Listening to the “Patriots from the Past” podcast yesterday, hosts Matt Smith and Bryan Morry were interviewing former Patriots quarterback and current radio and television personality Scott Zolak. Twice during the interview, one of the hosts was complimenting Zolak for his outstanding play and media prowess and said, “I’m not trying to blow smoke up your keister.”
I hate this phrase.
No, I loathe this phrase. And I despise every form and variation of this phrase and wish people would stop using it immediately and forever more.
I hate it for so many reasons.
First, it’s gross. It conjures an image in my mind that is loathsome and disgusting.
Second, it makes no sense. No one wants smoke blown up their posterior regions, so to imply that offering someone an exceedingly and perhaps overly generous compliment is equivalent to blowing smoke up their butt is stupid. It makes no sense.
I also despise being constantly reminded of the historical origin of this stupid phrase. In 18th-century England, blowing smoke up a person’s ass was an actual medical procedure, used most often to revive people who were close to death, often as the result of drowning. It was believed that a tobacco enema would restore health to these nearly deceased patients. The process was so common, in fact, that several major waterways kept the instrument, consisting of a bellows and flexible tube, nearby in case of such emergencies.
Old-timey people were so stupid.
But in 1811, it was discovered that tobacco is actually toxic to the cardiac system, so this ridiculous procedure was quickly ended.
Sadly, the stupid, disgusting, meaningless, asinine phrase still remains.
I’d kindly ask that we all stop using this awful assemblage of words and every variation immediately.
We can probably put “keister” to bed, too. It’s also an odd choice of words.
Let’s make 2020 the year of the coronavirus pandemic but also the year when we eliminated this gross and stupid phrase from our lexicon forever.
