Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Happy Tuesday — time for more fun with Susie Dent and her love of obscure or infrequent phrases. My parents were born in 1926 and 1927 (Dad would turn 100 this September had he remained with us), and some of the phrases Susie unearthed were ones my mom and dad used. Anyway, on to a few phrases for fun and learning. Happy Tuesday, my friends!
(To) Live the life of Riley - To live luxuriously. Riley (or Reilly) is said to be a character in a 19th-century comic song. One possible candidate is Pat Rooney’s “Are You the O’Reilly?” (originally “Is That Mr. Reilly?” in 1883), which describes what the hero would do if he “struck it rich.”
Pop Goes the Weasel -The rhyme refers to the Eagle Tavern in London’s City Road. Any serious amount of drinking there might mean the customer has to “pop,” or pawn, their “weasel,” which was rhyming slang for a coat (“weasel and stoat”).
Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle.
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.
When the Fat Lady Sings - When everything is finally over. The full expression runs: “The opera’s never over till the fat lady sings.” The reference is to the final act of the opera, in which the heroine often appears. Opera singers are stereotypically endowed with figures as full as their voices.
Opera - Cesar Cabrera-Unsplash
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
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2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
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The Beautiful
Said the Disciple to the Lover, “Sir, before I left the world I heard certain men who were held in high esteem and thought to know the will of the Beloved say that those who loved the Beautiful did not love the Beloved but loved idols, yet in the Garden of the Beloved we are ever striving to create beauty for the pleasure of the Beloved. Were they then speaking the truth?”
The Lover answered, “Those who said this had never glimpsed the form of the Beloved nor ever truly sought Him, for all beauty is but the reflection of the beauty of the Beloved, although seen very dimly as in a dark and faulty mirror, even as all goodness is a dim reflection of the goodness of the Beloved. So it is that those who love beauty and goodness recognize dimly in them the form of the Beloved and though often in ignorance those who are seeking the Beautiful and the Good are seeking after the Beloved.”
