Friday, November 13, 2009
For the Love of Ray-J
When I'm sick in bed, a lot races through my mind, man. I've been laid up for three days with this fever, stomach, no energy thing. I scraped up enough energy to do my show tonight, but it was a scrape. Now I'm exhausted again. Granted, the days off from work were fruitful, as I did a lot of publishing grunt work and a great deal of school work for my MSW class. All the extra daytime sleep has kept me up at night, however. Take last night. I was texting my friend in Cincinnati at 2am. He's a funny dude, always texting me "I love you bro!" just because he's like Barnabas the encourager. Then around 3a.m., I started thinking about starting a new phrase/expression that will hopefully catch on. I'm thinking the next time someone pushes my buttons I'm going to say, "for the love of Ray J, knock it off!" I want that to become so commonplace that my grandchildren will say it and not know the origin. But I will. It's from an absurd R&B/VH1 narcissist formerly living in his sister's shadow who presently exploits himself and others in hopes it will give his music career a needed push since his last hot single fizzled just about 2 years ago. I don't think the single was hot, for the blog record. Maybe in a couple of decades people will be saying "for the love of Ray J, cut me some slack," or "for the love of Ray J, leave me some Jello-O next time," etc. etc. and it will be just like The Dickens. I still say "that hurt like The Dickens." Why? Because my grandmother says it in her awesome Boston accent. She's been saying my entire life, thus, so do I. I don't know who The Dickens are, and I've never thought to ask. I just know that were hurt at some point in time to the point of inspiring an expression. Ray-J's going to be a legacy. Not the artist; my new expression. Man, the stuff insomnia inspires....
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Dickens is a euphemism for the word devil, possibly via devilkins. Shakespeare used it in 'the Merry Wives of Windsor: 'I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.'
ReplyDelete(from Bobby Bishop)
ReplyDeleteJust found this online. Pretty sure my Mema didn't know Dickens was Devil. Oh well. He can't hurt me, I know Jesus... :)
"Let’s focus in on dickens as the important word here, since there are lots of different expressions with it in, such as what the dickens, where the dickens, the dickens you are!, and the dickens you say!
It goes back a lot further than Charles Dickens, though it does seem to have been borrowed from the English surname, most likely sometime in the sixteenth century or before. (The surname itself probably derives from Dickin or Dickon, familiar diminutive forms of Dick.) It was — and still is, though people hardly know it any more — a euphemism for the Devil. It’s very much in the same style as deuce, as in old oaths like what the deuce! which contains another name for the Devil.
The first person known to use it was that great recorder of Elizabethan expressions, William Shakespeare, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: “FORD: Where had you this pretty weathercock? MRS PAGE: I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of”. That pun relied on the audience knowing that Dickens was a personal name and that what the dickens was a mild oath which called on the Devil."
-www.worldwidewords.org