Re: [cobalt-users] Raq2 Network IP Address Configuration

[David Shugarts <Azimuth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> 
> On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 07:24  AM, David Shugarts wrote:
> 
>> Sorry to be off-topic, but where did you get this expression, and what
>> does
>> it mean to you?
>> 
>> --Dave Shugarts
>> Azimuth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> 
>>> crux of the biscuit
> 
> I recognize it from a Frank Zappa song off of the album Apostrophe.
> IIRC, it's from the song "Stinkfoot." I suppose Frank could have lifted
> that from somewhere else, but I've always associated it with that song.
> 
> http://members.tripod.com/~navanax/lyrics/stinkfoot.html
> 
> crux: A cross; a difficulty; a stumbling-block; a puzzle; e.g. crux
> criticorum, crux mathematicorum, crux medicorum, The puzzle of critics,
> mathematicians, physicians.
> 
> HTH,
> j
> 

Wow! Thanks for that!

The reason I brought it up was, as an editor back in 1985, I had an
assistant editor who used the phrase in an article and was surprised when I
let it go through. I said at the time that I had heard it before and
recognized it as an intentional malapropism. He said he thought he had
invented the phrase as a teenager. Now I see that it is possible he had
listened to a 1974 Frank Zappa album.

It is one of those effects where, if you are exposed to a lot of language,
things may be absorbed subconsciously. It is a great fear of all songwriters
that they have actually heard the music or words to their "original" song
before.

--Dave Shugarts