OrionWorks wrote:
Don't leave me dangling, Jed! What is the "spoon" reference in regards to?
Now that you mention it, I wonder what "throw in the towel" refers to?
The Japanese expression is similar in meaning, but grimmer. In Japanese it
is, "saji wo nageru." A saji, or spoon, was seldom used at the dining table
in the old days. It was more often used by a doctor to give a patient
medicine. When the doctor was confronted with a patient in a hopeless
condition, and he could do nothing more, he would "toss away the spoon." It
has come to mean "give up" or "stop trying to deal with a hopeless mess."
This sort of thing appeals to my morbid sense of humor, along with Charles
Addams cartoons, viz. "Deathray fiddlesticks. It's not even slowing them down."
- Jed
