Mickey DAZE, hoe...

Mine workers’ baseball team warming up before game. Welch, West Virginia, 8/11/1946

Series: Photographs of the Medical Survey of the Bituminous Coal Industry, 1946 - 1947

Record Group 245: Records of the Solid Fuels Administration for War, 1937 - 1948

Image description: Black baseball players in the uniforms of the MINERS warm up next to the dugout, where more players sit. In the stands (open, but with a roof, so at least they have some shade) people take their seats. 

TOOT YOUR OWN HORN

Idiomatic Meaning: To brag about one's own skills or achievements; be pretentious about one’s accomplishments; draw attention to oneself for self-promotion.

Literal Meaning: Owning and blowing/playing a brass instrument, such as a trumpet, or even a tuba.

Usage: Formal or informal, spoken or written British and American English. Frequently used in a negative sense, as in “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but…”, or, “not to toot my own horn but…”.

Origin: 15th Century or 18th Century - British and American English. Before there was “don't toot your own horn,” there was “don't blow your own trumpet.” The phrase comes from the Medieval tradition of announcing the arrival of royalty or an important guest with a fanfare of horns. There is even a reference to it in the King James Bible. Another theory is that the saying originated in the United States about 1776 (a “declaration of self-independence”?) in the “Warren-Adams Letters” as “I think modesty is highly overrated as a virtue — my motto is ‘Toot your own horn lest the same never be tooted.'” The British English version may still be “blow your own trumpet”. Americans just changed “blow” to “toot”, and “trumpet” to “horn.”

Why is this funny? In the photo we see two musicians who have just finished playing a song or a set of songs. The audience might be applauding loudly. The guitarist says that their music was “something else”. This is slang for “really great.” The saxophone player acknowledges the guitarist’s remark but demurs, saying he would prefer to have played guitar. The sax can generically be called a “horn”. So, what we have is someone who would rather play the guitar than his own instrument. In other words, he doesn’t want to toot his own horn; or the sax player is only being modest and even though he knows he was great, he doesn’t want to brag or “toot his own horn.”

#Nas #Rare #KingsDiseaseII