SHAGGY DOG:LIGHTNING NEVER strikes twice is a phrase intended to offer consolation to someone after a recent misfortune, to remind them that it is unlikely to happen again, writes Albert Jack.
It is an expression based on superstition, and one that might encourage us to tempt fate by doing something again in the belief that the same bad luck cannot repeat itself.
But I have been in touch with Nasa (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the US) and can confirm that lightning does indeed strike in the same place more than once.
Nasa conducted a survey in Tucson, Arizona, during the summer of 1997 and found that, within its sample of 386 flashes, 136 flashes (35 per cent) struck the ground in two or more places that were separated by mere tens of metres or less.
There were a total of 558 different strike points; therefore, on average, each cloud-to-ground flash hit the earth in 1.45 places.
So if you don't want to be hit by lightning, then don't stand around near any place it has struck before, as it could happen again.
That and, obviously, don't move to Arizona.
Umpteenis not exactly a phrase or even idiom, but it is still well worth recording. It is a word we use to describe a randomly large amount. With my mum it was always: "I have told you umpteen times not to do that."
During the first World War, army signallers used Morse code, which is a sequence of dots and dashes, to send and receive vital messages, and this was an invaluable method of communication.
For reasons that are not clear, the word "umpty" became slang for a single dash and, by borrowing the "teen" part of 16, 17, 18, etc, the word for a large number of dashes in a sequence became "umpteen".
A reeferis an early name for a midshipman, so called because of his work reefing sails.
The rolled reef of a sail closely resembles a rolled marijuana cigarette, which is how a slang term for a joint became "reefer".
It is also quite possible that the early sailors and explorers were sometimes a lot higher than just the top of their ships' masts.
Extracted from Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheepby Albert Jack (Penguin Books)