Jar, 2007 (my donation this year)
I've always felt that the phrase "going to pot" was a bit derogatory and offensive to me as a potter. Here are a couple of things I have dredged up from the
I.S.H. ( Information Super Highway)...
From
Dictionary.com25. go to pot, to become ruined; deteriorate: "With no one to care for it, the lovely old garden went to pot."
And this from the Urban Dictionary:
| An item which is broken, defective or substandard. Two explainations have been historically applied. The first is that in olden times when food was scarce, people would leave the bones, fat and undesireable portions behind after eating their meal. These second-rate items would be used for soup the next day, so as such, the poor-quality leftovers would "go to pot". The second (and more plausible) explaination is that in the days of the industrial revolution and early mass-production, assembly workers would occasionally find a defective or out-of-tolerance part which was not suitable for use. This part would be sent back to the smelting room to be melted down and re-cast a second time. Since the smelting was done in a giant pot, these defective parts had "gone to pot". In either case, the phrase gained popular use by the American homeowner who would occasionally wear out an item which would fail- often at an inconvenient time. Frank didn't want to take his car in for routine maintenance. I wasn't surprised when his vacation was ruined after the car went to pot last summer.
|
What do you think?
Maybe we should call it sweetening the pot instead. I digress.
Bowl by Matt Kelleher
The Ninth Annual NC Pottery Center Benefit Auction is this Saturday! I have been donating pots to the auction almost every year. I kind of missed my chance last year somehow. These things happen. I love taking the trip over to Seagrove.
Here is a nice online preview of Saturday's auction. I hope to see some of you there. Come and
support our NC Pottery Center.
