Around Labor Day every year in Wilmington, NC thousands of little yellow butterflies show up.  In the back yard one day, as several were fluttering about, I got to thinking about the name butterfly and I wondered if they weren’t originally called flutterbies and one day someone mixed it up and said butterfly.  I suppose butterfly came from these creatures being the color of butter and they fly.  But for me, I now call them flutterbies, because that’s what they do, they flutter by.

Yogi Berra passed away on September 22, at age 90.  Yogi is one of the MLB’s greatest catchers of all time.  He played for the New York Yankees and played in 14 World Series.  He is also quite well known for making amusing statements, such as:

• “It ain’t over till it’s over”
• “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is phyical.”
• “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
• “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
• “All pitchers are liars or crybabies.”
• “The lousy teams are good this year.”
• “I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”
• “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
• “Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel.”
• “Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.”
• “It gets late early out here.”
• “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
• “We made too many wrong mistakes.”
• “He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.”
• “I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”

Another series of quotes noted and shared here that are shown completely out of context from the business meeting in which they were heard.

We’re kind of make-shifting
– Elizabeth Thiele

Puts stretch on the band.
– Elizabeth Thiele

If you don’t know it, it’s because you haven’t read it.
– Elizabeth Thiele

We don’t know what we don’t know.
– Elizabeth Thiele

I can be Sister Mary Anal.
– Elizabeth Thiele

In the US, we don’t care about obesity.
– John Schneider

I have to take a bucket with me everywhere I go.
– Mike Minor

My team prepares EACs, I don’t understand them, I just assume they know what they’re doing.
– John Schneider

It’s all about the party action.
– John Schneider

Check back for more postings. If your name is mentioned and you’d like it removed, please email me at chris@focmnetworking.com and I’ll give your request strong consideration and may even might possibly act on it. Seriously, though I will remove it if you want me to.

Background: This all started at a US Sales meeting and in order to stay focused on what was being said, I started writing down the business cliches, like “let’s circle the wagons”, “let’s table that”, “always be closing” and then count how many times they were said. As I began paying attention, I would hear a phrase that was appropriate for the context in which it was said, but wow, it sure was amusing to see the phrase just sitting there by itself. That lead me to put them into a slide show show so the phrase was seen in its purest form along with the person who said it.  As this practice became known, the slide set became the unofficial and humorous wrap-up presentation, kind of a summary of the things stated over the course of the meeting.

Well this word is completely new one to me: manspreading.  Apparently , it is so widespread that it is now a word.  I saw this online in an AP story.

The term, coined by commuters, refers to men on public transport who splay their legs wide apart and encroach on neighboring seats. It’s now been added to OxfordDictionaries.com.

The free online dictionary of current usage, created by the publishers of the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, issued its quarterly update Thursday of new words that have gained widespread currency in the English language. Here’s a sampling from the list:

—beer o’clock, n: the appropriate time of day to start drinking beer

—wine o’clock, n: same as above, only with wine

—Brexit, n.: a term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the 28-nation European Union

—Grexit, n.: a term for the potential withdrawal of Greece from the 19-nation eurozone, the countries in the European Union that use the shared euro currency.

—butt dial, v.: calling someone accidentally with your mobile phone in a rear pocket

—cat cafe, n.: a café or similar establishment where people pay to interact with cats housed on the premises