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On this morning's TV news regarding the contraception dispute between the government and religion, I heard some Bishop, or it might have been some other high Catholic official, say that the Church and President Obama were "at loggerheads." At loggerheads? Loggerheads? What in Darwin's Green Earth does that mean?
The phrase: at loggerheads simply means: in dispute with. Originally, a loggerhead was used with the meaning of a stupid person - a blockhead.
The idiom has now come to mean: If people are at loggerheads, they are arguing and can't agree on anything.
The Bishop (or whatever he is) might have better said, "The Church and President Obama disagree with each other on some points."
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Happy Birthday
born February 9, 1944
Author of The Color Purple
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Earlier today I ran across a blog entry written by some Brit who spoke of "... all those whinging cretins..." -- and this reminded me of a Limerick I had several years ago written making fun of the Brits who say whinge -- pronounced Whin-j. So I searched through my 'Old Writings' folder until I found it.
Here it is:
Whenever a Brit says, "whinge"
I shudder, I quake and I cringe.
In the States, we say, "whine"
Which is perfectly fine --
A Yank would never say, "whinge"
The above indicates that I might not be an Anglophile.
And despite my paternal lineage . . . I'm not.
(more about this subject at some other time)
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To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
--Edmund Burke
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