Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Hoist by his own petard

MOST of the evidence that Muslim convert Joseph Thomas received funds from al-Qa'ida will come from his own words in an ABC television interview, a jury was told yesterday.
Read more.

What is it my Mum says? "If he had half a brain he'd be dangerous."

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The origin of the saying is interesting. I saw it on "Worst Jobs in History", click on the Stuart tab and scroll down to Petardier's assistant.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always imagined a petard was like a kind of leotard.

kae said...

Oh, so it was like a super-wedgie, like perhaps Nureyev or Helpmann might have got?

http://cd-2006.blogspot.com/2007/09/interests-books_23.html

Minicapt said...

1. If his brains were TNT, he couldn't blow his nose.

2. "Thus to be 'hoist with his own petar' is to be caught up and destroyed by his own plot. Hamlet's actual meaning is "cause the bomb maker to be blown up with his own bomb", metaphorically turning the tables on Claudius, whose messengers are killed instead of Hamlet. Also note here, Shakespeare's probable off-color pun "hoisted with his own petar" (i.e., fart) as reason for the spelling "petar" rather than "petard"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard

kc said...

I learn so much reading Aussie blogs.