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Team AMT need to get themselves some eardrops, because they’ve been mishearing things all over the place lately! Firstly, Alastair from Sheffield:
Where does the saying ‘Laymam’s terms’ come from? Who is this Laymam and why does he (or she) need things to be explained so simply?
Laymam was a famous eighteenth-century dunce, who tripped over his chamber-pot and hit his head upon an ornamental bust of Pitt the Elder, after which damage his IQ was notoriously sub-Forrest Gump. However, his curiosity was undimmed, so he launched a fashion for extremely simply-worded explanations, upon which tradition Answer Me This! is built.
Sorry, Alastair; I shit you. The saying is in fact ‘layman’s terms’, the word ‘layman’ having been coined some 900 years ago to denote a person who wasn’t in Holy Orders. Way back then, laypeople tended to be uneducated and illiterate, and the monks and clergy the clever-clogs of society. If they were to disseminate information to the masses, they had to couch it in layman’s terms, rather than high Latin. There!
Our next linguistically-confused correspondent is Rachel:
My Grandma said to me ‘Stitchin’ Time save nine’ and I know that it’s a famous saying but I have no idea what it means so answer me this, what does the saying ‘Stitchin’ Time saves nine’ actually mean?
Stitchin’ Time was a country-blues crossover artist, who made the headlines for heroically rescuing nine line-dancers after a particularly vigorous hoe-down caused the barn floor to collapse. Tragically, fifty-eight other dancers perished.
Or, rather more prosaically, the expression is ‘A stitch in time saves nine’, a homily meaning that a small amount of timely effort will prevent considerably larger efforts later. IE mending a small hole in your best jumper is much easier than putting off the task then later having to contend with a much larger hole, which you’ll never be able to mend invisibly! Or, to put it in Laymam’s terms, it’s better to stage an intervention for a friend at the point where their drinking looks like it might be getting out of control, rather than waiting until they have liver failure.
Finally, Alex from Hertfordshire requires clarification:
I listen to Answer Me This! every week, commuting in my car, giggling to myself and singing along to the jingles. However, there is one jingle that I can’t sing along to properly and it’s bugging me.
It’s the one with the Joyce Grenfell sound-alike which starts “Life is full of questions, but there are some answers you should know…”
I have a good idea what item 1 – “No it will not fall off, but moderation in all things” – is referring to, and also can take a guess at what item number 2 is talking about: “Yes, there probably is, but we won’t find out in our lifetime”. And of course there’s the completely clear item 4: “If you try and slip her one, it would ruin your friendship”, but I always stumble at item 3, which sounds like “Most people prefer coralee but my personal favourite is doulton”. The only Coralee that I know is my kid’s dancing teacher, who is lovely but hardly podcast jingle material and the only Doulton I can think of is the china company (are we talking sanitary ware?).
Please can you put me out of my misery, help get me singing again, and educate me properly: Who or what are ‘coralee’ and ‘doulton’?
Sigh. It’s hardly going to enter the canon of great misheard lyrics, but the line which has eluded you thus far, as enunciated by the marvellous Joanna Neary, is: ‘Most people prefer Connery, but my personal favourite is Dalton.’
I’ll leave you to deduce the meaning of that by yourself.
Answer Me This! Podcast 
March 18, 2012 at 10:30 pm |
I never understood that last one either and always just assumed it was about china. Alex, you are not alone.
March 17, 2012 at 7:08 pm |
For three years I have been meaning to ask this question and feeling ignorant about Coralee tableware.
I had in mind it was a bit grey and wondered why most people preferred it.
Now I feel a little sad that I know the truth – can you get Joanna to come around and comfort me?
March 14, 2012 at 4:22 pm |
Oh my God. I nearly brought on a panic attack from laughing so much at that last question.
March 14, 2012 at 12:38 pm |
LOL What a wonderful way to start my morning! Thanks for the chuckle!