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2021-0510
1900s | 2000s | b. 1959 | Canada | Canadian | Comedian | comedy | outdated idioms | Quebec City

Man alive!

Norm Macdonald

Norm MacDonald1 was known for many things, including using old‐timey references we all had to look up on the internet to figure out. This includes ​“Man alive2,” which I heard him say on Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Apparently, it means:

An expression of surprise, shock, or astonishment.

  • Man alive, the bill for that dinner was nearly $200!
  • Are you all right? Man alive, it’s lucky we weren’t killed in that accident!

  1. “Norm Macdonald.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Sept. 2022, en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​N​o​r​m​_​M​a​c​d​o​n​ald. Accessed 27 Sept. 2022. ↩

  2. “man alive.” Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. 2015. Farlex, Inc 27 Sep. 2022 https://​idioms​.thefreedictionary​.com/​m​a​n​+​a​l​ive ↩

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2024-0312

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

William Shakespeare
1500s · 1600s · devil · English · hell · Playwright
Taken from The Tempest (c. 1610): O, I have sufferedWith those that I saw suffer.(Miranda, Act 1 Scene 2) My library was dukedom large enough.(Prospero,  Act 1 Scene 2) Ferdinand, With hair up‐staring – then like reeds, not hair – Was …
2023-1230

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only from one row of the keyboard.

Unknown
Found: Random-facts-from-the-internet.txt on a deeply‐buried folder on my HD. Decided to ask the internet again and this apparently is false. According to Mr. Stitt, rupturewort, proprietory, and proterotype are all longer than typewriter—only by a single letter, but…longer. Guess …
2023-1216

That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

Benjamin Franklin
1700s · American · Boston · innovation · Inventor · patents · Philadelphia · polymath · Printer · Scientist · Statesman · Writer
Found: listening to Jill Lepore’s brilliant collection of essays, The Deadline: Essays. Specifically, she quoted Benjamin Franklin in Chapter 12, Valley of the Dolls, which is about the Barbie vs Bratz legal battle and …
2023-1205

Best advice I’ve ever received as a writer? Write.

Norman Lear
1900s · 2000s · American · funny · humor · Writer
From an interview with the late, great Larry King. Back in 1975, six of his shows were being broadcast every week to a prime‐time audience:  “All in the Family”  “Maude” “Good Times” “The Jeffersons” “Sanford and Son” …
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