February 29th comes every U.S. Presidential election year. It is called Leap Year day. I pondered what we could do to celebrate this reaccuring phenomenon.
Should we sing along with Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” when Frederic discovers that he was born on February 29th and the whole story turns on a most ingenious paradox?
Instead I thought we could play around with all the uses of the word “leap” in the English language. A study in cliches! Here is what I came up with (can you add more?):
Leap to mind
By leaps and bounds
Quantum leap
Leap Frog
Leap of Faith
Leap to conclusions (or jump to conclusions)
Leap at the opportunity
Leap for joy
Look before you leap
Leap in the dark
Or the famous statement by Neil Armstong, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
All our daughters are involved in the arts (music and dance) and two majored in Ballet and Dance Performance, respectively. Despite that, I know next to nothing about ballet other than how hard it is to perform at a high level. I did learn that ballet has a special vocabulary for their various moves. Ballet even has many different words for leap or jump. I looked them up… Jeté. Grand Jeté, Sissone, Pas de Chat, Sauté, Petit Saut, Emboîté, and Entrechat. Who knew? I usually just watched slack-jawed and said “wow, she jumped good…”
Your turn
Try your hand at a couple other words and see if you can list their various uses. Words like:
Basket
Fork
Time
Hit
Fork in the road
Tuning fork
Fork it over
“Fork ran away with the spoon” —
🙂
I won’t be any help with the words, but you mentioned Pirates of Penzance, so now I adore you even more!!! Best movie ever!!!!!
Hit a home run
Hit the nail on the head
Hit the curb
Hit the road
Hit rock bottom
The movie was a hit
Happy leap year!
Great exercise, Steve! Time can be anything from the precision of a nanosecond to cryptic prophetic words to the absence of it in eternity!
“When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more…”
redeeming the time, because the days are evil
Time out
Time the race
Time piece
What time is it?
End times
Time, times, and half a time
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
Starting time, quitting time
I don’t have time to…
“Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.”
Luke 6:22-23
Lovers’ leap…and so soon after Valentine’s Day…
Leaping lizards!
Basketball, a tisket a tasket, a red and yellow basket, trash basket, clothes basket, vegetable basket, a basket case, basket chair, basket-shaped, basketry, basket weave. I cheated and looked it up in the dictionary, but I did get the first few.
For any other sailors in the group, “Hit the head!”
Basketball
Basket weave
Basket case
Easter basket
Fruit basket turnover
Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket.