phrases

Whoever coined the phrase “The sky is falling” obviously had no idea about astronomy and physics. I know it was originally a fable about a chicken who mistakenly thought that the sky was falling. This, however, was written by some author so lets not blame the poor chicken. The sky that is visible to us is made up of our atmosphere, the stars, the moon, other planets and asteroids, the sun, galaxies, comets, meteors, etc…So which of these things all of a sudden decided to fall and when should we expect it? Moreover, how did this guy know that they are falling? Did someone place a collect call to him and say “Hey, I’m about to fall so warn the public” and the guy having no idea who “I” am just assumed it was the sky? Maybe he got tired of staring up and decided that it was time to bring the whole thing down, literally. But I can see his point; in order to fall something has to come from upstairs. Being very meticulous he made a list and crossed off all the things already on the ground. This still left too many things in the sky (including man-made objects) so he just said to hell with it and lumped it all under “sky”. To fall by definition means to descend under the influence of gravity. Well although gravity is present in space nothing is descending, objects are merely colliding (except asteroids and comets that enter our atmosphere and have no choice but to fall being in the hands of gravity or this guy). Maybe this guy and gravity are one and the same.

Same goes for the expression “piece of the sky”. This saying can be found in some book titles and even a song by Barbara Streisand. What are these people talking about? When did the sky all of a sudden become a cake or a pizza pie? If so, can I place an order? Give me the slice with the Andromeda Galaxy layer and Jupiter on top, thanks. Like there is nothing else to divide so we have to rip the sky into pieces. Normally we’re selfish and want the whole thing to ourselves but when it comes to the sky all of a sudden we’re generous and everyone can have a piece. People are such strange creatures anyway, wanting to own intangible objects. They name stars after themselves and proudly announce that those stars now belong to them. In reality everything “up there” belongs to the afore-mentioned guy. I, for one, want no part of the sky especially since it’s falling anyway.