Tuesday, January 8, 2008

I'm talking about SHINOLA! (Sheesh! Don't you know your brass from your woodwind?)

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shinola!

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Shoe polish:



From Wikipedia:

Shinola was immortalized in colloquial English by the phrase You don't (or He doesn't) know shit from Shinola which first became widely popular during World War II. The 1979 Carl Reiner film The Jerk includes a memorable demonstration of the phrase, and Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow includes a lengthy discussion of the phrase.

Aside from being an amusing bit of alliteration, the phrase implies that the subject is stupid or woefully ignorant. Shit and Shinola, while superficially similar in appearance, are entirely distinct in their function; only one is good for polishing shoes, and anyone who fails to distinguish one from the other must be ignorant or of low acuity. Similar expressions include, doesn't know his ass from his elbow or Sir Henry Wood's doesn't know his brass from his woodwind.

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NOT shinola: (and not prettiful like the shinola pictures, so DO NOT SCROLL DOWN here if you don't like being grossed out, because if it's not shinola, then it's crapola!!)