Idiom #12: A bad egg
No Comments »15th January, 2007; Category: Idioms
This week’s idiom:
“A bad egg”
Meaning:
A person who is unreliable or untrustworthy is sometimes referred to as “a bad egg.”
Origins:
One cannot tell the quality of an egg just by looking at the outer shell. Breaking the egg and looking inside is the usual way of testing the quality of an egg. A bad, or rotten egg, may contain a nasty surprise.
Likewise with people, it is not always possible to tell the true nature of a person judged by outward appearances alone. It is only by getting to know the inner person through friendship that we get to know their reliability and trustworthiness. It is only through a close relationship with a person that we get to know their true character, their inner qualities.
This expression may have been in common spoken usage for some time before its appearance in published form in the 1850s. The opposite expression, “a good egg” did not come into use until the early 1900s and was probably coined by students at Oxford University. Naturally, it refers to a thoroughly reliable and trustworthy person.
Example:
- I wouldn’t trust Percy with the club’s money; he’s such a bad egg.
Haiku #29: White Egret
White egret
Solemnly stalks
In stately slow motion.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2007 Trevor W. Hampel.
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I’ve been a little busy lately
No Comments »12th January, 2007; Category: The Writer's Life
It is time I gave a little apology.
Some readers of this blog have been commenting here recently without any response from me. That is not how it should be, nor is it my goal. It is just that I’ve been rather busy for the last four weeks. Many of the postings in that time were prepared well before Christmas last year and have been set to appear each day since. That is one of the wonderful things about WordPress – write, set the date, hit publish and forget.
The situation I’ve found myself in over the last four weeks is getting back to full time work on a temporary basis. I do occasional relief driving for a friend who runs a local courier business. Just before Christmas he had a major operation which resulted in an enforced four week holiday. The job involves working from very early every morning – about 7am and often does not finish until 10:30pm, with short breaks for lunch and dinner.
This has been a great challenge to me physically. Not only does the work involve long hours, it also means much heavy lifting and many kilometres of driving every day. One delivery alone several days ago tallied up to 550kg of freight. Fortunately, many deliveries are packages of less than a kilogram.
On top of the heaviness of the freight, the week before Christmas was incredibly busy, with the company’s busiest week ever. Layered on top of that has been the extreme heat we have experienced over the last few weeks, with temperatures frequently topping the 40C (104F) mark.
It will be a pleasant change to get back to writing again.
Setting realistic writing goals for 2007
On January 1st I posted a short article listing some of my writing goals for 2007. Setting goals is important in many walks of life. It is very important in a writer’s life because in many cases the writer is his or her own boss. It is easy just to aimlessly drift along. In this way the output wanes or meanders with no real purpose or goal.
Many writers need help in setting achievable goals. Angela Booth has some pertinent points about setting realistic, achievable writing goals in her article here.