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TheGardensGazette.org
Blogs > Trivia

Brain Teasers and Helpful Tips
Multi purpose uses for every day products

Brain Teaser: In a Pickle

8/31/2016

0 Comments

 
Brain Teaser: In a Pickle 
from Nancy H
Receive date: 8-27-2016
Draft date: 8-31-2016
Post date: 9-5-2016

Meaning: In a quandary or some other difficult position.
Origin
The earliest pickles were spicy sauces made to accompany meat dishes. Later, in the 16th century, the name pickle was also given to a mixture of spiced, salted vinegar that was used as a preservative. The word comes from the Dutch or Low German pekel, with the meaning of 'something piquant'. Later still, in the 17th century, the vegetables that were preserved, for example cucumbers and gherkins, also came to be called pickles.

The 'in trouble' meaning of 'in a pickle' was an allusion to being as disoriented and mixed up as the stewed vegetables that made up pickles. This was partway to being a literal allusion, as fanciful stories of the day related to hapless people who found themselves on the menu. The earliest known use of pickle in English contains such an citation. The
Morte Arthure, circa 1440, relates the gory imagined ingredients of King Arthur's diet:

“
He soupes all this sesoun with seuen knaue childre, Choppid in a chargour of chalke-whytt syluer, With pekill & powdyre of precious spycez.
[He dines all season on seven rascal children, chopped, in a bowl of white silver, with pickle and precious spices] “

The figurative version of the phrase, meaning simply 'in a fix' or, in the almost identical 19th century phr:ase 'in a stew', arrives during the next century. Thomas Tusser's Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1573, contains this useful advice:

“Reape barlie with sickle, that lies in ill pickle.”

Presumably, barley that wasn't in ill pickle, that is, the corn that was standing up straight, would be cut with the larger and more efficient scythe.
There are a few references to ill pickles and this pickle etc. in print in the late 16th century, and Shakespeare was one of the first to use in a pickle, in The Tempest, 1610:

“ALONSO:
 And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they
 Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?
 How camest thou in this pickle?
 
“
TRINCULO:
 I have been in such a pickle since I
 saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of
 my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.”

A return to the more literal interpretation of the phrase came about in the late 1700s. The Duke of Rutland had toured Britain and wrote up his experiences in a travelogue - Journal of a Tour to the Northern Parts of Great Britain, 1796. He was present at the disinterment of the 350 year-old body of Thomas Beaufort, which he claimed to have been pickled and 'as perfect as when living':

“The corpse was done up in a pickle, and the face wrapped up in a sear cloth.”

Nelson - In a pickle. Just nine years later the most celebrated personage ever to have been literally in a pickle, Admiral Horatio Nelson, met his end, although some pedants might argue that, being preserved in brandy, he found himself in more of a liquor than a pickle.
Copyright © Gary Martin, 1996 - 2016
 
0 Comments

Helpful Tips: Hand Sanitizer Emergency Uses

8/31/2016

3 Comments

 
Helpful Tips: Hand Sanitizer Emergency Uses
from Nancy H
Receive date: 8-26-2016
Draft date: 8-30-2016
Post date: 9-3-2016
1. Fire starter. You need as many ways to start fire in your bug-out bag as possible. You hopefully already have a lighter, matches and a magnesium flint striker. But even that is not enough. You should also include cotton balls, some premade kindling, and hand sanitizer, too. The hand sanitizer works due to the high levels of alcohol in it. And it can help start a fire in the rain. One of the most efficient ways to start fire is to apply some hand sanitizer either onto the cotton balls or onto the premade kindling. It will light up as soon as it comes in contact with a spark.
2. Cleaning material To remove stains from clothing, often our first thought is to turn to a cleaning solution or a stain removal product designed specifically for that purpose. But hand sanitizer will work. Simply rub the stain – ink stain, blood stain — with some hand sanitizer, and most, if not all. of the stain should go away. Hand sanitizer can also work in this manner to get rid of paint stains. You can even use your hand sanitizer on used paint brushes, and much of the paint embedded into the fibers of the paint brush will wash away.
​3. Glue remover. When you need to remove glue or similar material, applying just a little bit of hand sanitizer to the glued area will get the job done. This same logic also applies to sticky labels. Hand sanitizer corrects that problem.
4. Sticky residue: Remove sticky residue from labels.
5. Mosquito bites: Stop mosquito bites from itching
6. Deodorant: For emergency deodorant: wipe it on and let it dry. Don’t do this on freshly-shaved pits, though.
7. Mirrors and windows: Clean mirrors and windows in a pinch. (Bonus: it will prevent frost and fogging!)
8. Emergency disinfectant: Disinfect minor wounds in an emergency.
9. Pine pitch remover:: Get sticky pine pitch off your hands and other surfaces
.
 

3 Comments

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