Frazz by Jef Mallett for June 11, 2023

It wasn’t fog when the phrase came into play, but smog. Which was both harder to see through AND a lot more noxious. I have no idea if both those things played into the “pea soup” metaphor.

We don’t refer to it as chowder because everybody will respond with “Boston or New England?”. It’s easier to just say Pea Soup.

Caulfield is having a ‘drift’ day. He can’t quite see where he’s going or why, but he’s working at it.

Why? I have (only) a foggy idea. [or I don’t have the foggiest idea.]

I don’t know … Have you ever had brain fog?

Probably coined by a green-blind sailor.

Isn’t it a British saying originally? The thick fogs in London were called “pea-soupers” and I think both the fog and the pea soup it was compared to were a little different than their American counterparts.

Reminded me of a kid’s joke, where the responder answered “Pea Soup.”What did you eat for breakfast?What did you eat for lunch?What did you eat for supper? What did you do all night?

I just watched an episode of The Repair Shop where a painting was restored. The owner was describing experiencing pea soup fog that had a greenish hue and he said it stunk too.

When I was stationed in Sacramento CA in the early 70s I was working on a plane about 50 feet in front of our shop, which was lit up with massive lights. It was about 10pm, I had been working on a wiring problem since I had gotten to work at 4pm. I got to the foot of the stairs and not really paying attention I got about 20 feet from the AC and could not see anything. I some how got totally turned around and started walking in what I thought was the right direction and walked for about 20 min. Then I stepped over a blue light on the ground and realized that I was on the active runway, so I picked a direction until I found a taxiway and started walking next to the edge when I came up to the line chiefs truck(like a FedEx van). As it had been well over an hour since I had called the job in as completed and hadn’t gotten back to the shop which was about 3 min walk from the shop, they had been slowly driving around looking for me. I was the but t of jokes for getting lost 50 feet from the shop, but no one drove home at the end of the shift and no one from midnight shift showed up because the fog really was that thick. You could walk out of your house to your car parked just a few feet away and get lost

The general shape of a point is pointy. Everybody knows that!

YC ~ Fog as thick as peanut butter.

H ~ You mean pea soup.

YC ~ You eat what you like and I’ll eat what I like!

I think I know why Caulfield hangs around Frazz all the time outside of class. So he doesn’t get his little wiseacre butt kicked by his classmates.

The smoke blanketing the East Coast this week (that God it’s gone) was the color of a yellow split pea soup ….

How about just plain “dense fog”.

A very understated joke.