"Taint".. So, how many times can the reporters get away with saying this.

Do you think they have a rolling bet on how many times they can say it during an interview? I swear they are about to crack up getting to say taint today.

right but on the other hand I doubt they have any idea what they are saying. I think Colbert had a bit on it and you could see the smile in his eyes but the others seem not to make the association.

than the twits that interview him..

Stimulus package will be there soon. I like the idea but the phrase is getting to me.

:evilgrin: :hide:

You know you like that.

(shhh) :rofl:

--- Tina Fey to Amy Poehler, Baby Mama

I don't know-- maybe some kind of extreme amputee!

I keep hearing these twits use that phrase, and so far, only Jack Cafferty, who managed not to break up, asked, incredulously, after one such event, "Did he just say 'money shot'?"

Amateurs, the lot of them. I have nothing but contempt for these hicks.

...long before its more recent, one might say "tainted" meaning came into vogue.

just sayin'...

"money shot" was used in pocket billiards games. It was setting up the shot that would win the game.

That, though, probably is unknown to this younger, shallower generation of "pool players" who haven't a clue about the great history of the game.

Do you know about "playing pool" as opposed to "shooting pool"? If so, we might have grown up in the same neighborhood.

For sure, today's alleged journalists are clueless, as well.

The phrases just keep on coming ... http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pocket+billiards

That's the only way I've heard that phrase used before, in Britain. I've only heard of 'billiards', and 'pool'.

If you're serious about that meaning, you should let the Oxford English Dictionary know - they only have the film meaning:

" money shot n. U.S. colloq. a provocative, sensational, or memorable sequence in a film, on which the film's commercial performance is perceived to depend; (spec. in a pornographic film) one showing ejaculation (= come shot n. at COME n.1 Additions); (also, in extended use) a crucial or pivotal moment, event, or factor, esp. in another art form, as a novel.
1977 S. ZIPLOW Filmmaker's Guide to Pornography 34 There are those who believe that the come shot, or, as some refer to it, the ‘*money shot’, is the most important element in the movie. 1990 Vanity Fair June 56/2 That glimpse of molar through the hole in Otto's cheek is the novel's money shot. 1998 Chicago Tribune 13 Feb. III. 1/2 When people from the Midwest see..the sun out, people in shorts and T-shirts and maybe some snow on the mountaintops, they'll want to be here... That's our money shot."

the urbandictionary.com, with all due respect, is dead wrong on that one.

There's "billiards," wherein the table has no pockets.

And then there is pocket billiards, the formal name for what we call "pool." When people talk of "playing pool," where I grew up, in NE Pennsylvania, that was shorthand for the guy with the hole in the front pocket of his pants, playing with himself. That's why it was always referred to as "shooting pool," and if you ran into someone who said he "played pool," you knew you had a fresh one to be fleeced.

OED has a lot to learn about American slang.

I have known that meaning for 'pocket billiards' for 30 years. I have never heard pool called 'pocket billiards' until today; it seems to be the name preferred to make it sound a more serious game (ie not for the general public with little interest in it). Urban Dictionary doesn't pretend to give all formal definitions; but that meaning, which to you is 'playing pool' (not half as funny, I'd say, because it doesn't involve the pun on 'pocket') is correct.

Seriously, the OED does like to get earlier meanings for phrases; if you have any idea of a written publication that would have used 'money shot' in the pool sense before the 1977 porn sense, they'd like it. Since the presenter of the BBC programme in which they hunt down early meanings of phrases, Balderdash and Piffle, once made a porn film, it's the kind of thing they'd actually like to make part of a programme, if they make another series.

I could make to you would be for someone to find one videotapes of pocket billiards championship games. I'm sure it's in all kinds of literature, too. I wonder what the script of "The Hustler" looks like, come to think of it.

Just for fun, the google came up with this - http://www.hickoksports.com/history/billiard.shtml#america - which is a nice recap of the "billiards" v. "pool" matter. In the place where I grew up, there were establishments that had signs outside that said "Pocket Billiards Parlor." Yet, we called them "poolrooms," and, yes, it was all one word.

Funny the things one remembers. You must be young if you've never heard pool referred to as pocket billiards. Back in the day, as we geezers say..................

as I'm more familiar with the phrase "money shot" the way you speak of it here, and prefer to "play pool" rather than "shoot pool."

BTW, what's up with the whole "taint" discussion? What triggered this thread, may I ask?

:)

Apparently, from what I can glean, some commentators on some news show were commenting about something and the word "taint" kept coming up.

You getting the sense I know as much as this origin as you do?

And, yeah, I guess we are old, but would you have it any other way?

:toast:

...yes, it's been around in other contexts too.

But I was referring to photography, where its use predated the current meaning that all the 'net folks seem to think is the only one.

As to your question about pool, I used to be a pretty good pool player in my younger years. My best friend and I as teens were both pretty good and made sport of beating the young men at the Pin & Cue -- we'd make like we were just girls, y'know, and then the gallant young men would agree to a game with us, and we'd set them up, then bet some money, and then wham! Once in awhile one of us would even run the table -- very satisfying! But I dropped it in my twenties, and no, I don't know the difference between shooting pool vs. playing pool.

the photography reference was easily subsumed into the porn usage.

I was a girl who learned to shoot pool from her father and a bunch of other WWII veterans. When I'd get to play the boys, they always laughed. And then they didn't.

The phrase, "playing pool," refers to the guy with the hole in the front pocket of his pants. Get it? He's playing pool. Say it out loud.

"Shooting pool" is what you did in your younger years, and from now on, when you tell people about it, refer to yourself as "a pretty good pool shooter."

See?

;)

Starting now, I'll start saying I was a pretty good "pool shooter" in my younger days! If I can remember ... :-)

I'm just thankful I could remember all that so as to be able to pass it on to a whippersnapper like you.

Now, I shall go and rest and maybe take a nice little nap.........

:toast:

I'm from the east coast and know that meaning, but my BF from California had never heard it before.

Maybe they all don't realize what they are saying?

"Taint" is a hip slang word to know. If you don't know what "taint" is, you're just not very cool. Basically high school stuff. Almost certainly people under 30 will get it and laugh while most people over 50 will scritch their noggins and wonder what all the giggling is about.

It's been around forever.

Every generation thinks they invented all sorts of things that really are not new.

Trust one of those "people over 50" - we ain't gonna "scritch (our) noggins." We're gonna laugh at those kids who haven't a clue.

eeeeeewwwwwww....!!!

Obama tapped Clinton for Secretary of State.

Ooh, then Obama tapped Panetta for CIA director!

scary imagery right there.