This next thing. This next thing is about the English language. Its about little expressions we use. The little expressions, we all use them all the time. And we never really seem to examine these expressions very carefully at all. We just sort of say these things, as if they really made sense
Like... "Legally Drunk". Well if it's legal, what's the fuckin' problem!? "Hey! Leave my friend alone officer, he’s legally drunk!"
"You know where you can stick it". Why do we always assume people can know where they can stick it? Suppose you don’t know, suppose you're a new guy. You have absolutely no idea where to stick it. I think there ought to be a government title on “Where to Stick it”. Now that I think of it, I believe there is a government booklet like that, they send it to you on April 15th
"Undisputed Heavyweight Champion". Well, if it's undisputed, whats all the fighting about?
"It's the quiet ones you gotta watch". You know that one, eh? Every time you see a story about a serial killer on T.V, what do they do? They bring on the neighbor. And the neighbor says “Well, he was always very quiet.” And someone in the room says “It's the quiet ones you gotta watch." This sounds to me like a very dangerous assumption. I will bet you anything that while you're watching a quiet one, a noisy one will fucking kill you! Suppose you're in a bar and one guy is reading a book not bothering anybody and another is standing in the front with a machete banging on the door saying “I'LL KILL THE NEXT MOTHERFUCKER WHO COMES IN HERE!” ……who you gonna watch? You're goddamn right
"Lock em up and throw away the key". This is really stupid. Where are you gonna throw the key? Right out in front of the jail? His friends will find it! How far can you throw a key? 60, 50 feet at the most. Even if you lay it flat on its side like that, and scale it. What do you get? An extra 10 feet, tops. This is a stupid idea. Needs to be completely rethought
"Down the tubes". Hear that one a lot, the people say “Ahhh, the country is goin' down the tubes” …..What tubes? Have you seen any tubes? Where are these tubes? And where do they go? And how come there’s more then one tube? It would seem to me, one country, one tube. What, does every state have to have its own tube now? One tube is all you need. But a tube that big, somebody would have seen it by now. Somebody would of been like “Hey, Joey, Joey, look at the fuckin’ tube! Big ass fuckin’ tube over here!" You never hear that. You know why? No tubes. We don’t have tube 1. We are essentially, tubeless
"Takes the cake". You know, they say “Boy, he really takes the cake”... Where? Where do you take a cake? To the movies? You know where I would take a cake, down to the bakery, to see the other cakes. And how come he takes the cake, how come he doesn’t take the pie? The pie is easier carrying then the cake. "Easy as pie!" Hey, wait. Cake is not too hard to carry either. "Piece of cake!"
"The greatest thing since sliced bread". So this is it, huh folks? Couple hundred thousand years, the fuckin' pyramids for Christ's sake! Panama Canal! The great wall of China! Even a lava lamp, to me is greater then sliced bread. What's so great about sliced bread? You got a knife, you got a loaf of bread, SLICE THE FUCKING THING! And get on with your life
"Out walkin' the streets". You know, a guy gets a parole. “Now instead of being in prison, this guy is out walkin’ the streets”. How do we know? Maybe the guy's at home banging the baby sitter. Not everyone who gets a parole is out walkin’ the fuckin’ streets. A lot of times, they steal a car, ya know? But we oughta be glad. Thank God he stole a car, at least he’s not out walkin’ the streets
"Fine and dandy". That’s an old fashion one, isn’t it, yeah? Say to a guy “How are you?” “Fine and dandy.” Not me, I never say that, you know how come? Cause I’m never both of those things at the same time. Sometimes I’m fine, not dandy. Close to dandy, approaching dandy, in the vicinity of dandyhood, not quite fully dandy. Other times, I am indeed, highly dandy. However, not fine. One time, one time. 1965. August. For about an hour. I was both fine and dandy for about the same time. BUT NOBODY ASKED ME HOW I WAS! And I could of told ’em. I could of told ’em. I could of told 'em. I could of said to the person, "fine and dandy". I consider it a lost opportunity
"Walking Papers". You know, guy gets fired. They say “Jeez, poor guy, well, they gave him his walkin’ papers today.” Did you ever get any walking papers? Seriously? Believe me, in my life, I got fired a lot of times. You can tell. Never got any walkin’ papers. Never got a pink slip, either. You know what I would get? A guy would come around to my desk and say “GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!” You don’t need paper for that. It’s like the riot act. The riot act. They keep telling you they're gonna read that to you. Have you heard this thing at all? Especially when you're a kid, they threaten you. "You wait 'till your father comes home, he's gonna read you the riot act!” Tell him I already read it myself! And I didn’t like it either. I consider it wordy and poorly thought out. He wants to read me somethin'? How about the Gentlemens' Guide to the Golden Age of Blow Jobs?
"More than happy". I bet you say that sometimes, don’t you? Once in a while, you say to somebody, “Oh, I'd be more than happy to do that.” How can you be more then happy? To me this sounds like a dangerous mental condition. “We had to put Dave in the mental home. He was... more than happy”
One more of these: "In your own words". People say that to you. You know, they did that a lot in the classroom. Or in a court room. They’ll say to you “Tell us, in your own words”. Do you have your own words? Hey, I’m using the ones everybody else has been using. Next time they tell you to say something in your own words, say “nikwakquarndayquanfloo!”