It set off my BS meter.

http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/wagon.asp

Give them a 30-day free trial membership in The Cellar.
I'm sure resident Dwellars can update and set everything straight with no trouble.

The term "fell for it" (as in "did you fall for that?") can be traced back to 1587, when lepers, returning home from a day of shopping, would trip (or, fall) over their own appendages. Because it was customary in the Middle Ages to point and laugh at lepers, they coined the phrase "boy, that leper really fell for it, didn't he?" It was later shortened to include, not just lepers, but anyone falling over anything.

It's a wonder Classic's email fruitcake didn't include the misetymology of "threshold." I think that was the only one he missed. I'm with Scriveyn on that one.

Now, enlisting a friend to take the rearward set of pedals so it's easier to get going -- that's "going off on a tandem." Shall we, SG?

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do...

This is from a recent article about a watery malfunction during a spacewalk.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...-water/277854/

A quick google search for "the pickle was a pest" only turns up references to the same quote. My best guess is: his 'pickle' was getting itchy because he was sweating so much.

Anybody else?

It could mean that the situation was a problem. The only other thing I could find was :
Location : Brentwood, England
How I became a fan - (me v two brothers)

"What are you watching?" I would say
I got that look
"Just go away"
A 'pickle' a pest I must have been
Over excited, causing a scene

I won in the end and watch it I did
Jess Harper my hero
Not Billy the Kid
Handsome and manly
I loved him so
My heart did a flutter
and my passion did grow

Forever and ever I've been a fan
Even down to Miss Daisy
My substitute Gran.

So there it is
all packaged in verse
now for Emergency
I'll be the nurse!
Moirajf



Name : Sandra Martinez

Location : Guasti, Ca.
********************************************************

Unless he just made it up.

That made me lol.

Ummmm.... Maybe here, especially as the "low flow" form of Priapism"

Yeah I vote for "pickle" as a word for "a difficult situation".

Your use of "pickle" was in reference to a much earlier spacewalk, a time closer to the days where the manual controls on a flightstick contained many switches, including a bomb release switch among others. I imagine "pickle" in this context means a switch that was being a pest, contributing to his high stress symptoms like his high heart rate.

Here's a link to a thread (I like posts #8, 34 and 35 the best) where there's a discussion about pickles (switches), pickling (activating those switches), etc. The term pickle is suggested from the bumpy surface of a pickle's resemblance to the button-studded control sticks. Another suggestion is the name comes from the shape of the bombs, like pickles, that are released when that particular switch is pressed.

That's how the word pickle is used over here. As in: I was in a right pickle.

That's the same way I've heard it. Interestingly, Pickle is a baseball base-running game that we play in the States. A runner starts between two bases and two players with one ball man the bases and attempt to tag the runner out before he reaches a base. The runner is in a pickle.

In this context, he's not talking about a dilemma, a ball game, or a condiment, doncha think?

Doesn't "pickle" come from the Dutch "pekel" which means "brine" which is a salty solution like sweat? One would think the quote "... I was sweating like a pig, the pickle was a pest, ..." would be a cutesy way of saying that the weightless beads of sweat floating around in his helmet were a pest. :2cents: