Holy Cow!
Page 22
Flea markets originated in Paris, where the translated name meant just that. Since the goods were secondhand and bargain-rate, it was assumed some of them would include fleas. Truth in advertising—what a concept.
Fleapit often referred to a pre-cineplex theatre or cinema that was seedy and not in its hygienic prime.
A fleabag is most likely a run-down, dingy hotel or other dump.
Fleabitten is either literal or something or someone that’s dilapidated or infested with disreputability.
A flea beetle is a small jumping leaf beetle that may target members of the cabbage family.
Fleabane and fleawort, members of the daisy family (sweet!), are plants reputed to drive off fleas.
Flea glass was the pre-microscope name of the magnifying instrument which Dutch scientist Anton Van Leeuwenhoek, “the father of microbiology,” helped develop so he could study fleas.
The saying fit as a flea implies excellent health, alluding to a flea’s strength and its being full of life-nourishing blood (so’s a vampire).
Dragonfly
It’s not a dragon (nothing is) and not a fly, but partly because its body is longer than most insects’ and it’s aggressively predatory, in English it’s called a dragonfly. Perhaps the first time it was called that was in 1626 in Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum: or a Natural Historie in Ten Centuries. Previously, it was variously known as an Adder Bolt, a Snake Doctor—it was actually believed dragonflies could bring snakes back to life—a Horse Stinger, Devil’s Riding Horse, and Devil’s Darning Needle, from the belief that if one fell asleep by a stream (where dragonflies are often found) the insect might sew your eyes shut.
A possible if specialized explanation for the name is that in Romanian it translated to Devil’s Fly and in Romanian devil and dragon are dracul (the diminutive is dracula). In medieval times and earlier, the “devil” was often represented as a dragon, as in the St. George-and-the-dragon story.
There are over 5,000 species of dragonflies in the world. They live six months to seven years—a long time for an insect—have large eyes with some 30,000 lenses, sport two pairs of wings that allow them to not flap so hard or often, and they eat mosquitoes, ants, bees, and wasps. In turn, they’re eaten by birds, lizards, frogs, fish, spiders, and . . . bigger dragonflies. They’re usually near water because their voracious larvae are aquatic.
Dragon. . .
In the West, snakes and dragons symbolize evil. In the East, not so—look at snakes in India and dragons in Chinese mythology (China’s zodiac includes the Year of the Dragon). In the West, when a person is called a dragon, it’s a female, defined by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as “derogatory—a fierce and intimidating woman.” Dragon lady was similarly applied to certain East Asian women.
To chase the dragon is a euphemism for smoking heroin.
A bearded dragon is a semi-arboreal Australian lizard with spiny scales and a big throat pouch featuring sharp spines.
A dragonfish is a long, slim deep-sea fish with a fleshy filament growing from its chin, fang-like teeth, and luminous organs! A dragonet is a small fish the male of which bears bright colors.
A dragon tree is native to the Canary Islands (remember them?), is palmlike, grows slowly, and yields dragon’s blood, a red gum or powder produced by the tree’s stem.
Dragon boats feature a traditional Chinese design resembling a dragon and are paddle-propelled. A dragon ship is the traditional Viking longship decorated with a beaked prow.
Snapdragons are plants with brightly colored two-lobed flowers that supposedly gape like a hungry dragon’s mouth when a bee lands on the curved lip.
A dragoon is a member of various British cavalry regiments, historically a mounted infantryman armed with a carbine which, like a dragon, was supposed to breathe fire. To dragoon is to coerce someone into doing something.
A dragonnade was a form of oppression by a conquering power that imposed the inconvenient and costly quartering of its troops on a population.
Buffalo Bee
One of the 1950s’ most popular commercial animal mascots was Nabisco’s Buffalo Bee, modeled on Buffalo Bill but voiced by Mae Questl, who’d done the voices of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl (Popeye’s skinny girlfriend). She later offered, “A bee is such a perfect ad symbol. They work hard, they’re small and fuzzy, kids love them, and they make honey! All you have to worry about is the sting.” The cute critter, who had no stinger—two six-shooters, instead—wore a cowboy hat, striped shirt, and red bandanna. Besides advertising Wheat Honeys and Rice Honeys cereals, Buffalo Bee starred in his own comic books. However, by the early ’60s western shows and themes were waning in popularity, and Buffalo Bee was one of the casualties.
Most of the buzzing one hears from a bee is the vibrations of its wings during flight—flapping over 200 times per second. And though bees and hives seem synonymous, about 90 percent of bees are solitary, unlike the social bees: honeybees, bumblebees, and stingless bees.
Bees
“The bee’s knees” is another example of the importance of alliteration and assonance in coining popular phrases. In the 1700s there was “big as a bee’s knee.” In the 1800s there was “weak as a bee’s knee.” The 1920s produced “the bee’s knees,” which meant terrific—as did that decade’s “the cat’s meow,” its whiskers, and pajamas.
A bee-line was born of the apian habit of social bees flying back to their hive in a straight line. Busy as a bee is self-explanatory, but the stereotype doesn’t fit all bees.
To have a bee in one’s bonnet is to be upset or obsessed with something.
To drone on about something is to talk monotonously and seemingly endlessly, probably related to a bee’s long low humming sound. A drone is a male bee that doesn’t work but can fertilize the queen bee. A drone is also an unpiloted, remote-controlled aircraft.
A human queen bee is a woman who’s reached the top and wants no female competition or camaraderie—like late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. A 1955 movie by that title aptly starred Joan Crawford.
Mad as a hornet comes from the angry-seeming stings of that insect, which is a large wasp. Waspish is excessively irritable or sharp.
The obsolete wasp-waist on a severely corseted woman derives from the narrow waist of a wasp.
It’s been said that a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) is so initialed because the powerful American group has often used its waspish tongue and metaphorical sting on assorted minority groups. Spelling and quilting bees, though they may involve a swarm of people, are not of apian derivation.
Butterfly
Many theories have been put forward about why this beautiful creature is called a butterfly. Its name is also beautiful in Spanish—mariposa—in French—papillon—less so in German—Schmetterling. Samuel Johnson believed the insect was so named because butterflies show up in spring, when butter is churned. Another explanation is that butterflies’ tiny dung is yellow (how could they tell?). More pertinent are the facts that England’s most common butterfly, the brimstone, is butter-colored, and that a widespread myth during the Middle Ages held that fairies would fly and steal butter at night while in the shape of . . . butterflies.
“Elusive as a butterfly” is self-explanatory. A butterfly mind is unable to concentrate for long on one subject, flitting from here to there.
A social butterfly is usually a frivolous or insincere woman trying to make an impression in society by going from one home to one party to one function to one gala to the next. The phrase may have originated in the 1860s, during the Victorian era, when crashing high society was often attempted but rarely successful.
Butterflies in one’s stomach produce a fluttering sensation and denote stage fright or anxiety, but like real butterflies, they don’t often stay too long.
To break a butterfly on a wheel means to employ excessive effort or force in achieving a result.
“Poor Butterfly” is a beautiful 1916 song about a pining female who waits, not flits (perhaps she should).
Then there’s the butterfly stroke in swimming and the butterfly nut—another name for a wing nut—also the butterfly valve, not to mention (too late now) the theoretical butterfly effect from the 1980s referring to chaos theory and local change yielding larger change elsewhere, as with a butterfly fluttering in Rio de Janeiro possibly changing the weather in Chicago.
Moths
Moths are the more drably colored, less glamorous cousins of butterflies. Differences include their wings resting flat instead of erect, the lack of clubbed antennae, and not being active by day.
Moths are drawn to light, thus the expression “like a moth to a flame” describing particular human attractions.
Moth-eaten may be literal or can be old-fashioned, like moth-eaten ideas.
As for mothballs, which male moths don’t have, they’re often made of naphthalene and deter clothes moths. In mothballs signifies in storage or on hold. And unless you’re a lepidopterist, that’s about all that can be said about moths.
Except that moths and butterflies have no noses and breathe through spiracles—holes in the sides of their bodies. Spiracles include teensy-weensy valves that keep out water and dust. There.