News about the pandemic seemed to push aside the usual stories on the news about the weather. “In like a lion, out like a lamb” has always seemed a straightforward enough proverb about the weather in March. March begins in winter, and by the end of the month, spring has begun, so it is often a mean lion at the start and a gentle lamb at the end.
24 June 2020
In like a lion, out like a lamb
News about the pandemic seemed to push aside the usual stories on the news about the weather. “In like a lion, out like a lamb” has always seemed a straightforward enough proverb about the weather in March. March begins in winter, and by the end of the month, spring has begun, so it is often a mean lion at the start and a gentle lamb at the end.
19 June 2020
Doomscrolling
Have you heard the word "doomscrolling"? Have you been doing it? It is defined as the act of scrolling on your device and reading or skimming the endless stream of bad news that hit us daily on news sites and social media.
Image:Mote Oo Education | Pixabay |
The pandemic, economic hard times, violence in the street and the Black Lives Matter protests are all important stories but seem to all be part of a doomsday scenario.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary people have recently flagged doomscrolling as one of the words it is watching for 2020 for possible inclusion into the dictionary.
The word has appeared in stories in Business Insider, and the close variation, “doomsurfing,” appeared in the New York Times.
Why are people doomscrolling if the news is so negative? It is a combination of a "fear of missing out" (FOMO), a “hurry-up-and-wait” instinct and a real desire to get information on the pandemic and other issues even if that information is incomplete, questionably accurate and depressing.
With so many sources of information at our fingertips, the temptation to doomscroll is seductive to many people.
14 May 2020
Vaccine and vaccination
A caricature by James Gillray "The Cow Pock" of Jenner vaccinating patients who feared it would make them sprout cowlike appendages - Library of Congress, Public Domain, Link |
His vaccine practice was not immediately accepted. People feared the counterintuitive idea of introducing a disease into your body in order to fight disease. And the idea of using something from an animal in your body was repulsive. Jenner submitted a paper about his new procedure to the prestigious Royal Society of London, but it was rejected. The president of the Society told Jenner that it was a mistake to risk his reputation by publishing something so controversial.
Jenner published his ideas at his own expense in a short pamphlet in 1798 which was widely read and discussed. Novelist Jane Austen noted in one of her letters that she’d been at a dinner party and everyone was talking about the “Jenner pamphlet.”
The vaccination process evolved but in that time even the idea of germs was unknown so poor sanitation and dirty needles contributed to issues from the process
Jenner used the word vaccine in his writing and his friend, Richard Dunning, used "vaccination" in 1800, but the Oxford English Dictionary credits the French for coining the term vaccine in 1800 and vaccination in 1803. There are cognates in other languages (Italian, vaccine, Portuguese, vacina, and Spanish, vacuna).
29 April 2020
Nazz
with some Beatles' A Hard Day's Night as channeled through The Monkees.
22 April 2020
Calling Dibs
Let's say that a group of people decide to rent bicycles for a ride and one person says "I call dibs on the red one."
What does that mean and where did this odd expression originate?
This slang term has been in usage since the early 19th century.
"First dibs" is sometimes called to establish a claim on the first use or the ownership of the item claimed. For example, who gets to try riding the new electric bicycle first? "I have first dibs on riding," calls out one person.
Dibstones is a child's game, similar to jacks and dice games. A dibstone is a pebble used in the game as a counter. The pebbles or the discarded knucklebones of sheep have been used since the late 17th century.
The game is from England but the slang usage seems to be American. While playing, you can place a stone at your place to indicate a point. Similar to the modern slang usage, this means you have claimed a point.
To "call dibs" today is to claim a temporary right to something or to reserve it.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Children's Games - Knucklebones |
Jacks is also known as Knucklebones, Tali or Fivestones. The games have origin going back to ancient Greece and are mentioned by Sophocles and in the Ilyiad and Odyssey.
The games are usually played with five small objects (ten in the case of jacks). At one time the game pieces were literally knucklebones which are the astragalus bone in the ankle, or hock of sheep. The jacks are thrown up and caught along with a ball or other object.
Modern jacks have six points/knobs and are usually made of metal or plastic. The simplest throw consists of either tossing up one jack, or bouncing a ball, and picking up one or more jacks/pebbles/knucklebones from the ground while it is in the air.
The games have a whole series of throws with odd names such as "riding the elephant", "peas in the pod", "horses in the stable", and "frogs in the well".
sheep knucklebones used in the game |
A variant on the previously mentioned games that is played by Israeli school-age children is known as kugelach or Chamesh Avanim ("five rocks"). Instead of jacks and a rubber ball, five die-sized metal cubes are used. The game cube is tossed in the air rather than bounced. There's also the Korean game Gonggi, another variant.
I was not able to find the origin and reason why the game or the game pieces are called "jacks." Anyone know?