chops, muttonchops, meat raffle,

EVEN in appearance, he seemed rather out of place in Singapore’s gleaming, ultra-modern urban landscape. In the early 1980s bankers and stockbrokers on their lunch breaks would shuffle in embarrassment past a courteous, dignified figure, vaguely reminiscent, in his muttonchop whiskers, of a Victorian statesman—Gladstone, say. J.B. Jeyaretnam would be railing against the government of the People’s Action Party (PAP) led by Lee Kuan Yew and hawking the Hammer, the organ of his opposition Workers’ Party.


RD What useless talent do you have that nobody knows about?
Harrison Ford I have real chops at ironing.


And so I wasn't at all certain I was hearing things correctly when a man in a plaid flannel shirt approached us and asked, "Would you ladies care to participate in my meat raffle?"
The ladies reached for their purses again — not for guns, as I would have imagined, given the man's question — but for wallets. They were each peeling one cool dollar bill off their private stashes as I stammered: "Wait! His what? His what raffle?"
"It's just a meat raffle, Liz," Aunt Luana explained. "We always have meat raffles around here."
"But what do you win?"
"Meat."
The bartender reached into a freezer and produced for my benefit the evidence: several giant packages of, indeed, meat. Frozen meat. A stunning pack of pork chops and a handsome four-pound chuck roast. These were the prizes of the night — beautiful meat to be sweepstaked off to some lucky drunk! Saloon meat! Chance meat! Destiny's meat!

raffle Show phonetics
noun [C]
an activity in which people buy numbered tickets, some of which are later chosen to win prizes, which is arranged in order to make money for a good social purpose:
a raffle ticket/prize
I have never won anything in a raffle.

raffle Show phonetics
verb [T]
to offer something as a prize in a raffle:
We are going to raffle off a car for the hospital appeal.
See also draw (CHOOSE).


chops
pl.n.

1. The jaws.
2. 1. The mouth.
   2. The lower cheeks or jowls.
   3. Muttonchops.
3. Slang. The technical skill with which a jazz or rock musician performs.

idiom:
bust (someone's) chops

1. To scold or insult someone.
2. To disappoint or defeat someone.
3. To hold a building contractor to the letter of an agreement.

[Possibly akin to CHOP¹.]

muttonchops

(mŭt'n-chŏps')

pl.n.
Side whiskers that are narrow at the temple, broad along the lower cheek or jawline, and separated by a shaven chin.


images
muttonchop