Possumblog

Scholar/Marsupial Terry Oglesby delivers the complete history of "open a can of whup-ass". A must read.

The phrase "open up a can of whup ass," meaning to unleash an overwhelming beating upon a foe, actually has a form which predates Nicholas Appert's invention of canning in 1809. As far back as the Old Kingdom of Egypt, archeologists have found inscriptions which remark that those who disturb graves would be liable for punishment. In the tomb of Neferefre of the Fifth Dynasty, one inscription on a clay vessel has been interpreted as "I carry the curse of those who dare touch His treasures--You shall bear mightily upon your buttocks the flail of ten thousand servant men."