el Mon, 28 Jun 2004 21:14:30 -0700 Jos Laake <jos@xxxxxxxxxx> escribi?: > I believe it's a reference from the Frank Zappa song "Apostrophe", no? > From the album of the same name. > > I belive the line goes: > "The crux of the biscuit is the Apostrophe." - FZ right. "it should be easy to see..." > What it means? I have no idea. Random silliness from the Master > is my guess. ;-) i don't see it as random. i'm not a native speaker of english, but i think i can follow how zappa developed a funny variant of the idioms that use the word"crux" (meaning of course "decisive point", and not "cross"), mainly "the crux of the matter", but also "the crux of the problem/conflict", "the crux of the discussion/debate", etc. it's very probable that zappa himself invented the expression (can anyone trace it to a predating source?), perhaps melding "crux of the matter" and "crust of the biscuit". it appeared first in the song "stink foot", which was included in the album "apostrophe" from 1974. zappa also used the expression in conversation, i remember reading interviews where he used this peculiar idiom. excuse the OT, but the artists and groups usually mentioned on this list are completely unknown to me, for once i wanted to talk a musician i _do_ know. er... not very probable an OT about duke ellington or thelonious monk, is it? best, lj --
