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AWADmail Issue 735

Sponsor’s Message: Calling all cheapskates - does “Old’s Cool” sum up your philosophy of life: old school with a little wry, served neat? And where saving a buck or two is in the blood? Same here. So, we’re offering this week’s Email of the Week winner, Steve Swift (see below), as well as everyone who thinks that frugal ain’t cheap, a YUGE 30% OFF our retro-authentic ludic loot. Jezz use coupon code “wickedcheap”.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the Net

This Orangutan is Uprooting What We Previously Knew About Language
The Washington Post
Permalink

Goodbye, Etc: Why the UK Government Will Stop Using Latin Abbreviations Online
The Guardian
Permalink

For Children with Autism, Multiple Languages May Be a Boon
Scientific American
Permalink

First Major Database of Non-Native English
MIT News
Permalink

From: Charles H. Hegarty (chheg61 yahoo.com)
Subject: Snowflakes

From: Nancy Schpatz (nns fuse.net)
Subject: Eric Hoffer

While I was having lunch with a friend many years ago, he reached in his pocket and proudly drew out a lined piece of paper obviously ripped from a student notebook. Handwritten in pencil, it was from Eric Hoffer. My friend had written Hoffer after hearing James Day interview him on TV. While I had never heard of Hoffer, I was positively impressed by Hoffer’s modest response, so important to my friend. After watching Hoffer on TV and reading his books I, too, became a “true believer”.

From: Steve Kirkpatrick (stevekirkp comcast.net)
Subject: compunctious husbands, and a German word for the gift

This won’t be a politically-correct comment about the wives of compunctious husbands, but here goes:

There is or was a German colloquial term for the gift a husband gives to his wife upon arriving home late: Drachenfutter, or dragon fodder. Years ago, I found that in Howard Rheingold’s 1988 book “They Have a Word for It”. He said that at one time it wasn’t unusual to see men drinking in bars or cafes with their Drachenfutter already wrapped.

From: Sheldon S. Burnston (brbart1213 aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--ingenious

One of my college professors, who shall remain nameless due to the effects of some fifty years of living on my memory, used a slightly different definition. He would often remark that a particularly laborious answer from a student was “ingenious, from the Latin: ‘in’, meaning ‘without’, and ‘genious’, meaning ‘intelligence’.”

From: Steve Swift (steve.j.swift gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--ingenious

Every evening we put out in our garden a tinful of dog food for the injured fox and a few cups of peanuts for our family of badgers. The fox enjoys the badgers’ peanuts and the badgers will eat some of fox’s dog food. At times, a badger and a fox can be seen eating peacefully from the same bowl of dog food. “If only humans could do the same,” I sigh.

From: Dharam Khalsa (dharamkk2 gmail.com)
Subject: Anagrams of this week’s words

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Limericks

Says her mate to the fat hippopotamus,
“My dear, you are much too equanimous
concerning your weight.
Your face still looks great,
but I hate that you’re getting so bottomous.”
-Anne Thomas, Sedona, Arizona (antom earthlink.net)

Said old Mrs. Bosch to Hieronymus,
“I wish you would act more equanimous.
Your works are bizarre.”
He replied, “Yes, they are,
But at least I won’t end up anonymous.”
-Adam Perl, Ithaca, New York (adam pastimes.com)

The teenager, in a foul mood,
Was mumpish and often quite rude.
He went to his room,
With an aura of gloom,
And an urge to do nothing but brood.
-Gigi Pagani, San Rafael, California (gigi4cats gmail.com)

Bernie’s delegates are mumpish,
Others are vocal and grumpish.
Though they are still wary,
To vote for Hillary,
They swear that they won’t be Trumpish.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

His approach to the girl was quite bumptious.
He was drunk, crude, and pretty rambunctious,
but, hung over next day,
he was heard sadly say,
“Guess I blew it. I’m feeling compunctious.”
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

At conventions the mood is rambunctious
And the girls at the parties -- so scrumptious.
In much the same club
Is a Dem or Repub
Going home with some feelings compunctious.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“The secret to being communicative,”
Says Trump, “Is to keep it vituperative.
What more need I know?
My reality show
Proved that trash talk is highly remunerative.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

The concierge was vituperative
When the guest became punitive.
“I thought you knew
If you wanted a view
That our rooms are quite prohibitive.”
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodth snet.net)

A feckless young lady from Kent
had trouble just paying her rent.
Though truly ingenious,
she had but a tenuous
grasp of what budgeting meant.
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

Our political system’s ingenious,
By appearances heterogeneous.
“But for money in sacks,”
Say the corporate PACs,
“Entertain us! Wine, dine, and martini us!”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

From: Phil Graham (pgraham1946 cox.net)
Subject: Puns to describe (deride?) people

That Putin -- equanimous’s with your mind, doesn’t he?

After having my wisdom teeth pulled, I not only acted, I looked mumpish.

“Compunctious,” begged the masochists. The sadist thought and said, “No.”

When Violet joined another inmate to watch, a guard yelled, “Dammit Vituperative-ee isn’t allowed.”

The foreign-born geneticist said, “Counting DNA strand ingenious really difficult to do.”

From: Grant Agnew (ggttwwaa gmail.com)
Subject: Voting (Re: AWADmail 734)

If I might make a late comment on an AWADmail issue -- as an Australian, I am continually shocked at the way Americans casually accept practical restrictions on their much-vaunted right to vote.

In Australia, voting is compulsory, but it is first and foremost an absolute right which must never be restricted. The government must therefore do everything possible to enable the people to vote. To begin with, our elections are held on Saturdays, when almost everyone can easily get to a polling place between 8 am and 6 pm. We go to some trouble to ensure that patients in hospitals and servicemen overseas can vote too. There is postal voting for anyone precluded from voting on a Saturday (orthodox Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, anyone at all with a religious problem about it, and also those who plan to be away from home on the day).

If you just happen to be away from home on the day, you can claim an absentee vote at any polling place anywhere in the State for a State election or anywhere in the whole country for a Federal election. That’s right -- if you live in Hobart, you can vote in Darwin or Perth at a federal election. If you don’t like the length of the queue at your local polling place, you can always go somewhere smaller which has no queue at all and vote absentee there.

And if your name is not on the electoral roll but you want to vote, you may claim a “section” vote (named after the relevant section of the Electoral Act) which allows you to vote anyway (but the details of your claim will be scrutinised first, before your vote is counted). All the counting is done by hand with the doors of the polling place firmly shut but with scrutineers from any and every party allowed to watch closely if they wish (they can’t touch anything, but they can make objections, and after that they can make life unbearably hard for any wayward polling official who doesn’t follow the requirements of the law).