Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for August 03, 2011

Sounds like bribery!

I find it kind of hard to believe Gene’s never heard of dowries. We learned about them in high school English…

this is a very suddle HINT by her

As a Brit, I have to assume that “shoot the moon” is a US colloquialism that I’m not familiar with. Over her it means (or used to mean) “do a moonlight flit”, that is, move house in the middle of the night to avoid paying the back rent. Doesn’t sound like that applies here!

Cute!

@ steve parkes In the US, shoot the moon means to go for it all.

many similar concepts, including ‘dine and dash’ (not paying a restaurant bill) and ‘pump and go’ (gasoline stealing), but you’re right — I can’t think of any Americanisms for stiffing the landlord …. “Sleep and slide” comes to mind as one that needs to be created …. ? Sounds like it might be skipping out on a hotel bill though! :)

Another note: the American sense of “shoot the moon” apparently comes from the card game of Hearts, where it’s the equivalent of bidding a grand slam at bridge. “Go for broke” is probably the closest equivalent in both British and American usage; it does mean “go for it all”, as Leon says, but with the implication of losing a great deal if the gamble doesn’t succeed.

I am an American who has never crossed the pond, but I have heard, and used, the term “midnight flit” often. Perhaps it is because we read so many British novels…

wow, many references here I think-the dowelry being a cartoonists library, and of course Hearts and dowry too. She has it right, shoot the moon when it comes to having a heart and a dowry! downright clever mr. Johnson

Back home, Arlo feels a disturbance in the force…

Hmm… seems that unless the girl is just dead weight and no help at all to her family, it would make more sense for the guy to pay the dowry, as in many countries.

In some other societies, just the opposite tradition applied: the brideprice.

“Shoot the moon” is a term from Hearts, in which a player wins every single point card in play. Since you normally want to avoid winning point cards, attempting it is extremely risky (if you miss even one card, you’ll have such a bad round that you may never recover) and extremely rewarding (if you’re successful, you add all of those points to the totals of all three of your opponents).

So the ‘solution’ to no zoom feature on the A&J Sunday strips is to make the rest of the week no zoom as well?Really?

So that’s a Dowry.

Around here “shoot the moon” means turning around and dropping your drawers to flash a bare a$$ at someone or something.

Regarding “shoot the moon”: I STILL don’t get its meaning in this comic strip… at ALL. Unfortunate use of phrase, IMHO.

I’m just glad dowries went out of style.

Well, I’ve learned few things today! Thanks folks. (Funnily enough, I’ve got Partridge AND Fowler under my chair just now, along with the excellent English our English (and how to sing it) by Keith Waterhouse.)

In the card game “Hearts,” as played in the United States, you do not want to end up with Hearts in your hand at the end game. It costs you points.

Unless you can get ALL the hearts. If you get ALL the hearts, you get a BONUS score. It’s hard to do because all ANY of your opponents has to do is prevent you from taking a SINGLE heart.

This is called “shooting the moon,” for reasons I have never discerned.