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Sunday, November 23, 2014

Algeria came back, which makes me think I should do something for Algeria

Algeria came by once before and, quite frankly, I gave it short shrift, whatever the fuck that actually means.* Anyway, short shrift, long shrift, whatever, I think I should give Algeria more props, and so I shall.

The People's Republic of Algeria is next to Tunisia in the northeast, then bordered by Libya in the east, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean SeaThat's a lot of damn neighbors.

Algeria pumps out oil and gas, which is the main driver of its economy.

*Actually, I'm not the only one wondering. According to The Phrase Finder, Shakespeare came up with the expression, apparently out of thin air:
Shakespeare was the first to write it down, in Richard III, 1594.

RATCLIFF: Dispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:
Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.
It doesn't appear again in print until 1814, Scott's Lord of the Isles:
"Short were his shrift in that debate. If Lorn encounter'd Bruce!"
That seems an uncommonly long time to wait for a phrase that is in regular use. We can assume that, given the gap, the phrase wasn't part of the language in Shakespeare's day, or for some time afterwards, and that he coined it himself. Some sources cite it as '14th century', but neglect to offer any evidence to support that.
So there you have it.

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