same difference

[fflo]

[Poll #501194]

Comments

Six of one!

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

As a "same difference" sayer for as far back as I can remember, here are my theories:

--I always thought it grew out of yiddish-American, as it is a natural part of the NewYorkese my famly speaks. Eh, same difference, nu? What is it your business?

--But now, having grown more into a "six of one" sayer (short for "six of one, half-dozen of another), I believe that it actually does refer to comparing differences. Or comparing sums, anyway. So close!

Re: Six of one!

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I'm as likely to say "Half of one, six dozen of the other."

Re: Six of one!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

okay, THAT's good! May I use it without attribution? (With attribution would be a touch clunky...)

Re: Six of one!

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Well, if you use it in Math Refuse, I would expect it to be fully footnoted. But not in any other circumstance.

Re: Six of one!

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

Thank god. I thought I was the only one!

Re: Six of one!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

The idea that it comes to us through a language blend seems to make sense---and if it comes through Yiddish, even better. Hey, wait---you didn't capitalize "yiddish"---don't we capitalize that? I love the syntactic variation of "What is it your business?" and the ilk.

Suppose Rita Mae has anything to do with your six-of-one-ing? That's another expression I was late to. Maybe my family of origin just never USED expressions for "whatever" and "let it go"! You'd think I'da heard 'em in the schoolyard, or on "the streets"---you know, while I was picking up sex education there and all.

Re: Six of one!

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

Hey, man. I capitalize completely randomly when it comes to e-mail and lj posts. If I throw any caps in for words other than "I," or the beginnings of sentences, I feel less lazy. Really.

I am completely unfamiliar w/the rita mae-isms. I wasn't a fan of rubyfruit jungle and seem to have completely forgotten it entirely.

Essentially, from this response, I apparently have dementia.

Are you sure it wasn't from the "school of hard knocks" and not "the streets"?

Re: Six of one!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

i think it was actually the "school of repeated moderate knocks and knocks that pretended not to be knocks," followed by the "graduate school of trying to figure out what was a knock and what wasn't," with post-grad work in the general area of "knocks? oh, yeah; knocks. i remember knocks. hey, there's something uncool about all these knocks".