The term “Blockbuster” is used to describe high-budget, high-grossing films. Now I’m not talking about the ancient practice of borrowing DVDs from a store to return them later (if you’re young, then a DVD is basically Netflix except only one film, but on disk rather than the internet). The shoulder was known to be the toughest part of an animal and thus the most inferior piece to serve as a meal.īy giving your unwelcome guest a cold cut of uncooked meat they’d get the idea they weren’t exactly welcome. However, if the guest was unwelcome you’d simply serve them a cold cut of shoulder meat – be it pork, beef or mutton. If a guest was welcome you’d serve them a nice, delicious hot meal. This saying originated in the early 1800’s and stemmed from serving a meal to your guests. So when you were at one of these fairs on, say, the coconut shy, and you nearly knocked that high and mighty coconut off its lofty platform but just missed it, then the carnie folk would shout “Close! But no cigar!” Giving Someone The Cold ShoulderĮveryone’s heard of giving someone the cold shoulder, basically just ignoring them or making them feel unwelcome. It stems back from the 1800’s and more specifically from the traveling fairs and carnivals that were common across America at this time.īack then, the prizes for the fairground games weren’t big cute teddies, but rather cigars or a nice bottle of whiskey. However, I was massively wrong as I found out this weekend. I had always thought this saying stemmed from the failed CIA assassination attempt on Fidel Castro where they tried to plant some exploding cigars in his person, which would blow his head off when he lit them up.Īs the CIA failed to get the cigars into Castro’s possession I had always assumed this is where it came from: close but no cigar. So it’s no surprise that when you delve into the everyday things we say, you’ll find that many of them are steeped in some rather interesting historical origins.īe it ancient history, or more modern history, the language we speak today owes a lot to those that spoke it before us.
In today’s world we stand on the collective history of everything that came before us.
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