Just some rambling thoughts (04/10/05)
Bad luck to walk under a ladder This superstition probably comes from early Christian times, when ladders became a symbol of misfortune because one had been rested against Christ's Crucifix. Much later, in seventeenth century England and France, the bad luck in walking under a ladder was plain to see. Criminals being led to the hangman's noose had to walk under a ladder...

Sikorsky developed the helicopter (04/03/05)
I run into interesting people when I'm travelling. One that was most interesting was Igor Sikorsky. I was hitchhiking from Framingham, Mass. on my way to Plymouth, Moss. Josephine and I had rented a house where the Pilgrims landed in 1620. The back yard was about and acre and we enjoyed our stay there...

Touring on a budget (03/27/05)
Getting right to the heart of the matter, which happens to be your pocket, let me state that most vacationers spend altogether too much money. Stay at expensive motels and spend your money like a lunatic, if you want to. But I tell you, friends, there's no greater pleasure than squeezing a nickel until that old buffalo begs for mercy. Careful economizing will also get you closer to the grass roots of America, and you may have to eat them, too. But we'll come to that shortly, Now, pay attention:...

Hexes and Symbols Have Meanings (03/20/05)
Hexes and Hex Symbols The Pennsylvania Dutch are fond of putting gaily painted symbols on their barns to frighten away the Devil and to protect their animals from the evil eye. The symbols usually contain a good deal of red, a color that frightens witches. The word hex does not come from a hexagon, although hex symbols are frequently six-sided...

Hair Today and Gone Tomorrow (03/13/05)
There was never a saint with red hair. (Old Russian proverb) If you pull out a gray hair, seven will come to its funeral. (Old Pennsylvania proverb) Gray hair is a sign of age, not wisdom. (Old Greek proverb) A chaste woman ought not to dye her hair yellow!...

Hogs, HIgh Water, Oil and the Civil War (03/06/05)
Hogs and High Water A rural Missourian was trying to sell his farm to a hillman from Arkansas. "Does the river ever flood this here wood lot?" Asked the hillman. "Hell, no," replied the farmer, "we ain't had no high water in forty years." The Arkansawyer noticed a ring of mud on every tree trunk, about six feet above the ground. "Then how did that mud git away up thar?" he asked suspiciously...

Some thoughts by Ogden Nash (02/27/05)
Home, 99 44/100% Sweet Home Most of the time, oh most of the time. I like to sit at home. With a good fire, and a good chair, And a good detective tome. What can a man, can a family man Ask in the way of cheer More than a pipe, and a reading lamp...

Miscellaneous thoughts (02/20/05)
For Every Word Alive, a special story For every word alive, a special story; For every story, its own special joy. What sport that sorrow is not kin to sorry! What fun that girl once meant the same as boy! Spade up Old English sorg, the root of sorrow--...

Unpublished poetry (02/13/05)
I have a lot of "poetry" that has never been published, mostly about trees. So I'll fill this column with verse that hasn't been published elsewhere. To a Cypress Tree O cypress tree growing in a swamp, your grotesqueness gives you a resemblance...

Some things need explaining (01/30/05)
Why is a mile 5,280 feet? The word "mile" comes from the Latin word for one thousand "mille." The Romans measured a mile at 1,000 Roman paces (i.e. 2,000 steps) by their marching soldiers; since the average march stride was about five feet, the Roman mile was almost exactly 5,000 feet...

Boys and dogs and locusts (01/23/05)
There was a tenor and a bass A boy was driving a skittish team, and when a piece of paper blew across the road, it scared the horses, so they ran away with him. The next thing he knowed they turned the wagon over and broke loose. The boy wasn't hurt, but there was a-laying there in the road with the wagon on top of him. He pushed as hard as he could, but he wasn't able to lift the wagon so he could get out from under...

Assorted Useless Information (01/16/05)
Learning to swim (3 Ways) 1. The East Side Method This is the most direct method and is sure to work. The idea is to have your friend engage you in conversation while you're standing on the edge of a dock. When you least expect it, he shoves you in vigorously. Naturally, it's sink or swim--and many do learn to swim this way...

Demeaning of Words (01/09/05)
Six years ago I published a little book, Demeaning of Words. Here are some of those words. When we use a word, we usually have some idea of what it means. The meaning is determined by how other people have used the word and we are perforce obligated to accept their interpretation of the meaning...

Words and their beginnings (01/02/05)
The Fables of Aesop Aesop, the traditional author of the famous Green fables about animals, is said by Herodotus to have lived in the fifth century B.C. and to have been a deformed slave of Tadmon, the Thracian. He was a witty, wise but profane talker and to have incurred the wrath of the priests, so much so that he was thrown over a precipice at Delphi...

Explaining well-known sayings (12/26/04)
Better born lucky than rich In these modern, materialistic times, being born rich may seem the best possible life, but as one writer noted, some people possess such good fortune that they could, in fact, "fall down in a sewer and find a ring." John Clarke's collected proverbs "Paroemiologia," first recorded the proverbial preference for good luck in 1639 as "Better to have good fortune that to be a rich man's child." The proverb has been quoted up to the present day, though not without some variations, as in Richard Hofstadter's "Idea" (1969): "if one is lucky enough, it is better to be lucky, than clever.". ...

Some dumb and funny laws (12/19/04)
Some laws are dumb. Others are just plain funny. For instance: in Fairfax County, Virginia, persons may not use pogo sticks on a city bus. You can't coast downhill in neutral in Rhode Island. In Biloxi, Mississippi, the ice cream man is forbidden to use a speaker to attract customers...

Some Dumb Laws Should Be Illegal (12/12/04)
In Cambridge, Mass., it is illegal to shake carpets in the street, or to throw orange peels on the sidewalk. In Alabama it is illegal to sit in the back seat with your head in the driver's line of sight from the rearview mirror. It is illegal to spit on any sidewalk in Virginia...

Cow pasture pool (12/05/04)
No, I don't play golf. I used to play the "baby links" year ago, and I even played some on the real golf course, but not for some years. It's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. So I quit. This may explain why I quit. Today, golf should rightly be called the Sport of Kings, instead of horse racing. Whereas few kings can now afford a racing stable, practically any king has the wherewithal for a set of golf clubs. This includes presidents...

The Three Musketeers and Other People (11/28/04)
Alexandre Dumas of the Three Musketeers. Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the immortal trio of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, have given their names to any three inseparable adventurers. The story, with its sequels, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne, is concerned with the impoverished Gascon gentlemen, d'Artagnan, who, joining the King's musketeers in the reign of Louis XIII, links up with the famed trio and shares their heroic adventures...

Answers to the question 'Why?' (11/14/04)
How do you pronounce the word "why"? You said it as though it is said as "hwy", from Middle English and Old English pronunciations. The word is used to get the reason for something, as in the sentence to mean "For what cause, reason or purpose" did you do it?...

Some borrowed quotations (11/07/04)
Aunt Julia Answers Your Questions Dear Aunt Julia: My husband likes to eat a salami sandwich before retiring each night. In self defense, I now wear a guest mask to bed, but he doesn't seem to mind. Why? --Suffocating Dear Suffocating: Plenty of women look better behind a gas mask, and you could be one. Maybe that was his idea all along...

A mess of Ozark Folk Tales (10/31/04)
Vance Randolph has spent many years collecting Ozark folk tales. In his introduction he said he had been collecting them. He wrote in the introduction: "I began to gather Ozark folk-tales in 1920. I liked to cultivate villagers and country folks, preferably the old-timers. Such stories were told in lonely cabins and around midnight at campfires on the ridges. Several of my best pieces were recorded in a house of mourning, where we sat up all night to keep cats away from the corpse...

Limericks became accepted a century ago (10/24/04)
I like limericks. They don't pretend to be great poetry. Many of them are bawdy, poking fun at what was the nature of our lives. The limerick reflects the temper of its day. Limericks have been ascribed to such authors as Alford Lord Tennyson, Eugene Field, Don Marquire, Heywood Brown and Woodrow Wilson...

Thoughts That Sought Expression (10/17/04)
In looking through my scrapbooks, I found some poems that go back about sixty years, so you may not have read them. Most of you are probably not that old. Anyway, I have reworded a few of them, and have titled them, "Cacoethes Scribendi." In English it means "Itch for Writing."...

Some Ozark folk tales (10/10/04)
There are lots of folk tales in Arkansas and Missouri. Here are a few, collected by Vance Randolph. The old people who live in the Ozarks pass along stories, some wild. Randolph has been collecting them since 1920. There is still plenty of time in the backwoods to sing and tell tales. Here are a few of them...

Old sayings have a lot of truth (10/03/04)
An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away Apples have been touted for its curative power as far back as the stories of the Arabian Nights. One of the tales was about the magical apple of Samarkand that was supposed to to cure all diseases. An ancient saying from 1612 was "He that will not a wife wed, must a cold apple when he goes to bed." This supposedly quenched "the flames of Venus...

How these expressions started (09/19/04)
Sometimes we hear or see some common expression, and wonder how they began. Here are just a few of the best known, taken from Marvin Vanonils book, Great Expressions, published a little more than 15 years ago. These quotes are referred to as "anecdotes," although the word refers to sayings that haven't been published. The following quotes have been published...

Some second-hand quotations (09/12/04)
Undressed is appropriate A British Army officer was court-martialed for chasing a young lady wearing a nightgown down a hotel corridor. He was wearing nothing. He was found not guilty because: "it is not compulsory to wear a uniform at all times, as long as he is suitably garbed for sport in which he is involved."...

Facts about several things (09/05/04)
Facts about several things How big is your TV? When you buy a television set, it is measured diagonally. A big one measures 26 inches. Why don't they measure the width across the top? Well, it would measure 22 inches and you would think it was smaller...

Just some rambling rhetoric (08/29/04)
How to be a Hi-Fi Technician The time you spend in eating and sleeping is non-productive time. Instead of frittering it away, try to make money building hi-fi sets. Try making a hi-fi set with a guaranteed response of 800 to 1,000 cycles per second. (You can't make that much money making motorcycles.)...

Expressions About Many Things (08/22/04)
Some students of "lexicography" have begun to use this word for the study of compiling dictionaries, but it has been broadened to include people who have adopted the word as referring to the use of words. Here are a few examples: To Fly off the Handle...

Short but snappy (08/15/04)
Let's start this essay with funny but real headlines. Police Begin Campaign To Run Down Jaywalkers Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax Drunken Drivers Paid $1,000 Juvenile Court to try Shooting Defendants Stolen Painting Found by Tree Some Questionable Questions:...

Stupid Questions and Stupider Answers (08/08/04)
Q. What did one campfire say to the other? A. Let's go out together sometime. Q. Why can't a man living in the USA be buried in Canada? A. Because he's still alive. Why do fluorescent lights always hum? Because they don't know the words. Father: How were you test scores, son?...

The Riddle of the Sphynx (08/01/04)
The Sphynx was a monster with a woman's head and bust on a lion's body. She is known for posing questions for people who were passing by Thebes. If they were unable to answer a riddle, she strangled them. She told this riddle to travelers: A handsome black shepherd dog came visiting, drawing by a leash an old man with a white beard and dark glasses. ...

Words are wonderful things (07/25/04)
A handsome black German shepherd dog came visiting, drawing by a leash an aging man with an abbreviated white beard and dark glasses. The old man wore a dingy white robe and poked about with a white cane. He gave his name as Homer, and said he had come from ancient Greece to warn about riddles. "I died before one," he said...

Some comments in paragraphs (07/18/04)
Some people, when they have a pain or a sore spot, always go to a doctor. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Here are the answers by doctors to some questions about ailments: "Dear Doc: Our son is growing like a weed. Every time we measure him he seems to have grown another foot. Is this normal?" --Bill N. Loo...

'Any News?' Not a New (07/11/04)
Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, was sure that "news" was plural. His newspaper staff didn't agree. Once, while traveling, he sent a telegram to the home office, which asked, "Are there any news?" A reporter replied, "Not a new."...

A riposte or a retaliation? (06/20/04)
As a boy, Woodrow Wilson worshipped his minister father and was pleased when the stern man allowed him to come along on visits through the parish. Later, when he was President, Wilson laughingly recalled the time when his father had taken him to see a neighbor. Seeing the horse and buggy that had brought the minister and his son, the concerned neighbor wondered aloud, "Reverend, how is that you're so thin and gaunt, while your horse is so fat and sleek?"...

Origins of some words are often confusing (06/13/04)
Sometimes we wonder how a word started. Let's look at how some words emerged for good reason. In the sixteenth century "blue jeans" described the material, not the trousers. They were originated in Nimes, France, and the cotton material wasn't named for a person, but after a city--Nimes, France, and the cloth originally was called "serge de Nimes."...

Anecdotes, not nanny-goats (06/06/04)
Doggone Liar A man was bicycling in the park when he stopped for a rest. Several small boys were playing with a puppy. "Hi! What are you doing wit the dog?" he asked. One boy explained, "Whoever tells the biggest lie wins the dog." Oh, I'm surprised at you," the man said. "When I was a boy like you, I never told a lie."...

Retrieved from the Internet (05/30/04)
Lynn Stampley rescued this from the Internet: The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s: These are interesting …...

Kinkering Kongs and other Spoonerisms (05/23/04)
The Rev. W.A. Spooner gave us the word for what is known as metathesis. It is the transposition of letters or sounds in a sentence. Here is an example of spoonerism: "Half-warmed fish, for half-warmed wish The lord is a shoving leopard. Kinkering Kongs their titles take...

When I was very young (05/16/04)
Ataraxia I do not claim to be a sage And Nietzsche's far too deep for me; But in this restless modern age I'd fain pen this philosophy. The artist puts his soul in oil, His brush he wields to catch some scheme, Some idea makes him want to toil--...

Diabolical definitions (05/09/04)
Here is a bunch of definitions by Ambrose Bierce that are humorous but also serious. He had distinguished service in the Civil War, edited the San Francisco Newsletter, wrote three novels and was a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. He went to Mexico in 1913 and was never heard from...

An itch for writing (05/02/04)
Writing aog by Dr. A.O. Goldsmith Sun., May 2, 2004 An Itch for Writing In my early 20's I became afflicted with Cacoethes Scribendi, which is Latin for "Itch for writing". I have never recovered from the affliction. I wrote columns in the Dunklin Democrat. They had two subjects: "Facts from the World of Science," and one on current news...

Words were started by somebody (04/18/04)
Origins aog by Dr. A.O. Goldsmith Sunday, April 18, 2004 Words were Started by Somebody Daniel Defoe's father was James Foe The author of The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was the son of a London butcher, James Foe. The son changed his name to "Defoe" in middle life...

Paragraphs; Some Puny, Some Pungent (04/11/04)
Southerners say "I feel puny" when they feel "down in the mouth". The Old French gave us the common use of the expression which meant "born later". The smallest of the litter meant the weakest. The phrase came to mean anything that is of inferior size or strength...

Riddles from all over (04/04/04)
Here are some riddles from various countries. From Europe: The way you said it Is not comme il faut: But I just made it?" Answer: A bed From Russia: If you have feared that maybe You might have a baby With a beard. Take note: Don't have a baby goat...

Quotes are usually interesting (03/28/04)
"What the Dickens!" This expression has nothing to do with Charles Dickens. It was being used centuries before he was born. It was used by Shakespeare in "The Merry Wives of Windsor". Here's a quote from that play: "I cannot tell what the dickens his name is". It is a euphemism for "What the Devil!"...

Does the moon really come up? (03/21/04)
If you are sitting in your back yard, you might stand up and say, "Look! The moon is coming up." The moon doesn't come up. It looks as if it is, but it isn't. You see, the earth is turning and you're on it and it carries you upward until you can see what looks like the moon is going up, when it isn't. The earth is just taking you up as it turns. Then the moon seems to you as if it is moving up...

GIs and birthday suits (03/14/04)
When I was a GI in World War II, I found out what it meant--Government Issue. These initials were used to refer to everything in the U.S. Army, including me. Why were we put in the same category as our guns and other army equipment? We weren't issued by the government, like our uniforms and all the stuff we used...

Lots of lusty, but clean limericks (02/29/04)
I don't know whether limericks came from Limerick, Ireland, but they usually seem to have a touch of Irish humor. Here are a few from the book, "Limericks, Lewd and Lusty." (We will skip the lewd ones.) The book begins this one: God's plan made a hopeful beginning...

We want to believe superstitions (02/22/04)
"A superstition is something never to be questioned because you will find that all superstitions are flawed. A superstition is an unswerving belief that helps to make life a tiny bit easier."--Carole Potter in her book, Knock on Wood. She explains: "If you believe in not walking under a ladder, never inviting thirteen to a dinner party or never going back for something you've forgotten, if you always throw salt over your left shoulder after spelling some or say gesundsheit! when a friend sneezes; if you cross your fingers for luck, you're in good company. ...

The line between North and South (02/08/04)
The line between Pennsylvania and Maryland was surveyed by English astronomers Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon between 1763 and 1767. The ambiguous location of the line between the two states caused a disagreement between the two colonies. The matter was submitted to the English chancery court in 1735...

Wheres, whys and wherefores (02/01/04)
Holding the Bag When a person is said to have been sacked, it means he has been laid off or fired. Being sacked was much more serious in ancient Rome. Anyone convicted of parricide (killing a member of his family) was tied in a sack and tossed into the Tiber River. A little less drastic is being sacked, or fired from his job...

Dog Days and Swans (01/25/04)
Dog Days and Dying Swans The last performance of an artist is usually the final thing he has produced. It is referred to as his "swan song." Many authors refer to the legend of a dying swan. Some of the writers have written "swan songs." Plato, Aristotle, Chaucer, Coleridge, Shakespeare and other great writers have done so...

Concoct some crooked cliches (01/11/04)
Dr. A.O. Goldsmith took a week off. We are substituting this column first appeared in the Daily Dunklin Democrat on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2001. Writers are told to avoid cliches. Why? Because use of cliches indicates that the writer is short on vocabulary and fills in his writing with words and phrases that have been worn out from over-use...

Music took part in history (01/04/04)
The American Revolution ended when the British surrendered at Yorktown. The British soldiers couldn't understand what had happened to the British Empire. They reluctantly came out of the fort. As they stacked their guns, their band played "The World Turned Upside Down."...

A new year wipes the slate clean (12/28/03)
The New Year's resolution is the most ubiquitous of New Year's tradition. "Ubiquitous" means "existing everywhere at the same time." This is the time to wipe the slate clean, pay all old debts, returning all borrowed items. Letting the past be forgotten is a very ancient idea...

Where does the West begin? (12/21/03)
Where does the West begin? At the Mississippi River or at some point farther west? Well, to people who live in Massachusetts or New York or somewhere along the Atlantic coast, they may think it begins in Ohio or Indiana. To those of us who live on west side of the Mississippi River, we think of the West as being somewhere west of Missouri, Iowa or Arkansas...

Who was Uncle Sam? (12/15/03)
Until 1812 the United States was represented by a motherly woman in flowing robes and her name was "Columbia" (from Columbus). An early symbolic person representing America was Brother Jonathan, whoever that was. Samuel Wilson was the original "Uncle Sam", whose picture was a cartoon painted by James Montgomery Flagg in 1916 and it was used as a recruiting poster during World War I...

World War begins with Pearl Harbor (12/07/03)
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, I was returning home from a meeting of the Typographical Union. I had the radio on, and heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I was drafted a year later. This was the beginning of an entirely new career for me...

Just a few quotable quotes (11/30/03)
A "quotation" is something referred to repeated or adduced. But what is "adduced"? Well, it is "to offer as an example, reason, or proof." Here are a few that are interesting or amusing: "Truth is more of a stranger than fiction".--Mark Twain. "We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know."--W.H. Auden...

Words from various beginnings (11/23/03)
Some of these words are from "Take My Word for It," by William Safire. Some are from other sources. If a person is from Texas, how do you refer to where he is from? "J. Frank Dobie, the famous folklorist, made a distinction between "Texan" and "Texian."...

Some notes from a lexiophile (11/16/03)
Danny Thorpe is a word lover. He is our grandson who lives in Scott's Valley, Calif., and like us, is a lexiophile, or lover of words. He sends a list of puns that puts him in that category. Here are some of them that he says are "being circulated in e-mail all over the place:"...

Limerick's are funny poetry (11/09/03)
A "limerick" is an amusing verse form of five lines. It was popularized by Edward Lear more than a century ago. It may have been started in Limerick, Ireland, and certainly smacks of Irish humor. Here are a few limericks, always humorous, and always interesting, as shown by the example given in Webster's Dictionary...

Quaint American stories (10/26/03)
Me First Two friends, Charles and Mike, were rowing on a lake when their boat capsized. "Help! Help!" shouted Charles, who couldn't swim "I'm drowning!" Mike paid no attention to his comrade and swam rapidly to the shore. But no sooner had he landed than he jumped right in again and saved Charles, who had been struggling desperately all this time...

A collection of toasts from Ireland (10/12/03)
A small book of Irish Toasts was compiled by Niall O'Dubhthaigh, who is obviously Irish. In a foreword he explains that at a gathering of men, the man who ordered the drinks would stand up and hand a drink to the man nearest him and say "Here's health", then summoned the barmaid...

Quaint American stories (10/05/03)
Me First Two friends, Charles and Mike, were rowing on a lake when their boat capsized. "Help! Help!" shouted Charles, who couldn't swim. "I'm drowning!" Mike paid no attention to his comrade and swam rapidly to the shore. But no sooner had he landed than he jumped right in again and saved Charles, who had been struggling desperately all this time...

Autumn, period of maturity (09/28/03)
Autumn We are now in a beautiful and interesting season of the year: Autumn or Fall. When flowers spring up, we call it Spring. When leaves fall from the trees, we call it Fall. Autumn is a favorite time of the year for poets, and here are a few words they wrote about it...

Salty stories about America (09/21/03)
B.A. Botkin has made a career writing interesting stories of folklore in books of Southern Folklore, Western Folklore, Mississippi River and one titled A Treasury of American Anecdotes. This column contains some stories from American Anecdotes...

Poetry from a dream (09/14/03)
I had never heard of W.H. Auden until I got acquainted with him in a dream. The man in the dream told me that he wrote poetry and he also said that he knew I had also written poetry. He said he was Wyston Hugh Auden, an English poet, and that he had spent 39 years in the United States, and that he was better known as W.H. Auden. I had never heard of him...

Arles, France is historic (09/07/03)
In August, 1945, I was in Arles, France, waiting for a ship to take me home. The Germans had surrendered, but the Japanese hadn't. There was scuttlebutt in our camp that we might be sent to Japan instead of to the United States. Here is a letter I wrote to my wife, Josephine, which reflects my feelings about being held there on the ready just in case we had to go east instead of west. But the Japs quit so I could go home...