[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?

Will Rogers

 

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

Andrew W. Mathis

 

Life is good, if you like that sort of thing.

overheard in Palo Alto...

 

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his
tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand
this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio

 

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

Woody Allen 

 

There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little - and
it's always somebody else.

Cullen Hightower

 

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Gadzooks

 

This was originally two words - gad's zooks, which was sometimes hyphenated
and now almost always spelled as a single word.

 

Gad was a common term used to avoid speaking the name of God - an example of
a minced oath. That taboo, although still influential amongst the devout, is
now much weaker and the use of gad has diminished as a consequence. In the
17th century we would have had a choice of such 'gad' words - gadsbobs,
gadsbodikins, gadsbud, gadsbudlikins, gadslid, gadsniggers, gadsnigs,
gadsnouns, gadsokers, gadsookers, gadsprecious, gadswookers, gadswoons - gad
pretty much anything you like. These share a format with many reduplications
- many of which also take an existing word and add a secondary made-up word
for emphasis.

 

The only gad... form to have survived is gadzooks. That is still used but it
has gone the same way as prithee and odd's bodkins, that is, stagey
allusions to history that are wheeled out for comic effect - Gadzooks Mrs
Miggins, bring me more veal pies. Use of gad with its original intent may
have almost disappeared but such obvious replacements of words with
similar-sounding invented words that have less risk of offending is still
with us - feck being a recent example.

 

Gad began life in the early 17th century, for example:

 

Robert Armin's A nest of ninnies, 1608 - "And, gad, she will." and Beaumont
& Fletcher's The knight of the burning pestle, 1609 - "By gad, if any of
them all blow wind in the tail on him, I'll be hanged."

 

Gadzooks soon spawned a shortened form of its own - zooks. This is first
recorded in Thomas Heywood's The late Lancashire witches, 1634 - "Zookes
thou art so brave a fellow that I will stick to thee."

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Pratfall

 

Prat in this sense means "backside; buttocks", first recorded in the
sixteenth century but of unknown origin. A pratfall is a comedy fall on to
the buttocks. The British slang sense dates from the 1960s and means an
incompetent, foolish or stupid person. It became popular in the 1980s. It
isn't obscene, but it's a sharp expression of criticism or abuse.

 

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Where did Herbert Hoover's 1932 campaign slogan "A chicken in every pot"
originate?

A: With France's King Henry IV, who at his coronation said that he hoped "to
make France so prosperous that every peasant will have a chicken in his pot
on Sunday."

 

George Washington left America's shores only once. Where did he go?

A: To Barbados, in the West Indies, in 1751 with his ailing half-brother
Lawrence. It was during his stay  there that he was stricken with smallpox.

 

What did Richard M. Nixon's father raise on his ranch in Yorba Linda,
California, before moving his family to Whittier when the future president
was nine?

A: Lemons.

 

What well-known American woman's maiden name was Elizabeth Anne Bloomer?

A: Former First Lady Betty Ford.

 

Who was the first president paid a salary of $100,000?

A: Harry S. Truman.

 

Who was president when electricity was installed in the White House?

A: Benjamin Harrison. The year was 1889.

 

How much was architect James Horan awarded in 1792 for his winning design
for the President's House--now known as the White House?

A: Horan was given $500 and a lot in Washington, D.C.