Feb29

on leap day, heed the gap.

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Zanzibar – Kirks Red Colobus Monkey, leaping from tree canopy
photo: Bernard Castelein
—

toads, rabbits, certain bird species, kangaroos and wallabies hop and jump.

by contrast frogs, hares and jackrabbits and monkeys leap,

the latter

routinely covering the distance from one large tree to another in a single leap.

—
“the most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps.”
*david lloyd george
*uk prime minister, 1916-1922,
one of the 20th century’s most famous radicals.
the first any only welshman to this office

 

 

—
source credit: Bill Fife, GSU biologist with focus on natural history of vertebrates

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82 responses »

  6. So clever – in German we call it Schaltjahr (switch year), in French it‘s impossible to the ‚normal‘ non French-speaking person: année bissextile…. And of course, I said it just as I always did and do: Année bissexuelle….. to HH‘s amusement. I also always called it ‚the free working day year‘, created when I was an apprentice, also to a deeply sighing public of co-workers

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  13. According to Quote Investigator, “The figure of speech at the core of this saying had already been employed decades earlier, but Lloyd George was an important locus for its popularization, and in later years he often received credit.” The David Lloyd George version was “There is no greater mistake than to try to leap an abyss in two jumps.”

    The oldest version Quote Investigator found was from 1873, when “a writer in the ‘Chicago Times’ of Illinois expressed great skepticism about the plans of a duo who said that they hoped to travel from the United States to Europe in a balloon. The columnist used a simile with a stag to highlight the unlikely nature of the enterprise:

    Perhaps they will conclude to stay in Europe—perhaps half way there, like the unfortunate stag who tried to cross a deep chasm in two jumps.

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  32. We also have a saying that men shall be truly reigning and lording on three days of the year: Feb 29, 30, 31…. So on this year‘s leap day I posted : Men, it‘s YOUR day today.

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