"My mother put her hands on my shoulders, looked me straight in the eye, and gave me her best motherly advice:  "don't screw it up, Alton"

from The Cardturner by Louis Sachar

A "Brazen Act of Plunder"

"Every few years, the Congress of the United States of America voted generous price supports for a handful of millionaires in the great state of Florida.  The crop that made them millionaires was sugar, the price of which was grossly inflated and guaranteed by the US government.  This brazen act of plunder accomplished two things:  it kept American growers very wealthy, and it undercut the struggling economies of poor Caribbean nations, which could't sell their own bounties of cane to the United States at even half the bogus rate."

from Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen

I love Carl Hiaasen; his books are wacky, risqué, and are a call to protect the environment .

more on sugar subsidies here
http://www.coha.org/u-s-sugar-subsidies-and-the-caribbeans-sugar-economies/

No ID Required at Gun Shows

"Make no mistake:  I'm all about guns! I just love the legal incongruities our national discourse has spawned, like I can buy a shotgun any time of day without the slightest background check, but if I need something for my sniffles, it's six forms of  ID and complete school transcripts.  The government essentially created a system where if I want to clear a head cold, the easiest cure is to blow my brains out."

From Striptease by Carl Hiaasen

last year Oregon required ID to buy nail polish (because acetone is used in the preparation of meth)  this requirement was later removed, but most states still require ID to buy cough syrup, drain cleaner, and supermarkets keep baby formula behind cabinet doors.

"That's another danger I see in the lives of our aging parents:  

Their worlds are have become so small that they can't tolerate anything 

they haven't seen before; 

and only associate with people 

just like them.

I'd as soon avoid that."

Starboard and Larboard

The Vikings called the side of their ship its board, 

They placed the steering oar, the "star" on the right side of the ship, 

thus that side became known as the "star board." 

.... And, because the oar was in the right side, 

the ship was tied to the dock at the left side. 

This was known as the loading side or "larboard". 

Later, it was decided that "larboard" and "starboard" were too similar, especially when trying to be heard over the roar of a heavy sea, so the phrase became the "side at which you tied up to in port" or the "port" side.

from http://www.navy.mil/navydata/traditions/html/navyterm.html

this also explains why people who fall off ships go "overboard"

image from bbc.co.uk

Hunky-Dory

The story is that it came from a street named "Honki-Dori" (or Huncho-dori) in Yokohama, Japan. Since the inhabitants of this street catered to the pleasures of sailors, it is said the street's name became synonymous for anything that is enjoyable.

The problem is that the term came from a song that became popular during the US Civil War and 

"Japan was not opened to foreign ships until Commodore Perry's visit in 1854.

It seems somewhat doubtful that the Yokohama theory holds water. More likely, hunky-dory was already a slang term when American sailors first had shore leave to Huncho-dori Street."

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1495/whats-the-origin-of-hunky-dory

Snarky

Snarky means:

crochety, snide, snappish, sharply critical, cutting, sarcastic, impertinent, or irreverent in tone or manner.  Doubtlessly, this includes most people (at some point) when dealing with humans.  

Jesse B Semple is Still Here

"In my time I have been cut, stabbed, run over, hit by a car, tromped by a horse, robbed, fooled, deceived, double-crossed, dealt seconds, and mighty near blackmailed--but I am still here!
I have been laid off, fired and not rehired, Jim Crowed, segregated, insulted, eliminated, locked in, locked out, locked up, left holding the bag, and denied relief. I have been caught in the rain, caught in jails, caught short with my rent--but I am still here"

My mama should have named me Job instead of Jesse B. Semple. I have been underfed, underpaid, undernourished and everything but undertaken--yet I am still here.  The only thing I am afraid of now--is that I will die before my time."

...."what do you expect to die of--complaining?"

"No,".."I expect to ugly away."
...I thought the man would laugh, [but] he ..did not know I was making a joke."

from "The Later Simple Stories" by Langston Hughes

"..my feet have helped to keep the American shoe industry going, due to the money I have spent on my feet.
I have wore out seven hundred pairs of shoes, eighty-nine tennis shoes, forty-four summer sandals, and two hundred and two loafers.  The socks my feet have bought could build a knitting mill...Oh, my feet have helped make America rich, and I am still standing on them."

From "The Later Simple Stories" by Langston Hughes

"people have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say"
.....
The ..woman's expression implied that she would go crazy on the spot if anybody did any more thinking...she hated people who thought too much.  At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.

"I think you'll find, that everybody does about the same amount of thinking.  Scientists think about things in one way, and other people think about things in others."

from Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Flammable VS Inflammable VS Imflammable

Prefixes in English are unreliable,

sometimes its

un-

like unhealthy

sometimes it's 

in-

like inappropriate

sometimes it's 

dis-

like disfunctional

So we have inflammable, meaning easy to burn

Memory Tip: an infection is inflamed and the skin is hot to the touch

During World War 2 there was confusion about combustibles when some interpreted inflammable to mean not flammable (sometimes "in-" means not)

So flammable was used more and more frequently, until by the 1970s "inflammable" was completely phased out, and the negative was non-flammable.

Imflammable is just an error in spelling 

  

Valuable vs Invaluable

Valuable = pricey, but price can be calculated.
Invaluable is beyond price.

At $1000, this is a valuable diamond.
Your assistance in preparing my thesis has been invaluable.

"I don't know why looking back should show us more than looking at"

from "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" by Amy Hempel

...forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be"

from Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut

An Informal Prayer (the Prayer of Cyrus Brown)

Spell check doesn't help some people--I keep seeing spelling mistakes on copies out there.  Here is my favourite advice on prayer

"The proper way for a man to pray,"
Said Deacon Lemuel Keys,
"and the only proper attitude
is down upon his knees."

"Nay, I should say the way to pray,"
Said Reverend Doctor Wise,
"Is standing straight with outstretched arms
and rapt and upturned eyes."

"Oh, no, no, no!" said Elder Snow,
"Such posture is too proud.
a man should pray with eyes fast closed
and head contritely bowed."

"It seems to me his hands should be
austerely clasped in front
with both thumbs pointing toward the ground,"
Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.

"Last year I fell in Hodgkin's well
head first," said Cyrus Brown,
"With both my heels a-stickin' up
And my head a-pointin' down.

And I made a prayer right then and there,
the best prayer I ever said,
the prayingest prayer I ever prayed
A-standin' on my head!"

Sam Walter Foss

"For many years it had been my habit, when ...time grew heavy on my hands, to pray--often not so much beseeching God for a special favour .. but simply out of some great need to stay in touch with Him, making sure that I never strayed so far away that He would never be beyond hearing my voice."

from The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

You Speak a Little Old Norse Every Day

Boat Words
skipper
ship
larboard
starboard
scull (oars or small row boat)

Fighting Words
gate
ransack
die
anger
awe (in the old meaning of fear)
berserk
outlaw
murder
hell
gun
scare
ugly
crawl
knife
hit

SK words 
skin
skill
skirt
scatter
skipper
sky

Peaceable Words
geyser
husband
yard
church
window
Thursday
saga
anything ending in "gate" to mean street  like Ramsgate, UK

Legal Terminology
law
peace
break the law
outlaw
concepts: differentiate manslaughter from murder
flee/flight
conflict resolution by vengeance, arbitration and trials

Grammar Changes  When Old Norse Mingled With  Old  English

1) Verbs were regularized
example: holp and holpen became help and helped
holpen appears in the King James Version of the Bible "He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy"  Luke 1:54  Thanks to the Norsemen, nowadays we can just say "helped"

2) plurals in Anglo-Saxon were regularized because of the influence of Old Norse which had fewer word changes to create plurals.  So now we have yard and (plural) yards   A few irregular plurals still exist from Anglo- Saxon like ox/oxen,  foot/feet.

3)additional vocabulary
English is rich in synonyms because it has adopted "loanwords" from other languages in addition to
existing words,  Thus we have
Old English/Old Norse
rear/raise
carve/cut
craft/skill
hide/skin.

What is Wealth?

The people of San Lorenzo had nothing but diseases, which they were at a loss to treat, or even name. 

By contrast, Johnson and McCabe had the glittering treasures of literacy, ambition, curiosity gall, irreverence, health, humour, and considerable information about the outside world."

from "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut

Why we pay 16.5% tax on shirts from Bangladesh and 0% on shirts from Colombia

Protecting U.S. trade means following an incredibly elaborate set of rules spelled out in a giant book that's more than 3,000 pages long. Michael Cone, a customs and international trade attorney in New York, calls it "the book of everything." Its official name is the “Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/12/06/247361423/the-giant-book-that-creates-and-destroys-entire-industries

"peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God"

from Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

"always an innovator, quick to form a resolution and quick to carry it out...they never hesitate...
and so they go on working away...seldom enjoying their possessions because they are always adding to them. In a word, they are by nature incapable of living a quiet life or allowing anyone else do to so."

An ancient emissary speaking of Athenians.
quoted in History of the World, a Mental Floss Publication by Erik Sass, Steve Weigard, et al.
Doesn't that sound like modern america?

We Speak a little Bantu Every Day

"Bantu derived languages are as complicated as hell"
History of the World, a Mental Floss Publication by Erik Sass, Steve Weigard, et al.

Nonetheless, English managed to pick up
banjo
bongo
jumbo
marimba
safari
samba
zombie

"as clear as creation day"
from Slash and Burn by Colin Cotterill

An Over-Sized Monday

"an over-sized Monday"
from The Merry Mysogenist by Colin Cotterill

Collective Nouns

We love these words that describe a group of things, almost always animals and birds.
Not content with "herd" or "flock" we have
a charm of goldfinches
a cackle of hyenas
a gaze of raccoons
a murmuration of starlings
a parliament of owls

also

a superfluity of nuns
a bench of bishops
a pomposity of professors

Wikipedia has a terrific list
but
Patrick McManus in "The Grasshopper Trap" also suggests
a chatter or chill of ice-fishermen
an exuberance of fishermen
but a sulk of unsuccessful fishermen
a boast of hunters
a berserk of kid campers
a cramp of camp cooks
a panic of anglers

from "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" by Christopher Moore
we find
a maggotry of reporters

and "The Gun Seller" by Hugh Laurie calls it
a neck of body guards

(those are Amy Winehouse's bodyguards)

"I'm glad you kept your manners in a place of so much villainy"
..."ay, I'm a rescue in progress"

from Fool, by Christopher Moore

Now I think of it, a better picture would be this

(America is still reeling from the villainy of its bankers)

The Years of Man are the Looms of God

The years of man are the looms of God, let down from the place of the sun,

Wherein we all are weaving, till the mystic web is done,
Weaving blindly but weaving surely, each for himself his fate;
We may not see how the right side looks, we can only weave and wait.