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Shave and a Haircut

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Re: Shave and a Haircut

#131
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole of the US would be hard since national level news and culture is what is getting exported, but local knowledge by state/region is a possible source. Like pronunciation of location names pronunciation (like pronunciation of Tilamuk Oregon, Miami Oklahoma, etc.), songs and chants for university sports teams, and jingles and phrases from local commercials. Rock Chalk...

Worcester, which will have the advantage of letting us find any secret British.

The town in Ohio is literally spelled Wooster. I'm not sure what that says about us, but it certainly says something.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#134
post #124

There's a common workflow I use at work that involves taking the default 10 times before inputting what I need to use. I do double shave and a haircut quickly instead of counting return presses.

I have an unintended variation on that...

Once a day, I have to press a button on my kitchen scale 4 times, to switch it from grams to fl.oz.

It seems that the the fastest tempo at which one can press the button 4 times... matches the "1-2-3-4" at the start of the song people might know from "JK Wedding Entrance Dance". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

(I have a different association with the sequence 4-3-2-1, reminding me of the Peter Schilling song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO0A0XcWy88&t=41s )

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#135
post #64
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised to hear that, I would have guessed folks over 40 would be accustomed to "2-bit wh*re" - my dad used to scream that all the time about his personal banker "god damn that man he's a f'ing 2 bit wh..." - pretty sure my grandpa used it regularly also. Maybe my family are not the most refined of people. ;)

Likewise, high school football cheerleaders '2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits a dollar all for XXXXX stand up and holler"

I was familiar with this as a high schooler but it never occurred to me that 2 bits was 1/4 of a dollar. It was like a nursery rhyme where you don't really think about what the words actually mean.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worcester, which will have the advantage of letting us find any secret British.

The town in Ohio is literally spelled Wooster. I'm not sure what that says about us, but it certainly says something .

That's named for a Revolutionary War general, whose name was Wooster, like 1920s British character Bertie Wooster. There were 169 Wooster families in London in the 1891 UK census. I kind of doubt they all descended from the US, so what this says to me is that some British person filling out a form heard the name "Worcester" and very sensibly wrote Wooster.

Worcester is a corruption of Wigraceaster which is a corruption of Weorgoran Ceaster, so rigidly sticking to an orthodox spelling is ridiculous and it should be reformed. Like Featherstonehaugh turned into Fanshaw.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#137
im chronically horrific when it comes to interpreting lyrics correctly. ever since ive been small up to present day. for example rage against the machine 'wearing your badge and your trophy wife'

always thought this was 'shave and a haircut, to be.'

my solution has been to just give up on words in songs altogether.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#138
post #96

It's rather striking that a dollar today is worth considerably less than a penny when this was written, at least with respect to grooming services.

It’s even more striking once you look into the history of money, and realize what’s going on.

End the Fed.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pronunciation of Chili, NY is an immediate way to ID anyone from the Rochester area.

...of course it's pronounced "Chye-lie". I can't talk, though, I come from Ohio where we have a city named "Versailles" that's pronounced "vur-SAYLES".

Americans love French. It's their nitch. It probably comes from reading so much Nitchski.

Re: Shave and a Haircut

#140
post #9

There's a tune that's very similar to "Shave and a Haircut", but in a minor key, replacing the two eights with a triplet and a chromatic part. (Notes are: G D Db D Eb D; F# G) Does anyone know what its called?

In Australia, that's when the song ends with 'brown bread' (dead). I assume it's British.
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