Roads are clear… nothing to report. Again.
Now, see, here’s the deal: I assure you, there WILL come a time when this column will be of actual value to commuters… when the weather changes, we’ll deal with fog, ice, snow, rockslides, ice, chain control, bears, bear control, chain bears, or even flooding. THEN it’ll be time for this writer to knuckle down and get some actual work done, instead of goofing off. My existence will be justified with daily reports of variable conditions on the roads.
However, in the meantime, instead of reporting on road conditions, we can discuss other things! Like, why the hell do people say, “knuckle down?” What does that even mean?!?
While we are familiar with the term being used to describe working in a focused and diligent manner, it is actually a gaming term. Don’t think I’ve lost my marbles here, kids, but “gaming” used to include objects other than X-Boxes and Ataris (HA! An “Atari” was a prehistoric device that we once marveled at, because it did one jillionth of what today’s computers do… like, a person could program one to read, “Hello,” nearly an infinite number of times. It was totally rad). Anyhow, people used to play a game called, “marbles,” which was played with machine guns, flamethrowers, a cloak of invisibility, and a magical sword. No, of course not, it was played with marbles… and to “knuckle down” was to “shoot” the marble out of one’s hand, while the knuckles were on the ground. I still have no idea why shooting marbles in that way has anything to do with working hard, though… so this is the most WTH “explanation” ever… hands down.
Wait, what? “Hands down?” Why, that, my friends, is a term that came from horse racing, (according to a gallop poll). When a rider (known as a, “disc jockey”) was way ahead of the others in a race, and was sure to win, he could let go of the reigns, relax, put his hands down, and even do some texting while on the final stretch. He was going to win… hands down…. Even if all of the other horses and riders were going balls to the wall.
KDOG! Vulgarities? No…. no vulgarities here! I don’t know what YOU were picturing, but the term, “balls to the wall” is an aviation term… when the throttle and the stick and everything in the cockpit that has a BALL attached to the top of it (like the stick shift in your ’82 RX- 7 had) is pushed all the way forward— towards the fireWALL, that means the plane is in a full speed dive, at full throttle… and you don’t get much more speed out of an airplane than that, unless the wings fall off. This is also related to the term, “balls out,” which you also pictured in entirely the wrong way… don’t get testy here, but I think maybe you are just nuts.
Okay, there’s another, “road report,” in the can…pulled that one off just by the skin of my teeth, though. I heard all of these idiom explanations through the grapevine, but hopefully it isn’t just talking up a blue streak. I’ll be on cloud nine if this column is more than just a flash in the pan, and is instead a success, so I can bring home the bacon to the apple of my eye… Otherwise: It’s back to square one for me… let’s hope that it rains cats and dogs soon.