Last night we hosted a dinner party for fourteen--our "small" group from church. There wasn't much praying but a lot of good eating and conversation. It was a pot luck with everyone pitching in to help. We cooked a ham. When it was done I looked for Jon to carve. He deligated the job to Bill, who along with Joann his wife is the master of the kitchen. Bill deferred at first to Jon, saying since he was the "Grand Poobah" he should have the honor. That phrase brought a smile to my husband's face and he assimilated the role wearing the honor of "grand poopah" (as he pronounced it ) with honor. No disrespect to my husband intended. He has a great sense of humor, but he is going to have to live with the consequences. He shall now be known as the "Grand Poopah" --Lord High of Everything Else. I am not sure if all this titling is good dogma for a group of Christians but I think the Lord has a sense of humor too. Grand Poopah is will be.
Today I had to Google it for the history behind the real title.
""Poobah" comes from Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado," which debuted in 1885 and skewered the then-current rage in Britain for allthings Japanese. Set in the fictional small Japanese town of Titipu,The Mikado tells the storyof Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, Yum-Yum, his fetching ward, andNanki-Poo, a wandering minstrel who is actually the son of the Mikado(Emperor) in disguise. The plot of The Mikado is far too baroque torelate here, but one ofthe other characters is, you guessed it, Poo-Bah, who holds theexalted offices of Lord Chief Justice, Master of the Buckhounds andGroom of the Back Stairs, as well as the handy catch-all post of LordHigh Everything Else."Lord High Everything Else" was such a brilliant summation of theself-important puffery of bureaucracy that "Poo-Bah" (and its variant"poobah") immediately became a popular mocking synonym for someone who holds a number of offices, wields ultimate power, or exhibits aninflated self-regard. "
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