Short & Sweet Treats discussion
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it reminds me of those celebrity couples with the combined name like "Bennifer" or "Branjelina" haaha
LOL, Laura--yes, I think Americans know the portmanteau primarily through those movie star combinations. Wikipedia has a long list of portmanteau words here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...
LaLaLa Laura wrote: "I didnt realize that concept of blending two words together was a word In and of itself! in fact the word Portmanteau looks like it is composed of two words as well!it reminds me of those celeb..."
And who can forget the best couple of all: Shamy!
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Love it!"
Julia wrote: ""
haha! too funny!
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WEIRDEST BOOK TITLES:"1978: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (University of Tokyo Press)
1979: The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution (Transaction Press)
1980: The Joy of Chickens (Prentice Hall)
1981: Last Chance at Love: Terminal Romances
1982: Population and Other Problems (China National Publications
1983: The Theory of Lengthwise Rolling (MIR)
1984: The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today (Constable)
1985: Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts (Westwood Publishing Co)
1986: Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (Brunner/Mazel)
1987: No Award
1988: Versailles: The View From Sweden (University of Chicago Press)
1989: How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art (Ten Speed Press)
1990: Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual (Lace Publications)
1991: No Award
1992: How to Avoid Huge Ships (Cornwell Maritime Press)
1993: American Bottom Archaeology (University of Illinois Press)
1994: Highlights in the History of Concrete (British Cement Association)
1995: Reusing Old Graves (Shaw & Son)
1996: Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers (Hellenic Philatelic Society)
1997: The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition (Mitchell Beazley)
1998: Development in Dairy Cow Breeding and Management: and New Opportunities to Widen the Uses of Straw (Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust)
1999: Weeds in a Changing World (British Crop Protection Council)
2000: High Performance Stiffened Structures (Professional Engineering Publishing)
2001: Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service (Butterworths)
2002: Living With Crazy Buttocks (Kaz Cooke – Penguin US/Australia)
2003: The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (Kensington Publishing)
2004: Bombproof Your Horse (J A Allen)
2005: People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It (Gary Leon Hill – Red Wheel/Weiser Books)
2006: The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification (Harry N Abrams)
2007: If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs (Simon & Schuster US)"
AND MORE WEIRD BOOK TITLES:
"Scouts in Bondage by Michael Bell
Be Bold with Bananas by Crescent Books
Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself by Dale L. Power
The Flat-Footed Flies of Europe by Peter J. Chandler
101 Uses for an Old Farm Tractor by Michael Dregni
Across Europe by Kangaroo by Joseph R. Barry
101 Super Uses for Tampon Applicators by Lori Katz and
Barbara Meyer
Suture Self by Mary Daheim
The Making of a Moron by Niall Brennan
How to Make Love While Conscious by Guy Kettelhack
Underwater Acoustics Handbook by Vernon Martin Albers
Superfluous Hair and Its Removal by A. F. Niemoeller
Lightweight Sandwich Construction by J. M. Davies
The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes by Michel Pastoureaut
How to Be a Pope: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in the Vatican by Piers Marchant
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren"
THE LONGEST BOOK TITLE:
"A Handbook on Hanging, Being a short introduction to the fine art of Execution, and containing much useful information on Neck-breaking, Throttling, Strangling, Asphyxiation, Dcapitation and lectrocution; as well as Data and Wrinkles for Hangmen, an account of the late Mr. Berry's method of Killing and his working list of Drops; to which is added a Hangman's Ready Reckoner and certain other items of interest, by Charles Duff, New edition enlarged diligently compared and revised in accordance with the most recent Developments. All Very Proper to be read and Kept in Every Family."
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I think my favorite so far is
"how to be a Pope :where to go and what to do once you're in the Vatican."
...because you never know when you'll be spontaneously elected Pope one day, right?!
LaLaLa Laura wrote: "fantastic and extensive list, Jen! I'm going to have to print this out!! I think my favorite so far is
"how to be a Pope :where to go and what to do once you're in the Vatican."
...because you ne..."
Watch for the smoke!
On October 26th 1950, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India.
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the time that the King James Version of the
Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word
from the first word is shake and the 46th word
from the last word is spear
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All the proceeds earned from James M. Barrie's book "Peter Pan" were bequeathed to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for the Sick Children in London
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Pumpkins have inhabited the planet for thousands of years. They originated in Central America. They were used then (and now) as a food crop. Over the course of centuries, pumpkins spread their vines across all of North and South America. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they found pumpkins plentiful and used in cooking by Native Americans. They took seeds back to Europe where they quickly became popular
Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows’ Eve and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a secular, community-based event characterized by child-friendly activities such as trick-or-treating. In a number of countries around the world, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people continue to usher in the winter season with gatherings, costumes and sweet treats.
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Halloween is second only to Christmas in spending. Consumers spend over $2.5 Billion during Halloween. That's a whole lot of candy, costumes, decorations, and party goods.
The Day of the Dead (El Día de los Muertos in Spanish) is a Mexican and Mexican-American celebration of dead ancestors which occurs on November 1 and November 2, coinciding with the similar Roman Catholic celebrations of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. While it is primarily viewed as a Mexican holiday, it is also celebrated in communities in the United States with large populations of Mexican-Americans, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Latin America. Despite the morbid subject matter, this holiday is celebrated joyfully, and though it occurs at the same time as Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, the mood of The Day of the Dead is much lighter, with the emphasis on celebrating and honoring the lives of the deceased, rather than fearing evil or malevolent spirits. The origins of the celebration of The Day of the Dead in Mexico can be traced back to the indigenous peoples of Latin America, such as the Aztecs, Mayans Purepecha, Nahua and Totonac.
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This entry from Writers Almanac today touched my heart: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
"A little dog named Laika was launched into space aboard Sputnik 2 on this date in 1957. The mission for Sputnik 2 was to determine if a living animal could survive being launched into orbit. Laika was a stray that had been picked up from the Moscow streets, a 13-pound mutt with perky ears, a curly tail, and uncertain ancestry. She probably had a little spitz or terrier in her family tree, maybe a Siberian husky or even a beagle here and there. She was three years old, a good-natured dog that came to have several nicknames: Lemon, Little Curly, and Little Bug. Her name, Laika, means "barker" and was a generic term applied to all spitz-type dogs. The American press called her "Muttnik." The Soviet space program deliberately chose strays for their missions because it was felt that they had proven themselves to be hardy, having already survived deprivation, extremes in temperature, and stress.
Laika was the first animal to orbit the Earth. She was harnessed inside a snug, padded cabin with some ability to move, but not much. The capsule was climate-controlled, and she had access to food and water, and there were electrodes monitoring her vital signs, but everyone knew the capsule was not designed to return to Earth in one piece. Knowing that Laika had little time to live, one of the scientists took her home to play with his children a few days before the launch.
For many years, reports of her death were inconsistent; one report said that she lived for six days, until her oxygen ran out. The Soviet government insisted she had been euthanized via a pre-planned poisoned food portion prior to that, to make her death more humane. In 1999, it was revealed that vital signs ceased to be transmitted about five to seven hours after the launch, possibly because the booster rocket failed to separate from the capsule, causing the thermal control system to malfunction and the cabin to become unbearably hot.
In 1998, after the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the scientists spoke of his regret for Laika. He said: "Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it ... We did not learn enough from this mission to justify the death of the dog."
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YAHOO: Known as a homepage, mailing service, and search engine on that there interweb, ‘yahoo’ started life as the name for a race of brutish humans in Jonathan Swift’s celebrated fantasy satire Gulliver’s Travels (1726). From there, it went on to refer to any hooligan or noisy, loutish individual, and is these days perhaps most commonly encountered with ‘.com’ after it.http://interestingliterature.wordpres...
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Wahoo Yahoos :-)
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LaLaLa Laura wrote: "Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator. It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince ..."Interesting...
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Poets' CornerChaucer was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey, initiating the Poets’ Corner. Today there are 29 poets buried and 55 poets commemorated in the Poets’ Corner.
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Chaucer was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey, initiating the Poets’ Corner. Today there are 29 poets buried and 55 poets commemorated in the Poets’ Corner."
I never heard of the Poets' Corner before. I just looked up some pictures of it and it is an incredibly beautiful place.
It really is, Laura. Chaucer's tomb is the dark one on the left side of this picture:
November 10: On this date in 1961, the satirical anti-war novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (books by this author) was published. Catch-22 is about a World War II bomber pilot named Yossarian who tries to get himself declared insane so he can stop flying bombing missions. Unfortunately, there is a regulation called Catch-22, which says that if you want out of combat duty you can't be crazy.And by 1963, it had become the best-selling book in America. Vietnam War protesters began wearing pins that said, "Yossarian Lives!" The phrase "Catch-22" became a part of the American lexicon, defined by one edition of the Oxford English Dictionary as "a condition or consequence that precludes success, a dilemma where the victim cannot win."
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
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it was recommended by our very own Daniel and I am looking forward to it!
I love the premise!
Yes, it's a good one :-) I've requested it as my top choice if I'm chosen as a World Book Night bookgiver. Hard to wait until February to find out IF we're chosen and then which of our 3 choices we get!
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Nov 10, 1619 - René Descartes has the dreams that inspire his Meditations on First Philosophy.
Sesame Street debuts, Nov 10 1969
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LaLaLa Laura wrote: "that's why the quote of the day was a lyric from Sesame Street!"Thought the same thing!
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Short & Sweet Treats
Books mentioned in this topic
Fifty Shades of Grey (other topics)Hamlet (other topics)
Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle (other topics)
Deutsche Mythologie (other topics)
Great Barrier Reef (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Daniel Stashower (other topics)Jacob Grimm (other topics)
David Doubilet (other topics)
Henry Beston (other topics)
Yann Arthus-Bertrand (other topics)
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As Humpty-Dumpty explains to Alice, ‘You see, it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed into one word.’ ‘Portmanteau word’ is a term sometimes used by professional linguists, although ‘blend’ is more common. A portmanteau is a bag that opens into two halves – hence Humpty’s use of the term – that was used in the nineteenth century, often to carry clothes (‘portmanteau’ comes from the French meaning ‘carry the cloak’)."
http://interestingliterature.wordpres...