Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Heads or Tails #6 (Key)

Coming Into Los Angeles
Words and Music by Arlo Guthrie

Coming in from London
From over the pole
Flying in a big airliner
Chickens flying everywhere around the plane
Could we ever feel much finer?

CHORUS:
Coming into Los Angeles
Bringing in a couple of keys
Don't touch my bags if you please
Mister Customs Man

The words and music of Arlo Guthrie from the Woodstock soundtrack form the musical accompaniment for our post today because the song contains the word "keys," a slang word for kilograms.

As if Americans weren't confused enough about the metric system.

If a key is an object that opens something, the what does key lime pie open, huh?

Or Key Biscayne? Key Largo?

We open baseball games with Francis Scott Key's composition. (Bonus points -- name the original English drinking song to which Key's lyrics are sung.)

We open our beer with a churchkey. So what do we open churches with?

Did you ever notice that if you put your key in a car it goes... but if you key a car you're a vandal?

And what exactly do the keys on my computer keyboard unlock? Heck, I got two keys here that says they are locks.

(Did you peek at your own computer just now? That's right: Caps Lock and Scroll Lock. And are those confused keys.)

So visit Barb today at Skittles' Place for more Heads or Tails. I got nothin'.

13 comments:

Misty DawnS said...

What a fun post! You make some good points here! I had a blast reading this!

Jean-Luc Picard said...

How fortunate the EU have given up trying to force Britain to go metric.

MommasWorld said...

I know more pub songs than I will admit to but not sure which song you are talking about :-)

I hope someone comes up with the answer since my interest is really peaked.

Barb said...

I'm not going to cheat and Google it. Maybe later.. (Snicker.)

You are such a hoot and have such a unique and fun way of looking at things!

Yes, I did look.

Anonymous said...

What a great post! I just had to look it up! :) I love posts that make me want to look up interesting facts! :)

katherine. said...

I still call the bottle opener the "church key"

and still having one in high school who wrote about our national anthem...the drinking song was, "to Anacreon in Heaven" or just "the Anacreon Song" but I don't remember the composer....

Linda said...

Don't some computers have a "number lock", too? I think the one at work does, I don't believe my laptop does but I'm refusing to look!

TroyBoy said...

I think Curmy has found the "key" to a fun blog!

Thanks for yet another installment of the Curmudgeoningly fun and entertaining posts!

The Curmudgeon said...

Linda! Num Lock! Yes! I'm a numbskull for not remembering!

Siani said...

I love the humour in this post. I must admit, I've never heard of opening beer with a churchkey. We Brits use the rather unimaginative name of "bottle opener", LOL. Have a good week!

The Curmudgeon said...

Jean Luc -- they've stopped prosecuting Brits for selling things in ounces? I thought there'd been actual criminal charges and fines levied against merchants?

Shan said...

Great post! I was laughing the whole way, and YES...I looked at my keyboard and found not two but THREE lock keys (as someone already pointed out)

Andree said...

that is a very nice post! i never knew keys were kilograms. i wonder what arlo is doing now?