"You look like one of the Proclaimers!"

[GordonD]

A couple of things will need explained here.

1) There is a Scottish singing duo called The Proclaimers. (Arguably
their most famous song is '500 Miles', which was used in one of the
'Shrek' films.) Their names are Craig and Charlie Reid and they are
identical twins.

2) There is a stand-up comedian, also Scottish, named Frankie Boyle, who
until he grew a bushy beard bore a strong resemblance to the twins.

One of Boyle's lines used to be, "People tell me I look like one of the
Proclaimers. I reply, 'One of them? They're *twins*, you daft..." The
implication is that the person thinks he looks like one of the
Proclaimers but not the other one - which, as they are identical, is
obviously ridiculous.

Now he's clearly doing this for comic effect but would he be justified
in interpreting the statement that way? How would you phrase things if
you were telling somebody they resembled two people?
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[Cheryl]

It is a bit ambiguous, which is where the joke comes in - does it mean
he looks like either of the Proclaimers, or one of them? If I say "That
looks like one of Farmer Giles' cows" do I mean "That cow is black and
white like all of Farmer Giles' cows" or "That cow looks like Farmer
Giles' cow Bessie?

How to remove the ambiguity..."You look like you could be another
Proclaimer"? Or more boringly "You look like the identical twins, the
Proclaimers"? Perhaps "I didn't know The Proclaimers were actually
identical triplets! So you didn't go into music like your brothers did?"

--
Cheryl

[Peter T. Daniels]

To typically spoil the fun, it must be pointed out that identical twins
aren't _absolutely_ identical -- their parents can tell them apart almost
from birth, and so can their close friends. (And they might get different scars/tattoos.)
There are tales of spouses being duped, but that seems unlikely.

[Mack A. Damia]

On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 10:36:03 +0000, GordonD <g.d...@btinternet.com>
wrote:

>A couple of things will need explained here.
>
>1) There is a Scottish singing duo called The Proclaimers. (Arguably
>their most famous song is '500 Miles', which was used in one of the
>'Shrek' films.) Their names are Craig and Charlie Reid and they are
>identical twins.

You had me going there for a minute, but Peter Paul and Mary recorded
"500 Miles", but it is not the Proclaimer's song.

P.P. & M.'s song might be more famous in the USA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADN1lLEp3H0

[LFS]

No, it was just as famous in the UK. One of my favourites, thanks for
the reminder. The Proclaimers are rather jollier...

--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

[mrucb...@att.net]

Seen Juan, you've seen Amal...

[Hans Aberg]

The fingerprints are different.

[Tony Cooper]

The Kingston Trio released their version a few months before PP&M did.
I have no idea which group is most associated with the song. I
associate it with both.

Many other groups did the song. Including Elvis, but not well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ym0F7XVyKs




--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Peter T. Daniels]

> Seen Juan, you've seen Amal...

In stink.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Yeah, it would be sensible for the spouse to keep a fingerprint-scanning device
by the bed -- much more convenient now than an inkpad and cards were.

[Mack A. Damia]

Kingston Trio featured it on their album, "College Concert" in 1962 -
but on Side 2, which also featured the very famous "Where Have All the
Flowers Gone?" [1]. The album hit #3 on the Billboard Pop Albums
chart.

Appeared on PP&M's debut album in 1962, and then it was featured on
the single, but the B side of "Settle Down (Goin' Down That Highway)"
in the same year, which hit #56 on the Billboard 100.

[1] Kingston Trio claimed ownership, believing it to be a traditional
song. The melody and the first three verses were written by Pete
Seeger in 1955 and published in Sing Out! magazine. Additional verses
were added by Joe Hickerson in May 1960.

[Hans Aberg]

Or give them smartphones of different colors where they do not know the
password.

[Harrison Hill]

"If I get drunk, well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you,
And if I haver up, yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you".

So you might have double-visions (sic) to cope with :)

[Peter T. Daniels]

I can see a couple of glitches in that solution immediately.

[Jack Campin]

> One of Boyle's lines used to be, "People tell me I look like one of
> the Proclaimers. I reply, 'One of them? They're *twins*, you daft..."
> The implication is that the person thinks he looks like one of the
> Proclaimers but not the other one - which, as they are identical, is
> obviously ridiculous.

A few years ago two identical twin hoodlums in Glasgow got on the
losing end of a gang feud. They were separately kidnapped; one had
his penis chopped off with a chisel while the other had one ear
hacked off and holes bored in his skull with a power drill.

A comment at the time was "at least people will now be able to tell
them apart".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[GordonD]

On 16/01/2017 17:08, Mack A. Damia wrote:

Oops! It wasn't in 'Shrek' at all, it was an entirely different
Proclaimers song. It was actually used in 'Benny & Joon'.

But you're right, it is a totally different animal from the PP&M song.
Its full title is 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Gonna_Be_(500_Miles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM0sTNtWDiI - see if you USAnians can
understand what they're singing!

[GordonD]

That completely threw me as I was unaware that Elvis had recorded this
song. Turns out it's an informal jam session and not a live concert
performance or studio recording.

[Harrison Hill]

Wake up GordonD! That is a completely different song LOL :)

[charles]

In article <1260d8a4-0a43-4823...@googlegroups.com>, Peter

I had two uncles who were identical twins. By the time I knew them they
were in their late 30s and had both suffered very different WW2
experiences, but they could fool me if they played at it. My mother -
their big sister - always knew which was which.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

[Richard Tobin]

In article <1260d8a4-0a43-4823...@googlegroups.com>,
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>To typically spoil the fun, it must be pointed out that identical twins
>aren't _absolutely_ identical -- their parents can tell them apart almost
>from birth

Not always. Just recently someone - I can't remember who - told me of
a child who had to tell her parents that they had got her twin baby
siblings mixed up while she was away for a few days.

-- Richard

[Janet]

In article <rbvp7cdakfj537ite...@4ax.com>,
drstee...@yahoo.com says...

It was well known here in its day, but it's a completely different song
from the Procalimers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM0sTNtWDiI

Janet

[Peter Moylan]

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

I can't do YouTube on this computer, but I'll bet that's the song you're
talking about.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Tony Cooper]

Depends on what "that" is. Elvis recorded that song that PP&M and the
K3 recorded.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Ah -- a FoaF story. Of such is Snopes made.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <rbvp7cdakfj537ite...@4ax.com>,

Mack A. Damia <drstee...@yahoo.com> wrote:

"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" was a big hit in the U.S., peaking at #3 on
the Billboard Hot 100 in August of 1993. The only rendition of "500
Miles [Away From Home]" to have made the top 10, according to my
Whitburn, is Bobby Bare's 1963 version, which Wikipedia claims has
different lyrics.

-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[GordonD]

I would be really impressed if Elvis had recorded the Proclaimers song
as it was written at least a decade after he died.

[GordonD]

Yes, that's the one.

[GordonD]

On 17/01/2017 05:55, Garrett Wollman wrote:
> In article <rbvp7cdakfj537ite...@4ax.com>,
> Mack A. Damia <drstee...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 10:36:03 +0000, GordonD <g.d...@btinternet.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> A couple of things will need explained here.
>>>
>>> 1) There is a Scottish singing duo called The Proclaimers. (Arguably
>>> their most famous song is '500 Miles', which was used in one of the
>>> 'Shrek' films.) Their names are Craig and Charlie Reid and they are
>>> identical twins.
>>
>> You had me going there for a minute, but Peter Paul and Mary recorded
>> "500 Miles", but it is not the Proclaimer's song.
>>
>> P.P. & M.'s song might be more famous in the USA.
>
> "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" was a big hit in the U.S., peaking at #3 on
> the Billboard Hot 100 in August of 1993. The only rendition of "500
> Miles [Away From Home]" to have made the top 10, according to my
> Whitburn, is Bobby Bare's 1963 version, which Wikipedia claims has
> different lyrics.

Thanks for that.

Now that we have established who sang what, is there any possibility of
an answer to my original question?

[musika]

On 17/01/2017 00:10, Peter Moylan wrote:

That's The Proclaimers song.

--
Ray
UK

[GordonD]

Have I fallen into an Abbott and Costello sketch?

[Lewis]

In message <ee3m0k...@mid.individual.net>

GordonD <g.d...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> Now he's clearly doing this for comic effect but would he be justified
> in interpreting the statement that way? How would you phrase things if
> you were telling somebody they resembled two people?

If I were to say that someone looked like identical twins I'd say "Hey,
you look a lot like the _____ twins."

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJuyn0WAYNI>

--
There used to be such simple directions, back in the days before they
invented parallel universes - Up and Down, Right and Left, Backward and
Forward, Past and Future... But normal directions don't work in the
multiverse, which has far too many dimensions for anyone to find their
way. So new ones have to be invented so that the way can be found. Like:
East of the Sun, West of the Moon Or: Behind the North Wind. Or: At the
Back of Beyond. Or: There and Back Again. Or: Beyond the Fields We
Know. --Lords and Ladies

[Snidely]

How close are you to the front door?

/dps

--
There's nothing inherently wrong with Big Data. What matters, as it
does for Arnold Lund in California or Richard Rothman in Baltimore, are
the questions -- old and new, good and bad -- this newest tool lets us
ask. (R. Lerhman, CSMonitor.com)

[Mack A. Damia]

On Tue, 17 Jan 2017 23:29:05 -0800, Snidely <snide...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>GordonD wrote on 1/17/2017 :
>> On 17/01/2017 13:10, musika wrote:
>>> On 17/01/2017 00:10, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> On 2017-Jan-17 04:08, Mack A. Damia wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 10:36:03 +0000, GordonD <g.d...@btinternet.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> A couple of things will need explained here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1) There is a Scottish singing duo called The Proclaimers. (Arguably
>>>>>> their most famous song is '500 Miles', which was used in one of the
>>>>>> 'Shrek' films.) Their names are Craig and Charlie Reid and they are
>>>>>> identical twins.
>>>>>
>>>>> You had me going there for a minute, but Peter Paul and Mary recorded
>>>>> "500 Miles", but it is not the Proclaimer's song.
>>>>>
>>>>> P.P. & M.'s song might be more famous in the USA.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADN1lLEp3H0
>>>>
>>>> But I would walk 500 miles
>>>> And I would walk 500 more
>>>> Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
>>>> To fall down at your door
>>>>
>>>> I can't do YouTube on this computer, but I'll bet that's the song you're
>>>> talking about.
>>>>
>>> That's The Proclaimers song.
>>>
>>
>> Have I fallen into an Abbott and Costello sketch?
>
>How close are you to the front door?

I don't know on third base.

[Quinn C]

* Harrison Hill:

I can't find any example of "haver up" outside of the lyrics of
this song. is it actually a nonce formation?

In fact, I didn't know "haver" to start with, so I suspected it
was "have 'er up" until I reached "havering". The meanings I find
for "haver" (pretty much the same two as "waffle", which we just
talked about) don't make it obvious what either "up" or "to" are
supposed to do to it.

--
The trouble some people have being German, I thought,
I have being human.
-- Margaret Atwood, Surfacing (novel), p.130

[GordonD]

I don't think the word 'up' is in there. The phrase 'haver up' is
meaningless and its inclusion wrecks the rhythm.

[Janet]

In article <eece44...@mid.individual.net>, g.d...@btinternet.com
says...

Up isn't there. "If I haver, yeah, I know I'm gonna be"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM0sTNtWDiI

Janet

[Quinn C]

* Janet:

Good. But when I looked for "haver up", the version of the lyrics
with it in it was found dozens of times. You can't trust the
Internet any more!!

That still leaves me wondering about "havering to you".

--
Bug:
An elusive creature living in a program that makes it incorrect.
The activity of "debugging," or removing bugs from a program, ends
when people get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed.

[Snidely]

Mack A. Damia was thinking very hard :

It's a lot of times on base to walk 500 miles.

/dps

--
Ieri, oggi, domani

[GordonD]

So Abraham Lincoln said, according to this blog I read.

> That still leaves me wondering about "havering to you".
>

'Haver' means 'to talk nonsense' so 'havering to you' simply means
'talking nonsense to you'.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 18:16:35 +0000, GordonD <g.d...@btinternet.com>
wrote:

OED:

1988 C. Reid & C. Reid I'm gonna be (500 Miles) (song) in
Proclaimers Sunshine on Leith (record sleeve-notes)
And if I haver, yeah I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man

who's havering to you.

in the entry for haver, v. (To talk foolishly or inconsequentially; to
talk nonsense; to blather, ramble; to chatter, gossip).


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Peter Moylan]

On 2017-Jan-20 23:19, Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
> OED:
>
> 1988 C. Reid & C. Reid I'm gonna be (500 Miles) (song) in
> Proclaimers Sunshine on Leith (record sleeve-notes)
> And if I haver, yeah I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man
> who's havering to you.
>
> in the entry for haver, v. (To talk foolishly or inconsequentially; to
> talk nonsense; to blather, ramble; to chatter, gossip).

It has just occurred to me that blathering is something that a
blithering idiot does. For some reason, I had never made the connection
between those words.

[Mack A. Damia]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 23:23:00 -0800, Snidely <snide...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Only if you have the balls for it.

[Snidely]

Mack A. Damia blurted out:

It takes discipline not to go on strike first.

/dps

--
Killing a mouse was hardly a Nobel Prize-worthy exercise, and Lawrence
went apopleptic when he learned a lousy rodent had peed away all his
precious heavy water.
_The Disappearing Spoon_, Sam Kean

[Mack A. Damia]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2017 23:59:07 -0800, Snidely <snide...@gmail.com>

Stay positive. If you get a ground ball, make a bollocks burger.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Or if you have spices handy, "Keep Calm and Curry On"