Nervous Guy

The word belfry, believe it or not, originally had nothing to do with bells. Belfry is from the Old French berfroi, meaning a wooden siege tower. The word first appears in English c. 1300 as berfreyes. Over the years the meaning shifted from a siege tower to watch towers (which may or may not have had alarm bells), and then eventually to bell towers and church steeples. The spelling shift occurred by c. 1430 when the spelling belfreyes appeared. Eventually the new L spelling created an association with bells and the modern sense denoting a room in a tower where bells are hung dates to 1549. Spelling shifts between L and R, as in berfreyes/belfry, are common in many languages, including English. The L and R sounds are formed almost identically, by raising the tip of the tongue close to the alveolar ridge, which contains the teeth. When pronouncing L, the tongue makes and maintains contact with the ridge; when sounding R, it comes close but does not touch. It is very easy to sound L when you mean R, and vice versa. While we are on the subject of belfries, the phrase bats in the belfry is an Americanism dating to 1899. This phrase is the source of the sense of bats or batty meaning eccentric or insane, which both appear in the first decade of the 20th century. A belfry is a likely place to find bats and the phrase is simply a jocular expression similar to not playing with a full deck or his elevator does not run all the way to the top. In this case the belfry represents the head and brain and bats were chosen for alliterative purposes and because the creatures can be found there. (Sources: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition; Historical Dictionary of American Slang)

remember that option that people can delete a thread that they started....

6. Michigan, Texas and Kentucky (tie) time to get your annual eye exam....

woo hoo! 47th! That's pretty shocking considering what I see everyday...

it would probably be better if you danced on your roof.

DOOMED!!!!!

maybe it just needs more cowbell...

it's a tough crowd.

but we can still dismiss you out of hand, right?

how long before Fezmid shows up?

wear a foil hat and eat some Blancmanage.

Is he anything like Piltdown Man?

Eh?

ever watch Monty Python?

nice try...but not nearly enough...consider becoming a flagellant...beat your back bloody with a leather whip while sobbing and petitioning the Lord for mercy...then we will talk.

nothing is ever completely done here....you know that.

he was cut.

take a fistfull of valiums and a fifth of gin.

finally doing some research, eh? This still doesn't count as an article you know...

are you a 40 year old virgin too?

<insert sobbing smiley here>

how about lucky?

All these refer to questionable calls in YOUR favor (ie refs in your pocket)...I could pull out many more, but you'd just refute them... oh, and Brady completing that pass while on his ass....LUCKY!