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Re: Common World Idioms

From:James Worlton <jworlton@...>
Date:Friday, February 6, 2004, 5:11
John Cowan wrote:
> Roger Mills scripsit: > > >>Don't recall ever hearing about its origin-- must google! It's very old; >>oddly, I've always associated it with cows kicking over the bucket >>while being milked, but don't see what that has to do with dying. >>On Apr. 12, 1945, my little 9yr old cousin came running home from >>school and shocked his mother by saying "Guess who just kicked the >>bucket!?" (A: President Roosevelt) > > > I've always assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that it refers to kicking away > the bucket you are standing on when you hang yourself. > > -- > "While staying with the Asonu, I met a man from John Cowan > the Candensian plane, which is very much like jcowan@reutershealth.com > ours, only more of it consists of Toronto." http://:www.ccil.org/~cowan > --the unnamed narrator of Le Guin's _Changing Planes_
This idiom always brings to mind the old movie (1963) "It's a mad mad mad mad world" with Ethel Merman, Buddy Hacket, et al. I'ts been a long time since I've seen it, but I remember at the beginning of the movie Buddy Hackett's (or was it Mickey Rooney?) character sees someone drive off a cliff (Jimmy Durante). When Hackett and his partner go down to investigate, Durante's character literally kicks a bucket -- oddly, they are out in the middle of nowhere -- and dies. -- ============= James Worlton "We know by means of our intelligence that what the intelligence does not comprehend is more real than what it does comprehend." --Simone Weil

Replies

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Ph. D. <phild@...>Mad Mad World (was Re: Common World Idioms)