just plain old cowardice.

And, even more generally, something that's just "weak," and/or without justification. A person can be "chickenshit" in their thoughts, their actions, or both. Generally it's both.

There is a character called Major Robert Macklin in Griffin's "The Corps" series, who is all of those things, and dishonest also. He pops up from time to time to annoy and obstruct Major Kenneth "The Killer" McCoy. Macklin is an Annapolis graduate and McCoy is a former enlisted rank China Marine.

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@centrox,

centrox wrote:

who is all of those things, and dishonest also.

Well, yeah, that inevitably follows from the other traits, eh?

Quote:

“Weak people cannot be sincere.” (La Rochefoucauld)

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@layman,

layman wrote:

Well, yeah, that inevitably follows from the other traits, eh?

Quote:
“Weak people cannot be sincere.” (La Rochefoucauld)

Macklin is an Annapolis graduate, and McCoy came up from the ranks. When McCoy gets sent to Officer Candidate School, Macklin is on the staff and considers McCoy a ruffian who never went to college and therefore unfit to be an officer, He tries to get McCoy kicked out of OCS by faking his scores on the rifle range, but is found out by another officer, who puts things right discreetly. Griffin says if it had been made official, Macklin, having been found out in a lie, would have been required to resign his commission.

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@centrox,

Well, I aint read it, but Macklin sounds like the quintessential cheese-eater, sho nuff.

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@layman,

layman wrote:

the quintessential cheese-eater, sho nuff.

You see the type in military novels. They tend to despise the hero for being everything that they are not.

I have not come across the phrase 'cheese eater' in this context before. Everyone knows it is an idiotic anti-French slur, and also as a slur on people living on welfare, and (apparently) it is gay slang for an underage boy who works for the police to entrap men in restrooms, etc, so they can be charged with public indecency.

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@centrox,

centrox wrote:

They tend to despise the hero for being everything that they are not.

Yeah, what Nietzsche called "resentment." Except he used some French variation of the word.

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@centrox,

centrox wrote:

I have not come across the phrase 'cheese eater' in this context before. Everyone knows it is an idiotic anti-French slur, and also as a slur on people living on welfare, and (apparently) it is gay slang for an underage boy who works for the police to entrap men in restrooms, etc, so they can be charged with public indecency.

That aint the way I use it. But I didn't get it from common usage, so.....

To me, a cheese-eater will always be, among other things, a candyass chickenshit.

Needless to say, your average Frog would easily qualify, but...

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@layman,

layman wrote:

Needless to say, your average Frog would easily qualify, but...

Not as easily as the Yanks.

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Special English: Them jokers can go pee up a rope

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