I try to stay current with the latest slang and abbreviations. I can understand, for example, “pretty fly for a white guy” (a little out of date, I know, but bear with me) and FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). (Example of usage: “They get funding dollars by spreading FUD around.”) But the real problem comes when you think you know what something means and you’re wrong. Thankfully, the latest example of that has not resulted in me spouting off, uninformed, to other people, so I can breathe a sigh of relief and pass on the knowledge.

Yogi Berra. Y’see, for a couple of years now, I thought it was some smart way of referring to Yogi Bear, like people pronouncing the Target department store as tar-jhay, to give it some ironic cachet. I mean, I could so imagine the Hanna-Barbera bear coming out with such gems as, “It’s deja vu all over again”.

I was wrong. Yogi Berra is a real person. He used to be a baseball player and manager, in fact. And he was renowned for twisting the English language into pretzels. Here are some more of his gems:

It ain’t over ’til it’s over

Never answer an anonymous letter

I usually take a two hour nap from one to four

When you come to a fork in the road…take it

I didn’t really say everything I said

When asked what time is was……” You mean now?”

On why NY lost the 1960 series to Pittsburgh: ” We made too many wrong mistakes”

You can observe a lot by watching

The future ain’t what it used to be

It gets late early out here

If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be

If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them

If you’re interested in finding out more about the man, he has his own site, which has autographed photos, baseballs and, yes, books for sale. I just hope you’re suitably cashed up.

I’m just happy to help out anybody who isn’t as up on US cultural references as s/he thought. I hear the current US president is a big fan of baseball. Wonder if Berra is one of his role models…?