Thing To Be Today: as pleased as Punch.

To be as pleased as punch is to be thrilled to bits, to be utterly gleeful, to be completely delighted.

It's just a slight shame that the Punch in question is a serial murderer.

Still, never mind, he's a serial murderer designed to amuse small children. So that's all right, then.

Errr...

Here he is, in case you've never come across him:

For the information of those too busy to watch, I'm afraid the reason Punch is so pleased (That's the way to do it! he squawks) is generally that's he's killed another of his victims with his club.

Still, as I say, small children love him.

For anyone to be as pleased as punch something surprisingly wonderful must have happened, so I'm afraid it's not something that can be planned.

Still, we can all hope, can't we. 

And look out for delightful things:



photo by Jennagu

Word To Use Today: punch. Punch started off as the puppet Polichinello in the sixteenth century Italian commedia dell'arte. Usually the phrase as pleased as punch no longer uses a capital letter, perhaps because few of us want to associate ourselves too closely with serial murderers.

Even though this obscures the history of the phrase, this is almost certainly a good thing.

The Latin word pullus , which forms the basis of the name Polichinello, means a young animal.