Phrases and idioms

Fall off the back of a lorry:  (UK)  If someone tries to sell you something that has fallen of the back of a lorry, they are trying to sell you stolen goods.
Fall off the turnip truck:  (USA)   If someone has just fallen off the turnip truck, they are uninformed, naive and gullible.  (Often used in the negative)

Fine words butter no parsnips:  This idiom means that it's easy to talk, but talk is not action.
For donkey's years:  (UK)  If people have done something, usually without much if any change, for an awfully long time, they can be said to have done it for donkey's years. 

From pillar to post:  If something is going from pillar to post, it is moving around in a meaningless way, from one disaster to another. 

Full of beans:  If someone's full of beans, they are very energetic.  

http://www.english-for-students.com/Idioms-F.html

Food idioms and quizzes  http://www.idiomconnection.com/food.html#A2

The Smithsonian Institution was established with funds from James Smithson (1765-1829), a British scientist who left his estate to the United States to found “at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”   Smithson died in 1829, and six years later, President Andrew Jackson announced the bequest to Congress.  On July 1, 1836, Congress accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust.  In September 1838, Smithson’s legacy, which amounted to more than 100,000 gold sovereigns, was delivered to the mint at Philadelphia.  Recoined in U.S. currency, the gift amounted to more than $500,000.  After eight years of sometimes heated debate, an Act of Congress signed by President James K. Polk on Aug. 10, 1846, established the Smithsonian Institution as a trust to be administered by a Board of Regents and a Secretary of the Smithsonian.  Since its founding more than 164 years ago, the Smithsonian has become the world’s largest museum and research complex, with 19 museums, the National Zoo and nine research facilities.  http://www.si.edu/About/History

Dec. 30, 2013  The hippocampus and the frontal cortex are two areas in the brain associated with memory and they process millions of pieces of information every day.  Getting the information into those areas is relatively easy, says Dr. Henry L. Roediger III, professor of psychology at the Memory Lab at Washington University in St. Louis.  Some researchers think the brain function that responds to music evolved long before those related to language, says Dr. Roediger.  Most neuroscientists believe humans developed music and dance to aid in retrieval of information.  He cites Duke University professor David C. Rubin's work on epic poetry in preliterate and literate societies. Dr. Rubin's studies show long stories—such as "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey"—were passed down verbally using poetic devices for a reason.    "Psychologists believe laws, stories and customs were presented as poems, chants and, eventually, as songs, in order for them to be memorized, and recalled, accurately," says Dr. Roediger.  "The idea was that the chant would help people to remember large sets of information across the ages."  Dr. Roediger, whose forthcoming book, "Make It Stick:  The Science of Successful Learning," offers tools for memorization, points to how nearly every American learns the Alphabet Song.  He points to a study in which hospital workers in England could recite the institution's asthma guidelines after a frustrated doctor set the rules to song and they went viral on YouTube.  Heidi Mitchell  http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304483804579284682214451364

“Selfie” was named word of the year by Oxford Dictionary, but isn’t getting any love from Lake Superior State University.  The word that became popular to describe taking a picture of yourself with a smartphone was the runaway winner in LSSU’s 39th annual list of words people wish would just go away.  The list, released each year on New Year’s Eve, is compiled from nominations sent to LSSU throughout the year.  It dates to Dec. 31, 1975, when former LSSU public relations director Bill Rabe and his colleagues cooked up the idea to banish overused words and phrases from the language.  They issued the first list on New Year's Day 1976.  Through the years, LSSU has received tens of thousands of nominations for the list, which is closing in on its 1,000th banishment.  Other words on this year’s list include:   Twerk/Twerking,  Hashtag,  Twittersphere, any word ending in –ageddon,  Obamacare, and Fan base.  David Jesse  http://www.freep.com/article/20131231/NEWS06/312310021/words-to-banish-lake-superior-state-university-selfie-twerking-hashtag

Until January 19, 2014, visitors to the Frick can enjoy a unique show of masterpieces from the golden age of Dutch painting on loan from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in the Hague, Netherlands.  Featuring paintings by Dutch master painters like Rembrandt, Vermeer, Steen and Hals, the show features fifteen portraits, landscapes, genre scenes and still lifes from the Dutch Golden Age in the seventeenth century.  Two pictures by artists from Delft, the well-known painting of "The Girl With a Pearl Earring" (1665) by Johannes Vermeer and the lesser known "The Goldfinch" by his contemporary Carel Fabritius, are featured in the show.  They are also the subjects of popular books which may be read in conjunction to provide unique context for the paintings.  To make the trifecta you may also watch the  2003 movie starring Colin Firth and  Scarlett Johansonn.  One book is the fictionalized account of the creation of Vermeer's masterpiece "The Girl With the Pearl Earring" by Tracy Chevalier (1999).  The other book, the best-selling novel "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt, is a coming of age novel that opens with the bombing of the Metropolitan Museum while the protagonist and his mother are viewing the painting.  The congruence of the best-selling novel and popular exhibition has been a marketing bonanza for both.  If you do not have copies of these novels and the film, the Frick bookstore is well-stocked.  There is also a beautiful and informative catalogue of the exhibition.  Ed Krumeich  http://greenwich.patch.com/groups/ed-krumeichs-blog/p/flock-to-the-frick-to-see-the-dutch-masters  Find location of The Frick Collection and more information at http://www.frick.org/ 

On Monday, December 23, 2013, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled on the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment against the Conan Doyle Estate in a case involving the literary figures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.  The Court’s ruling states, in brief, that creators are free to use the characters of Holmes and Watson without licensing them from the Conan Doyle Estate.  The Court cautioned that new stories about the pair can’t use elements that appear exclusively in the ten post-1922 stories by Conan Doyle (those that remain in copyright).  However, elements from the fifty pre-1923 stories are in the public domain.  The ruling is a victory for the plaintiff Leslie S. Klinger, who sought to establish that the Estate was wrong in claiming that no new stories could be written about Holmes or Watson without the Estate’s permission.  Read Case 1:13-cv-01226 Document #: 40  Filed: 12/23/13 at http://freesherlock.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/klinger-order-on-motion-for-summary-judgment-c.pdf 

A muse reader reminds me of another example of black gold:  compost

Riches of the Earth

blog  http://richesoftheearth.blogspot.com/

film (1954)  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0224012/
film (1940)  http://www.britishpathe.com/video/riches-of-the-earth/query/01150000
book  Riches of the Earth:  Ornamental, Precious and Semiprecious Stones
by Frank J Anderson  (1981)  http://www.alibris.com/Riches-of-the-Earth-Ornamental-Precious-and-Semiprecious-Stones-Frank-J-Anderson/book/5754928
book  Riches of the Earth by Wendy Robertson (1993)  http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/riches-of-the-earth/author/wendy-robertson/page-1/