Posted by Ed Kiser on March 28, 2006 at 18:55:09 from 64.12.116.6 user Kisered.
In Reply to: "pat of mustard" (was Ransome expressions, but across the pond...?) posted by Lyn on March 28, 2006 at 17:29:50:
Reminds me of an old radio/TV commercial about some kind of hair cream, with the line "A little dab'll do ya." Now THAT one goes back to the days when a young man put some sort of goop on his hair so he could have that slicked back look, with every hair pasted into place. If you can remember that, you are telling on your age.
Other expressions involving quantity - how about a smidgen? or a tad? or "just a touch..."
In a set of cooking directions, from the mountain country of North Carolina, is the line "add a gullop of molasses." This reflects the common practice of storing molasses in a large jug, with a narrow neck, so that when you turn it over to pour, molasses being the slow pouring stuff it is, just slowly comes out, with a bubble of air working back through the neck into the jug, making a "gullop" sound as it bubbles. So the directions are to pour until it makes that first bubble sound.
Not exactly the precision that Dick would want to have.
As for a unit of time, how about "three shakes of a lamb's tail."
"half a jiff." (from BS CH23)
or "in a jiffy" (from PD CH31)
or this one: "Captain Flint would have barged through in two jiffs." (from PM CH22)
or this one: "It'll be all right," said Nancy. "Captain Flint's coming today, and he'll howk her up in two jiffs." (from SD CH6)
and then, these famous last words, "I'll be back in half a jiffy. Nothing can possibly happen..." (from WD CH6)
and also, "Here it comes," said Captain Flint. "Half a jiffy while I put a cowl on the stovepipe. We don't want the fire put out." (from WH CH 25)
Assuming a "jiff" is a fixed unit of time, I suppose that "two jiffs" is four times as long as a "half a jiffy" - that is, assuming jiffy is just another name for a jiff.
Ed Kiser, South Florida