God is the friend fo silence. See how nature -- trees, flowers, grass -- grows in silence; sse the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silince.... We need silence to be able to touch souls. --Mother Teresa ************************** deja moo: The nagging feeling that you've heard this bull before. ************ There are two nuns. One of them is known as Sister Mathematical (SM) and the other one is known as Sister Logical (SL). It is getting dark and they are still far away from the convent. SM: Have you noticed that a man has been following us for the past thirty-eight and a half minutes? I wonder what he wants. SL: It's logical. He wants to rape us. SM: Oh, no! At this rate he will reach us in 15 minutes at the most. What can we do? SL: The only logical thing to do of course is to walk faster. SM: It's not working. SL: Of course it's not working. The man did the only logical thing. He started to walk faster too. SM: So, what shall we do? At this rate he will reach us in one minute. SL: The only logical thing we can do is split. You go that way and I'll go this way. He cannot follow us both. So the man decided to follow Sister Logical. Sister Mathematical arrives at the convent and is worried what has happened to Sister Logical. Then sister Logical arrives. SM: Sister Logical! Thank God you are here! Tell me what happened! SL: The only logical thing happened. The man couldn't follow us both, so he followed me. SM: Yes, yes! But what happened then? SL: The only logical thing happened. I started to run as fast as I could and he started to run as fast as he could. SM: And? SL: The only logical thing happened. He reached me. SM: What did you do? SL: The only logical thing to do. I lifted my dress up. SM: Oh, Sister! What did the man do? SL: The only logical thing to do. He pulled down his pants. SM: Oh, no! What happened then? SL: Isn't it logical, Sister? A nun with her dress up can run faster than a man with his pants down........ . . . And those of you who thought it would be dirty, Pray for forgiveness you heathens! ************************ The Word of the Day for October 19 is: jitney \JIT-nee\ (noun) : a small bus that serves a regular route on a flexible schedule Example sentence: Guests at the hotel could ride from its parking lot to the beach in a battered jitney that seated 15 comfortably, but that held 20 or more on most trips. Did you know? Jitneys weren't worth a dime -- just a nickel. In the early 1900s, "jitney" was slang for "nickel," but it wasn't long before the term was applied to a new mode of public transportation that only cost a nickel. When they were introduced in American cities at the beginning of the century, vehicular jitneys could be any automobiles that carried passengers over a set route for a cheap fare, but eventually the term was applied specifically to small buses that charged a nickel for a ride. ***************** Rule: Never perform card tricks for the people you play poker with. ************* Nature is wonderful: millions of years ago she didn't know we were going to wear glasses, yet look at the way she placed our ears. ************* "circadian dysrhythmia," a fancy synonym of "jet lag." *********** A woman is in the bar of a cruise ship and asks the bartender for a scotch with two drops of water. As the bartender gives her the drink she says, "I'm on the cruise to celebrate my 80th birthday and it's today." The bartender says, "Well, since it's your birthday, I'll buy you a drink, in fact, this one is on me." As the woman finishes her drink, the woman to her right says, "I would like to buy you a drink, too." The old woman says, "Thank you. Bartender, I want a Scotch with two drops of water." Coming up," says the bartender. As she finishes her drink, the man to her left says, "I would like to buy you one, too." The old women says, "Thank you. Bartender, I would like another Scotch with two drops of water." Comin' right up," the bartender says. As he gives her the drink he says, "Ma'am, I'm dying of curiosity. Why the Scotch with only two drops of water?" The old woman replies, "Sonny, when you're my age, you learn how to hold your liquor. Water, however, is a whole other issue." ***************** The Word of the Day for October 1 is: tchotchke \CHAHCH-kuh\ (noun) : knickknack, trinket Example sentence: Upon returning home from his trip to Maine, Jerry ceremoniously placed his new ceramic lobster next to the other tchotchkes on his mantelpiece. Did you know? Just as trinkets can dress up your shelves or coffee table, many words for "miscellaneous objects" or "nondescript junk" decorate our language. "Knickknack," "doodad," "gewgaw," and "whatnot" are some of the more common ones. While many such words are of unknown origin, we know that "tchotchke" comes from the Yiddish "tshatshke" of the same meaning, and ultimately from a now-obsolete Polish word, "czaczko." "Tchotchke" is a pretty popular word these days, but it wasn't commonly used in English until the 1970s. ****************** LAUGHTER: --He who laughs last probably has an insecure upper plate. --Blessed is the man who can laugh at himself, for he will never cease to be amused. --At today's nightclub prices it's harder than ever for a comedian to make people laugh. ************ There are so many gas stations now that you can fuel all of the people all of the time. **************** A POEM FOR COMPUTER USERS OVER 40 A computer was something on TV From a science fiction show of note. A window was something you hated to clean And ram was the cousin of a goat. Meg was the name of my girlfriend And gig was a job for the nights. Now they all mean different things And that really mega bytes! An application was for employment. A program was a TV show. A cursor used profanity. A keyboard was a piano. Memory was something that you lost with age. A CD was a bank account, And if you had a 3-in. floppy You hoped nobody found out. Compress was something you did to the garbage, Not something you did to a file, And if you unzipped anything in public You'd be in jail for a while. Log on was adding wood to the fire. Hard drive was a long trip on the road. A mouse pad was where a mouse lived, And a backup happened to your commode. Cut you did with a pocket knife. Paste you did with glue. A web was a spider's home, And a virus was the flu. I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper, And the memory in my head. I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash, But when it happens they wish they were dead. *************** It is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. --George Eliot ***************** daemon droppings, noun The extra lines and codes that are added by mailer daemons to a failed e-mail message. This soiled message is then returned to the sender for scatalogical examination to determine the problem. ***************** The Word of the Day for September 14 is: yahoo \YAY-hoo or YAH-hoo\ (noun) : a boorish, crass, or stupid person Example sentence: The local teenagers' reputation as a bunch of yahoos was belied by their courteous treatment of the stranded motorists. Did you know? We know exactly how old "yahoo" is because its debut in print also marked its entrance into the English language as a whole. "Yahoo" began life as a made-up word invented by Jonathan Swift in his book _Gulliver's Travels_, which was published in 1726. The Yahoos were a race of brutes, with the form and vices of humans, encountered by Gulliver in his fourth and final voyage. They represented Swift's view of mankind at its lowest. It is not surprising, then, that "yahoo" came to be applied to any actual human who was particularly unpleasant or unintelligent. Yahoos were controlled by the intelligent and virtuous Houyhnhnms, a word which apparently did not catch people's fancy as "yahoo" did. ******************** Man was given a sense of humor to compensate for nature's law of gravity. ******* The law of gravity is the only law that operates without favoritism, without graft, and without delay. ******* A sailor's wife gets used to hearing strong language, a clergyman's wife gets used to doing without it. *********************** There's a territorial ritual to an aerobics class. I entered a class for the first time a few years ago and ended up where no one wanted to be... in the front row next to the mirror. It was three years before I could work my way to the back row. (Erma Bombeck) [like anyone would stick in an aerobics class for 3 years!!] ************** The Word of the Day for August 27 is: kangaroo court \kang-guh-ROO-KORT\ (noun) 1 : a mock court in which principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted *2 : a court characterized by irresponsible, unauthorized, or irregular status or procedures Example sentence: The press decried the tribunal as nothing more than a kangaroo court, meting out savage and arbitrary justice. Did you know? A "kangaroo court" is not a court by or for kangaroos, but beyond that, little is known about its etymology. What is known is that the first kangaroo courts originated in the United States at approximately the time of the 1849 California Gold Rush, and the word saw its earliest use in the southwestern U.S. -- it first turned up in print in 1853 in a book about Texas. It has been suggested that kangaroo courts got their name because they were initially marked by rapid and unpredictable movement from one place to another, or that they were in some way associated with Australian miners or with "jumping" (i.e., illegally occupying) mining claims. These hypotheses are all unsubstantiated, however. ****************** Some are born with cold feet, some acquire cold feet, and others have cold feet thrust upon them. ******************* The Word of the Day for August 26 is: crepuscular \krih-PUSS-kyuh-ler\ (adjective) *1 : of, relating to, or resembling twilight : dim 2 : active in the twilight Example sentence: In the crepuscular light of the shuttered room, it took several seconds for Manuel to make out the identity of the dim figure sitting at the table. Did you know? The early Romans had two words for "twilight." "Crepusculum" was favored by Roman writers for the half-light of evening, just after the sun sets; it is a diminutive formation based on their word for "dark," which is "creper." "Diluculum" was reserved for morning twilight, just before the sun rises -- it is related to "lucidus," meaning "bright." We didn't embrace either of these Latin nouns as substitutes for our Middle English "twilight," but we did form the adjective "crepuscular" in the 17th century. At first, it only meant "dim" or "indistinct," often used in a figurative sense. In the 1820s, we added its special zoological sense, describing animals who are most active at twilight. ************ From Galileo weekly update, 8/27/2001 On Thursday, routine maintenance of the on-board tape recorder is performed. At least once every 30 days, the tape is wound at high speed from one end to the other and back again to help reduce the mechanical stickiness which has plagued the operation of the recorder in the past. Normal playback operations consist of many small low-speed motions back and forth, as small amounts of data are read into the spacecraft computer memory, processed, and packaged for transmission to Earth at rates of 20 to 160 bits per second. When you compare this to a typical computer modem, which can communicate at 56,000 bits per second, you can begin to see why it takes a month or two for Galileo to completely read out a full tape, which can contain nearly a gigabit (1,000,000,000 bits) of data. At the modem speed, this amount of data could be transmitted in approximately 5 hours. On Saturday, Galileo reaches a milestone as it performs the 100th scheduled orbit trim maneuver since entering orbit around Jupiter in December of 1995. This engine burn will fine-tune the trajectory of the spacecraft, directing its path to the next flyby of Io in October. The maneuver, which could last as long as 9 hours, is preceded by an automatic drift rate calibration of the gyroscopes, which are used to maintain the attitude of the spacecraft as the thrusters fire. ******************** The Word of the Day for September 7 is: lampoon \lam-POON\ (verb) : to make the subject of a lampoon : ridicule Example sentence: A local cartoonist lampooned the mayor, portraying him as a slow, drawling bumpkin. Did you know? "Lampoon" can be a noun or a verb. The noun "lampoon" (meaning "satire," or specifically "a harsh satire usually directed against an individual") was first used in English in 1645. The verb followed about a decade later. The words come from the French "lampon," and probably originated with "lampons," the first person plural imperative of "lamper" ("to guzzle"). "Lampons!" (meaning "Let us guzzle!") was a frequent refrain in 17th-century French satirical poems. *********************** God greets Mother Teresa at the Pearly Gates. "Thou art hungry, Mother Teresa?" asks God. "I could eat," Mother Teresa replies. So God opens a can of tuna and reaches for a chunk of rye bread, and they share it. While eating this humble meal, Mother Teresa looks down into Hell and sees the inhabitants devouring huge steaks, lobsters, pheasants, pastries and fine wines. Curious, but deeply trusting, Mother Teresa remains quiet. The next day God again invites Mother Teresa to join him for a meal. Again, it is tuna and rye bread. Once again looking down, Mother Teresa can see the denizens of Hell enjoying caviar, champagne, lamb, truffles and chocolates. Still Mother Teresa says nothing. The following day, mealtime arrives, and another can of tuna is opened. Mother Teresa can contain herself no longer. Meekly, she says: "God, I am grateful to be in heaven with you as a reward for the pious, obedient life I led. But here in Heaven all I get to eat is tuna and a piece of rye bread and in the Other Place they eat like emperors and kings! Forgive me, O God, but I just don't understand..." God sighs. "Let's be honest, Mother Teresa," God says. "For just two people, does it pay to cook? *************** News is the first rough draft of history. --Philip L. Graham *************** The Word of the Day for October 3 is: catachresis \kat-uh-KREE-suss\ (noun) *1 : use of the wrong word for the context 2 : use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech Example sentence: The newspaper's sharp-eyed copy editor was adept at spotting any catachresis that might find its way into a reporter's story. Did you know? As you might have guessed, "catachresis" is a word favored by grammarians. It can sometimes be used merely as a fancy label of disparagement for uses the grammarian finds unacceptable -- as when Henry Fowler insisted in 1926 that "mutual" in "our mutual friend" was a catachresis. (Fowler preferred "common," but "mutual" does have an established sense which is correct in that context.) The first recorded use of "catachresis" dates to 1553, and it has been used to describe (or decry) misuses of a word ever since. "Catachresis" comes to us by way of Latin from the Greek word "katachresis," which means "misuse." A word whose meaning is very close to that of "catachresis" is "malapropism," which usually refers to an unintentionally humorous misuse of a word. *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. ******************* The Word of the Day for October 9 is: chagrin \shuh-GRIN\ (noun) : disquietude or distress of mind caused by humiliation, disappointment, or failure Example sentence: "Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared upon his features." (Arthur Conan Doyle, _A Study in Scarlet_) Did you know? "Chagrin" comes from French, in which it means "sad," or, as a noun, "grief." In the past, some etymologists associated it with another French "chagrin," meaning "rough leather" or "rough skin." Though these words are spelled the same, they aren't related. The "chagrin" that means "grief" supposedly comes from "chat," meaning "cat," plus "grigner," an obsolete French word related to the grinding of teeth. It has been suggested that the origin of "chagrin" might be connected to the lamenting noises of a cat and to the distress expressed by teeth-grinding; this is just speculation, however. What we do know is that English speakers borrowed the term in the late 17th century. *********************** USEFUL ENGLISH SYSTEM CONVERSION UNITS Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter: Eskimo Pi 2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital: 1 I.V. League 2000 lbs. of Chinese soup: Won ton 1 millionth mouthwash: 1 Microcsope Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier: Mach Turtle Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mph: Knot Furlong 365.25 days of drinking low calorie beer because it's less filling: 1 lite year 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone: 1 Rod Serling Half of large intestine: 1 semicolon 1000 aches: 1 megahertz Weight an evangelist carries with God: 1 billigram Basic unit of laryngitis: 1 horsepower Shortest distance between 2 jokes: A straight line Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement: bananosecond A half bathroom: 1 demijohn Given the adage "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" the first step of a one-mile journey: 1 Milwaukee 1 Million microphones: 1 Megaphone 1 Million bicycles: 2 Megacycles 4.409 lbs. mockingbirds: two kilo mockingbirds 0.2248 lbs fig cookies: 1 Fig Newton 1000g of wet socks: 1 liter hosen 1 millionth of a trout: 1 microfiche 1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin 1 million billion piccolos: 1 gigolo 10 rations: 1 decorations 10 millipedes: 1 centipede 3 1/3 tridents: 1 decadent 10 monlogues: 5 dialogues 2 monograms: 1 diagram 8 nickels: 2 paradigms 2 wharves: 1 paradox ********************** The Word of the Day for October 12 is: snivel \SNIH-vul\ (verb) 1 : to run at the nose : snuffle 2 : to cry or whine with snuffling *3 : to speak or act in a whining, sniffling, tearful, or weakly emotional manner Example sentence: I heard Mom tell my sister, "Stop sniveling about how mistreated you are; you're free to go out as soon as your chores are done!" Did you know? There's never been anything pretty about sniveling. "Snivel," which originally meant simply "to have a runny nose," was probably "snyflan" in Old English. It's related to "sniffle," not surprisingly, and also to an Old English word for mucus, "snofl." It's even related to the Middle Dutch word for a cold, "snof," and the Old Norse word for "snout," which is "snoppa." There's also a connection to "nan," a Greek verb meaning "flow." Nowadays we mostly use "snivel," as we have since the 1600s, to refer to self-pitying whining, whether or not such sniveling is accompanied by unchecked nasal flow.