Bob forwarded the story of a woman who visited a psychic of some local
repute.

In a dark and gloomy room, gazing at cards laid out before her, the reader
delivered the bad news.

“There is no easy way to say this so I’ll just be blunt. Prepare yourself to
be a widow. Your husband will die a violent and horrible death this year.”

Visibly shaken, the woman stared at the psychic’s lined face, then at the
single flickering candle, then down at her hands. She took a few deep
breaths to compose herself. She simply had to know.

She met the psychic’s gaze, steadied her voice, and asked,

“Will I get away with it?”

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

Talking with a friend about the vagaries of English from yesterday’s odd
collection, I was reminded . . .

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in
pineapple.

English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is
neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and
hammers don’t ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One
goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by
truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a
wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house
can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

In rhetoric, antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses,
but in transposed grammatical order (ex: “I know what I like, and like what
I know”). I find them intriguing and wonder if there are more that are YOUR
favorites?

From the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961 “…ask not
what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

From a speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower to the Republican National Committee
January 1958, “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the
fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

James Boswell on ‘The Life of Johnson’ wrote “This man I thought had been a
Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.”

At the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon in November 1942, Winston Churchill said of
World War II, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the
end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Even Malcolm X stated in 1964 of the difference between black and white: “We
didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, the rock was landed on us.”

Dr. Seuss’ Horton remarked, “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.
An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent!”

From Ambrose Redmoon, “To be kissed by a fool is stupid; to be fooled by a
kiss is worse.”

In ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, Karl Marx wrote:
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the
contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”.

Line spoken by Mae West in ‘I’m No Angel’ (1933), “Well, it’s not the men in
your life that counts, it’s the life in your men.”

Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be
shed.”

From Croesus, 6th century BC, and still appropriate today: “In peace sons
bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.”

And my favorite –

From the StarKist tuna advertisements of the 1980s, “Sorry, Charlie.
StarKist doesn’t want tunas with good taste – StarKist wants tunas that
taste good.”

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

A Dutchman was explaining the red, white and blue Netherlands flag to an
American.

“Our flag is symbolic of our taxes. We get red when we talk about them,
white when we get our tax bills, and blue after we pay them.”

The American nodded. “It’s the same in the USA, only we see stars too!”

[thanks, Betty Jo]

~~
ANSWERS to the children’s quiz:

1. What grows down as it grows up?
A DUCK

2. When does a boat show affection?
WHEN IT HUGS THE SHORE

3. What 11-letter English word does everyone pronounce incorrectly?
INCORRECTLY

4. What is found in the middle of Paris?
“R”

5. What kind of cheese is made backwards?
EDAM

6. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the
world?
MOUNT EVEREST

7. Why can’t a bicycle stand up without a kickstand or bike rack?
IT IS TWO TIRED

8. Who said: “Duh suddle cub up to borrow”?
LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE (WITH A COLD)

9. How do you make seven even?
DROP THE “S”

10. What has three heads and is ugly and smells bad?
OH, MY BAD. YOU DON’T HAVE THREE HEADS . .

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

LORD, PROP US UP

Every time I am asked to pray, I think of the old deacon who always prayed,
Lord, prop us up on our leanin’ side. After hearing him pray that prayer
many times, someone asked him why he prayed that prayer so fervently.

He answered, ‘Well sir, you see, it’s like this . . . I got an old barn out
back. It’s been there a long time, it’s withstood a lot of weather, it’s
gone through a lot of storms, and it’s stood for many years. It’s still
standing, but one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit. So I went
and got some pine poles and propped it up on its leaning side so it wouldn’t
fall.

Then I got to thinking ’bout that and how much I was like that old barn. I
been around a long time, I’ve withstood a lot of life’s storms, I’ve
withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I’ve withstood a lot of hard times,

And I’m still standing too. But I find myself leaning to one side from time
to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop us up on our leaning side, ’cause
I figure a lot of us get to leaning, at times. Sometime we get to leaning
toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning
toward cussing, leaning toward a lot of things that we shouldn’t, so we need
to pray, ‘Lord, prop us up on our leaning side,’ so we will stand straight
and tall again, to glorify the Lord.

[author unknown

Isaiah 40:29-31 “He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might
He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the
young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and
not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.”

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

[Duane forwarded this story]

An old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his
collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. He followed me into the
house, down the hall, and fell asleep in a corner.

An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out.

The next day he was back, resumed his position in the hall, and slept for an
hour. This continued for several weeks.

Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: ‘Every afternoon your dog comes to
my house for a nap.’

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: ‘He
lives in a home with ten children — he’s trying to catch up on his sleep.’

Then the note concluded: ‘Can I come with him tomorrow?’

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

Some simple questions for those who found the word-origin quiz too
challenging: (forwarded from a parent with too much time on her hands)

1. What grows down as it grows up?

2. When does a boat show affection?

3. What 11-letter English word does everyone pronounce incorrectly?

4. What is found in the middle of Paris?

5. What kind of cheese is made backwards?

6. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the
world?

7. Why can’t a bicycle stand up without a kickstand or bike rack?

8. Who said: “Duh suddle cub up to borrow”?

9. How do you make seven even?

10. What has three heads and is ugly and smells bad?

~~
ANSWERS TO WORD/PHRASE ORIGINS:

Example: BEDLAM (chaos with the grandkids) really comes from ‘Bethlehem
Hospital for Lunatics’ in London by King Henry VIII. Bethlehem was
shortened to Bedlam.

1. ALMANAC (old farmer’s diary) is really from the Saxon term ‘al-mon-aght’
meaning ‘all moon heed’, which was the record of new and full moons. And my
Old Farmer’s Almanac still has that!!

2. APPLE-pie order (neat as a pin) is from the practical joke of bed-sheets
folded so tight that it prevented the person from getting in. While assumed
to be derived from the apple-turnover pastry, it is from the French ‘nappe
pliee’, meaning ‘folded sheet’

3. ASSASSIN (murder for hire) was originally a tribe of Carmathian warriors
based in Mount Lebanon around the eleventh century. Know for terrorizing the
Middle Eastern world for two hundred years, they were high on hashish most
of the time, particularly prior to battle.

4. Take a BACK seat (everyone riding in my car) is not a car metaphor, but
originally a parliamentary expression derived from the relative low
influence of persons and issues from the back benches (the bench-seats where
members sit in the House of Commons), as opposed to the front benches, where
the leaders of the government and opposition sit.

5. Got out on the wrong side of the BED (grumpy old man) is an ancient
superstition which held it to be unlucky to touch the floor first with the
left foot when getting out of bed. Earlier versions of the expression with
the same meaning were: ‘You got out of bed the wrong way’, and ‘You got out
of bed with the left leg foremost’

6. BIG cheese (boss, kahuna) came into English via colonial India where Urdu
‘chiz’, meaning ‘good thing’ was adopted by the British to mean the best.

7. To the BITTER end (’til the last dog dies) is a maritime expression, from
the metaphor of a rope being played out all the way to the ‘bitts’, which
were the posts on the deck of a ship to which ropes were secured. It is
still used to describe the last link of the anchor chain secured to the
vessel’s chain locker.

8. BLACKMAIL (they found the pictures) ‘mail’ is from Saxon ‘mal’ (rent);
‘black’ is from the Gaelic, to cherish or protect – it was used to describe
an early form of protection money, paid in the form of rent, to protect
property against plunder by vagabonds.

9. BOBBY (my nickname or an English policeman) IS a policeman. Sir Robert
Peel introduced the first police force in London in 1830 and these men were
first known as ‘peelers’!!

10. The BUCK stops here (not when I’m deer hunting) is a gambling term when
poker players passed a piece of buckshot from player to player to signify
whose responsibility it was to deal the cards or to be responsible for the
pot or bank, It took on an expanded meaning with US President Harry Truman
who kept a sign on his desk in the Oval Office to remind him ‘The Buck Stops
Here’

Bonus: BUS (football player for the Steelers) is any passenger vehicle, an
abbreviation from the original 18th century horse-drawn ‘omnibus’ (Latin =
‘for all’)

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

[Happy 6th birthday to my grandson Christian. To celebrate, here are some
more really bad Puns and wordplays you might enjoy.]

(1) If a wolf can attack a deer from either the right side or the left side,
does that make him bambidextrous?

(2) Did you hear the one about the man who dreamed he was a muffler on a
car, and then that he was part of the wheel?
He woke up exhausted and tired.

(3) The pirate captain was standing in his treasure pile.
He didn’t have very much: his booty was only shin-deep.

(4) When the glassblower inhaled he got a pane in the stomach.

(5) Scientists report that dieters lost brain cells as well as body weight.
It’s a case of think or slim.

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

I love to study word/phrase origins, but some I assumed correct were not the
true origin. Wonder how well you’d do (without google, as always)
discerning the real origin of these A&B words/phrases. MY guesses are in
parentheses.

Example: BEDLAM (chaos with the grandkids) really comes from ‘Bethlehem
Hospital for Lunatics’ in London by King Henry VIII. Bethlehem was
shortened to Bedlam.

1. ALMANAC (old farmer’s diary)

2. APPLE-pie order (neat as a pin)

3. ASSASSIN (murder for hire)

4. Take a BACK seat (everyone riding in my car)

5. Got out on the wrong side of the BED (grumpy old man)

6. BIG cheese (boss)

7. To the BITTER end (’til the last dog dies)

8. BLACKMAIL (they found the pictures)

9. BOBBY (my nickname or an English policeman)

10. The BUCK stops here (not when I’m deer hunting)

Bonus: BUS (football player for the Steelers)

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

NEW COMPUTER BOOKS FOR 2008

* 1001 Arabian Bytes
* 20 000 PCs Under the Sea
* A Call to RAMs (for dyslexic readers)
* A Midsummer Nights D-ram
* A Tale of Two CDs
* Aesop’s Folders
* Alice in Cyberland
* All Quiet on the Western Font
* Around the Web in 90 Days
* Brave New World Wide Web
* Cache-22
* Call of the Filed
* Charlotte’s Web-site
* Comedy of Error Mistakes
* Disk Doctor Zhivago
* Disk Wittington and his Cache
* DOS Kapital
* Email and the Night Visitors
* Fall of the Mouse of User
* FortrAn of Green Gables
* Gates of Wrath
* Gone With the Windows
* Green Eggs and RAM
* James and the Giant PC
* Jane Error
* Johnny Domaine
* Little Mouse on the Prairie
* Lord of the Files
* Moby Disk
* Motherboard Goose
* The Mouse of Several Cables
* Netscape from Alcatraz
* Of Mouse and Man
* Old Man and the C-Drive
* One Flew Over the Internet
* Ramlet
* ROMulus and RAMus
* Silas Monitor
* The Byte of the Ancient Mariner
* The Cache of Monte Cristo
* The Pit and the Pentium
* The Scarlet Font
* The Three Little Gigs
* The URLing
* The Wizard of OS
* Uncle Tom’s Cache
* WANS Upon a Time
* War and PC
* Watership Download
* Wuthering Bytes
* Zorba the Geek

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

THE OLD PATHS

I liked the old paths, when Moms were at home. Dads were at work. Brothers
went into the army. And sisters got married BEFORE having children!

Crime did not pay; hard work did. And people knew the difference.

Moms could cook; Dads would work; children would behave.

Husbands were loving; wives were supportive; and children were polite.

Women wore the jewelry and men wore the pants. Women looked like ladies; men
looked like gentlemen. And children looked decent.

People loved the truth, and hated a lie;

They came to church to get IN, not to get OUT!

Hymns sounded godly; sermons sounded helpful; rejoicing sounded normal; and
crying sounded sincere.

Cursing was wicked; drugs were for illness; and divorce was unthinkable.

The flag was honored; America was beautiful; and God was welcome!

We read the Bible in public; prayed in school; and preached from house to
house. To be called an American was worth dying for; to be called a
Christian was worth living for; to be called a traitor was a shame!

Preachers preached because they had a message; and Christians rejoiced
because they had the VICTORY! Preachers preached from the Bible; singers
sang from the heart; and sinners turned to the Lord to be SAVED!

A new birth meant a new life; salvation meant a changed life; following
Christ led to eternal life.

Being a preacher meant you proclaimed the word of God; being a deacon meant
you would serve the Lord; being a Christian meant you would live for Jesus;
and being a sinner meant someone was praying for you!

Laws were based on the Bible; homes read the Bible; and churches taught the
Bible.

God was worshiped; Christ was exalted; and the Holy Spirit was respected.

Church was where you found Christians on the Lord’s day, rather than in the
garden, on the creek bank, on the golf course, or being entertained
somewhere else.

I still like the old paths the best!

[‘The Old Paths’ was written by a retired minister in San Angelo, Texas]

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

On our last cruise in the Pacific as we passed a small island, everyone
could see a bearded man on the beach. While too far to hear, we could see
he was shouting and desperately waving his hands.

After we all waved at the fellow, one of the passengers asked the captain,
“Who is that man?”

He replied, “I’ve no idea what his name is. Every year when we pass this
island, he is out there going nuts, so we get by as quickly as possible.”

~~

ANSWER to the ‘simple’ quiz yesterday

The correct answer was 10,990 (or 10,992 if you assume a bus driver, but not
mentioned in the problem).

7 girls x 7 bags = 49 bags
49 bags x 7 big cats each = 343 big cats
343 big cats x 7 kittens = 2401 kittens
therefore
343 big cats x 4 legs each = 1372 big cat legs
2401 kittens x 4 legs = 9604 kitten legs
7 girls x 2 legs = 14 kids legs
Total legs = 10,990

HONOR ROLL 10,990 = Phil B, Rob O, Tamera E, Jay J, Nancy, Gina T, Joe K,
Juli L, Dave M, Joel B, Fido, Lili H, Donna M, Luke I, Phyllis B, Bruce B

“Others” – Buzz. Wrong, but thank you for playing. Don 1582, Vicki M 210,
David A 84, Gram 343, Rocky M 1582, , Greg K 1388, Charles J 0, Esther H
9620, Michael K 1582, Robert M 2415, Bonnie T 229, Sick 575, Sue 240, Betty
Jo 1372, Roxie F 72, Bev W 14, Bernard T 42, Corey P 9618, Jenifer Y 238, LB
259, Pat B 1000, Rich B 238, Eugene H 0, Brian J 11144, Edgar O 9618, Josh D
0, Robert B 9648, Wayne R 9618, Allan H 0, Jack R 0, Harold M 232, Gary G
2401, Pat S 0, Frederick S 70, Christy I 11382, B Bam 77, Don C 9618, Brian
M posed an addition question of ‘How many seats on the bus’, since they have
legs too.

(I said “There is a bus with seven girls . . .” Those with “0” assumed the
kids were WITH the bus not in it, etc, and this was some trick question. But
simple English skill was not the test! I just think they were having
trouble with the math!!!)

If you think you “know” who a person is from the names above, remember the
grif.net goes out to more than 5000 of my closest friends every day. These
names are from around the globe and probably not from your
neck-of-the-woods. Or maybe . .

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given

New Semester Begin! Test your math!
(Thanks to Lindsay, in Australia. Try doing it in your head – no paper or
calculator. Then when you fail, use anything short of a slide rule to figure
this simple quiz out)

There is a bus with 7 girls
Each girl carries 7 bags
Inside each bag there are 7 cats
Every cat has 7 kittens
(All cats have 4 legs each)

Question: How many legs are in the bus?

(Feel free to email guesses; I will give credit to those who choose wisely)

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given