MORE ODDS AND ENDS

(Elaine is still in the hospital. We expect her home soon.)

I wonder why problems always seem to happen on weekends.  Oh well...

My daily schedule now includes WORDLE.  It is addictive, and I've solved 12 out of 12 so far. Hooray for me.

01. Snake in the Bowl

A Texas boy preparing to relieve himself found an adult western diamond rattlesnake poking its head out of the water in the toilet bowl.  Its a good thing he saw it because if it had gotten a good tushy "asp-bite" the boy would not have recovered.

02.  Wanna get rich?

Max Gunter in "How We Feel about Our Money" reports on a Roper poll from 1967 that asked Americans what they would do for a million dollars.  These are the results:

1% would leave their families

4% would yield citizenship

10% would marry someone they didn't love

11% would permanently give up friends

12% would take off their clothes in public

13% would serve a year's jail term on a framed charge

14% would take a dangerous job with a 1-in-10 chance of losing one's life

21% would become a beggar for a year

14%  ?  Maybe they don't feel that large amounts of money is important.

03.  Incarceration

Adam Gopnik wrote in 2017 in the New Yorker:

"... 6.7 million people, mostly men, were under correctional supervision during the year 2015 -- more than were enslaved in antebellum America and more than resided in the Gulag Archipelago at the height of Stalin's misrule."

(I wonder how many folks are in jail because of holding marijuana joints, or not paying their parking tickets.)

In September, 2014 it was reported that "A Maryland Senate Bill goes into effect on October 1st. It makes the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana a civil offense, subject to a fine.  However, more than 10 grams and its paraphernalia remains a criminal offence."

I have heard that some southern states may have reinstituted "chain gangs."

Civilization?

04.  Slang

Michael G. Williams wrote about the origin of certain slang phrases for senior communities' newsletters.  Here are a few paraphrased examples:

SLANG - from "Shortened Language."

TOAST - Years ago it was common to drop toasted bread into wine glasses to filter out the sediment. Over the years winemakers (even I) learned how to filter wine and toast was no longer needed.  However the phrase "a toast (to the host)" persisted.

HELLO/HI - Around 1820, Davy Crockett invented "hello" as a greeting.  When the telephone appeared in 1860, it was shortened to "hi."

05.  Sex Education?

A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what?  We learned how to make babies today."

The grandmother, more than a little surprized  - tried to keep her cool.  "That's interesting," she said, "how do you make babies?"

"It's simple," replied the girl.  "you just change "y" to "i" and add "es."

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