Idioms, what do they mean?

[Undertoad]

It set off my BS meter.

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

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Scriveyn

I have been wondering about "to take the mickey out of someone"

Here's a website (Take our word for it) from people who know their etymology. Sadly it is very rarely updated these days.

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.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It set off my BS meter.

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

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.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

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.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

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...

[gvidas]

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

Parmitano, it turns out, is only the latest astronaut to experience the waking nightmare that is the liquid-filled helmet. As early as 1966, during the second-ever U.S. EVA, astronaut Gene Cernan experienced a similar problem. Space-walking was new back then, and NASA, it seems, had underestimated exactly how much work -- "work" in the sense of "manual labor" -- would be required of the astronaut doing the space walk. "Lord, I was tired," Cernan would later recall of that early EVA. "My heart was motoring at about 155 beats per minute, I was sweating like a pig, the pickle was a pest, and I had yet to begin any real work." At one point, as the walk progressed, Cernan's heart rate shot up to 195 beats per minute -- and flight surgeons began fearing that he would pass out from the exertion.

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?

[toranokaze]

Originally Posted by gvidas

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.

[DanaC]

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of
places to bury people.

That made me lol.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by gvidas

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?

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

[Undertoad]

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

[BigV]

Originally Posted by gvidas

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?

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.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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

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

[Griff]

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.

[BigV]

Parmitano, it turns out, is only the latest astronaut to experience the waking nightmare that is the liquid-filled helmet. As early as 1966, during the second-ever U.S. EVA, astronaut Gene Cernan experienced a similar problem. Space-walking was new back then, and NASA, it seems, had underestimated exactly how much work -- "work" in the sense of "manual labor" -- would be required of the astronaut doing the space walk. "Lord, I was tired," Cernan would later recall of that early EVA. "My heart was motoring at about 155 beats per minute, I was sweating like a pig, the pickle was a pest, and I had yet to begin any real work." At one point, as the walk progressed, Cernan's heart rate shot up to 195 beats per minute -- and flight surgeons began fearing that he would pass out from the exertion.

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

[sexobon]

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.