Cobbled together

Yesterday I was having a chat with a colleague.  We got to wondering how the shoe repair shop across the street stays in business, in this day and age.  Once upon a time it was cost effective to have someone re-sole a shoe, or to fix the heel, but today overall quality seems to be on the decline (so you wear through the material of the shoe before the sole) and fashions change so rapidly that there is little reason to keep the shoes by the time they're in need of repair.
    As the conversation turned, he told me that a "shoemaker" is a derogatory term used in the restaurant industry for a chef who kind of just throws things together with little understanding.  I made the natural leap from shoemaker to cobbler (being the archaic term, and by now you should know how I like those), and from there to connecting to the idea that something "cobbled together" suggests a something put together hastily or carelessly.  It seems that our society holds a dim view of shoemakers in general.
    I know that this is going the long way around to make this point, but it's fascinating to me how some of these terms enter the lexicon.  A "Philadelphia lawyer" is a slick, highly capable, professional in that industry who thoroughly outclassed their country cousins (though for some reason, the term has more recently fallen out of favor). There are loads of idioms related to professions which say something significant about how the public perceives them.  By making clear use of this in a story, especially related to some fantastical profession, you can give a sense of age and cultural evolution to your world without having to do a whole lot of work.  Now, go get creating.


http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/cobble+together
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/philadelphia+lawyer