Three things you may not have known

Of my many, many Itish friends, the ones with whom I spend the most time are Carb O'Hydrates and Patti O'Furniture.

The words Sue (as in (1) "A Boy Named Sue", the song made popular by Johnny Cash or (2) the character Betty White played on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Sue Ann Nevins, host of "The Happy Homemaker" show on fictional television station WJM-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota), Sioux (as in (1) the Lakota Sioux tribe of native Americans or (2) the towns of Sioux City, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota), Sault (as in the town of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan), and sou (an old French coin worth five centimes or 1/20th of a franc) are all pronounced exactly like the first syllable (with yet another spelling) of a two-syllable, hyphenated word for an assistant in a kitchen. Can you tell me the word?

One hundred twenty-five years ago today, on January 29, 1899, my favorite aunt, Marion (Silberman) Caracena was born in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. She died in November 1987 (88 years, 9 months later) in the town next to it, Abington. I have missed her ever since (and I'm biting my tongue to keep from saying because Abington makes the heart grow fonder).

Patchwork quilt

This past Sunday morning the low temperature at our house was 8°F (-13°C), the very opposite of toasty.

Here is proof, if you need any, that time really does fly: Donny Osmond is 66, Marie Osmond is 64, Madonna Louise Ciccone (the Material Girl) is 65. Wayne Newton and Barbra Streisand are both 81. Elvis Presley, as I mentioned the other day, would have just turned 89.

Years ago in Florida I worked with a guy named Otto Hlava. I told him one day that his name sounded like what comes out of a Hvolcano. He was not amused.

Some people are raised by mothers who believe "Feed a cold, starve a fever" and other people are raised by mothers who believe "Starve a cold, feed a fever". By which type of mother were you raised? Do you still follow the method your mother used? If not, why not?

Transitions are important in writing because they help achieve continuity in a piece by relating what came before to what follows. This post has no transitions whatsoever. It's just -- wait for it, wait for it -- a patchwork quilt.

I say Carmina, you say Burana, let’s Carl the whole thing Orff

That isn't original with me. I should be so clever. No, I saw a meme on Facebook that made me smile and I decided to pass it along to you.

Someone has said there are two kinds of people in the world, those who say there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.

I say there are three kinds of people in the world, those who make tbings happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened

That's not original with me, either. It probably has been years since I had an original thought in my head. As somebody else (I don't know who) has said, creativity is the art of concealing your sources.

I thought that was called plagiarism.

Thursday night's lack of answers on Jeopardy! included who is Beethoven?, what is the Ionian Sea, and who is Pol Pot? The clue (British, clew) for the Final Jeopardy Round mentioned Vietnam and all three contestants wrote down Ho Chi Minh.

I'd better stop while I'm ahead.

The mulberry bush returns

The low temperature around here this morning was 10°F (-12°C), most un-Georgia-like of Mother Nature.

Moving right along....

I enjoy blogging, the act of mining the vast near-emptiness that is my brain and composing posts to be published on this very 'web log' out of what few nuggets of gold I manage to dredge up (oops, mixed metaphor). It is therapeutic to rid my brain of the thoughts that spring up continually along with the inevitable detritus, flotsam, and jetsam of daily existence that help make an otherwise dull life interesting.

To be more accurate, I should say that I currently enjoy blogging because sometimes it seems more like hard work, and I also have a firm enough grasp of reality to know that it may not be enjoyable at some point in the future.

So it is abundantly clear that in spite of the words Giuseppe Verdi put into the mouth of the Duke of Mantua at the beginning of Act 3 of the opera Rigoletto, it is not just La donna (woman) who è mobile (is fickle).

I don't know very much about opera when it comes right down to it. I have just a superficial, passing acquaintance with it. I know that Georges Bizet wrote Carmen in French although it takes place in Spain, and that Giacomo Puccini wrote Madama Butterfly in Italian although it takes place in Japan. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote The Magic Flute and The Marriage Of Figaro. Puccini also wrote La bohème on which the Broadway musical Rent was loosely based, not to mention that "Don't You Know?", the song that helped launch Della Reese's career several decades ago, used the music from "Musetta's Waltz" from the same opera.

I know what let's do, let's toss a few opera singers' names around like Luciano Pavarotti and Maria Callas and Enrico Caruso and Amelia Galli-Curci and Roberta Peters and Lawrence Tibbett and Kirsten Flagstad and Joan Surherland and Placido Domingo and Birgit Nilsson and Renata Tebaldi and Kathleen Battle and Robert Merrill and Beverly Sills and Loritz Melchior and Renée Fleming and Marilyn Horne and Kiri Te Kanawa and Jessye Norman and Leontyne Price, the last of whom was from Laurel, Mississippi, the place where Ben and Erin Napier renovate all those houses on Home Town, their program on the Home & Garden Television network (HGTV), not to change horses in mid-stream or anything.

Finally, last night on Jeopardy! three people did not know that the way an egg must be cooked to produce a solid interior is called hard-boiled. A middle-aged man said, "What is soft-boiled?" and two middle-aged women never buzzed in at all. I found it incomprehensible.

Until next time, I remain,
yr obdt svt

Genericization of trademarks

...is a real thing and probably has happened more often than you might think. For example, do you say facial tissue or Kleenex? gelatin or Jell-o? insulated vacuum-sealed beverage container or Thermos? transparent covering or Cellophane? pressure-sensitive cellulose tape or Scotch tape?

What about crayons?

Wait a minute. Crayons?

I imagine, though I have no proof, that 99 and 44/100ths per cent of people who use crayons and speak English call a crayon a crayon. Where I grew up in North Central Texas, nobody -- and I do mean nobody -- ever said 'crayon' or 'crayons'. No, friends, they engaged in their own unique genericization of trademarks and called them crayolas. Our teachers would say, "Children, get out your crayolas" (except our third-grade teacher, Mrs, Cora Spencer, who called us "Little People") or one child might say to another, "Would you hand me that magenta crayola, please" (we were brought up to be polite). Having moved to Texas from Rhode Island when I was six, I found it bizarre but didn't say anything.

Please don't tell me that you know thousands of people who say 'crayola' instead of 'crayon'.

This all popped into my mind a couple of days ago when I read an annoucement from the Crayola Company that the third annual Crayola Creativity Week will occur from January 22nd until January 28th, 2024. One way of observing it, they suggested, was to see how many words could be made from the two-word phrase 'Creativity Week'. I suppose they were talking to children, but they didn't have to tell me twice.

Here are the words I found, 154 in all:

a at are art arty ate acre ace arc ark act activity active aver avert create cart cat crate creak creek crave crew craw caw car cave caver creaky cavity catty cake civet care carve crave cite cay eve every eye ewe eke ever evict ewer ere ice icy icky ire it I kit kite kew key kitty rack race racy rice ray rave raw rate ret reek rake rite react reactive review tart take tack tick trace track trick tricky trice twice try tray teak tea tear teary teat tit tire ticker trait treat tyke tar twit tat trek tacky trite tact tract ticker tweet tweeter teeter very vice vet view viewer veer vitiate vat vary week we wet wetter were wait wreck ware wear wart wick wit witty wire wiry wave waver wavy wacky weary wry wreak wicker wive waiter wary way watt wake weave weaver ye year yew yea yet yaw

Perhaps you can find even more.

Here is your trivia factoid of the day: Although the word 'crayola' was coined in 1903, since 1984 Crayola has been a wholly ownd subsidiary of Hallmark Cards.

Happy birthday, Elvis

You would have turned 89 today had you not left us when you were 42.

it It is hard to picture Elvis Presley or James Dean as old men.

They say only the good die young. Those two were very good at what they did, but that is not the same thing, not the same thing at all.

Mama was 47.

I will be 83 in a couple of months.

Your assignment for today is to read two short poems, "Little Boy Blue" by Eugene Field and "When I Was One-And-Twenty" by A.E.Housman. Only after completing your assignment may you say something snarky in the comments section.

The wheels on the bus go round and round

...or maybe they go 'round and 'round. I suppose it depends on how pedantic you want to be. Back in Poughkeepsie, New York, where I worked for IBM in the 1960s, a fellow named Douglas B. who was on temporary assignment with us from IBM High Wycombe in the UK always (well, not always but whenever the occasion presented itself) wrote 'bus and never simply bus because, he said, the word was a contraction of the word omnibus.

Here are some answers no contestant on Jeopardy! knew this week but I knew them:

Who is Molly Pitcher?
What is Van Cleef & Arpels?
What is Mumbai?

Today is called Epiphany or Three Kings Day or Feast of the Three Kings depending on where you live and what church you happen ti attend. If you don't happen to attend any church, today is called January 6th. Some people also call it Twelfth Night but other people call January 5th Twelfth Night. A day without learning something new is a day withour sunshine, in my opinion.

This week I learned that the Methodist Church in Great Britain is recommending that all British Methodists, clergy and laity alike, stop using the words 'husband' and 'wife' because those words can be 'hurtful' and 'offensive'. My first thought was "To whom?" and my next thought was "The snowflakes are moving again". If that makes me something-or-other-phobic I will wear the badge proudly.

Well, folks, the wheels on the bus or 'bus have gone round and round or 'round and 'round quite enough for one post.

T.T.F.N.

Once again, off we go into the wild blue yonder

Ho hum, another day, another 1.6 million miles of space hurtled through.

Is that how you feel? I definitely don't.

It is New Year's Day 2024. In my part of the world (the southern U.S.) many people do strange things on New Year's Day and wouldn't dream of not doing them. They think you (I) are (am) strange when you (I) don't do the things they do. Specifically, I'm referring to eating black-eyed peas to bring good luck in the new year, eating collard greens to bring financial prosperity in the new year (collards and money are both green), not washing clothes (because whatever you do on New Year's Day you will continue to do all year long), not sweeping your floors (because all the good luck will be swept away), and shooting off fireworks, lots and lots of fireworks.

It occurs to me, and ought to be self-evident, that each person's experience is unique. Even identical twins raised together have different experiences (one has an older sibling and one has a younger sibling).

Consider two people, one standing at the North Pole or the South Pole (I don't care which) and one standing at the equator. In the course of one 24-hour period, each will have made a revolution, but the one at the pole would have essentially piroutted in place and the one at the equator would have travelled 25,000 miles. Another difference is that the one at the equator would have passed from day to night and back to day again, while the one at the pole might have experienced either 24 hours of daylight or 24 hours of darkness.

So the next time you are tempted to say to someone, "I know just how you feel," remember this post and bite your tongue.

Speaking of this post, it feels very familiar. If I have posted stuff like this before, please send up a flare or something.

What do people do on New Year's Day in your part of the world?