Happy Birthday Jimmy Clifton

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Tireman4, Aug 26, 2004.

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  1. Tireman4

    Tireman4 member

    Happy Birthday Jimmy




    This is from your favorite Democrat. I hope your day is a joyous one.
     
  2. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    And likewise from this Democrat as well.

    (What does "Many happy returns" mean anyway?

    John Bear, who just applied a
    "Republicans for Voldemort"
    bumper sticker to the Ford Focus
     
  3. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Thanks to Michael (my favorite Democrat) and John Bear (who I thought was a liberal Republican, ha!) for the birthday wishes.

    Thanks in advance to any others who may wish me well and I want to wish others a happy birthday who share this day with me.
     
  4. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Jimmy C: "I want to wish others a happy birthday who share this day with me."

    And that would be about 130 million people*, since the first humans, including:
    Ruby Keeler
    Sean Connery
    Gene Simmons
    Mel Ferrer
    Leonard Bernstein
    Walt Kelly
    George Wallace
    Althea Gibson
    Frederick Forsyth
    Van Johnson
    and you can have whoever is behind curtain #3 (if it's Monty Hall).


    ___
    * 1/365th of 50 billion
     
  5. Splas

    Splas New Member

    I share my birthday with Britney Spears but thats neither here nor there.

    Anyway, as a fellow republican I feel I should wish you a happy birthday and congratulate you on your good taste in choosing your political affliation :D. May you have many more!
     
  6. Dr. Gina

    Dr. Gina New Member

    I hope you have a happy one!!!!!!!
     
  7. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I meant the others on DI, ha!

    Please tell me you are mistaken and that I don't share the same birthday with Wallace!
     
  8. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Happy birthday!

    And you do share it with George Wallace, but maybe that'll be mitigated a bit by the fact that on this day 84 years ago, the 19th Amendment (granting women's suffrage) was finally adopted.


    Cheers,
     
  9. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Thanks Tom, I guess I can find some consolation in that.
     
  10. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    It's adapted from a commonly-used, early 19th century, tip-o'-the-hat style wish by one person to a second person on said second person's happy day -- regardless of the reason it was happy. "May you have many returns of this day's happiness," was approximately what the saying was, give or take. Just picture a guy with a handlebar mustache wearing an 1840s pin-striped suit tipping his derby hat to the person having the happy day as he utters it. Pretty easy to see how it was used, eh?

    Thereafter, over the next 50 years or so, it morphed into more of a toast sort of thing -- something one says as everyone raises glasses. And by then it had come to mean something more along the lines of "have many more happy days (such as this one)" and was more of a wish that the person would live many more years, hence its use by then almost exclusively at birthday celebrations.

    Trivia can be a curse.

    Happy (belated) Birthday, Jimmy!
     
  11. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    I should have added that the latin phrase "Ad multos annos" (meaning "to many years," and best expressed as a toast or a good wish exclaimed loudly on happy occasions such as birthdays) is often associated with the phrase "many happy returns."

    Okay... enough, already!
     
  12. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Thanks DesElms.
     

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