Reveille
Nancy Harrigan from
Sugar Loaf wrote, “My dad used to say ‘Nice play, Reveille’.
He was born in 1909 so I
wonder if this could have come out of the war..........or maybe a line from a
movie. It meant I made a mistake, so I heard it often!”
Reveille is played on a
bugle at the beginning of the day when the flag is raised. It serves as a
wakeup call to the troops. In effect, your Dad was giving you a wakeup call—a
warning that you needed to wake up and notice your mistake. I wasn’t able to
find out if it had ever been used in a movie—or even outside of your household,
for that matter. In my youth, "nice play, ox" was the appropriate way to greet a clumsy ball player.
Nancy also sent along a
joke about the origin of the political terms left wing and right wing.
"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to
the left." [Ecclesiastes 10:2 NIV]
The author of this verse was simply displaying a very ancient prejudice
against left-handedness. I wrote about this in my blog of January 3, 2007,
titled My Right Hand Man Has Two Left Feet.
The terms actually arose
in France in the 18th century. In the French Parliament, those who
sat to the right of the parliament’s president supported the old-fashioned
monarchy, with its emphasis on traditionalism, hierarchy, and clericalism.
Those who sat to the left of the president supported revolution.
SIDEBAR: Reveille
Available from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts
Dictionary, 2nd edition
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program in real time every Tuesday morning, 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. EST, by going to
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podcasts. Go to wtcmradio.com and click on Podcasts. Scroll down The Ron Jolly Show to find the Words to the Wise audio
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