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my sister used the word "loreal". This, of course, is the adjectival form of the word "lore", meaning the space between the eye and the bill of a bird. Not that my sister knew that at the time, or my mother, but when playing against my mother you take no chances. NONE. So they looked it up, like so and what do you know. It's a word.
At this my mother asked in disgust what sort of person would EVER need to use that word, to which my sister replied "I don't know, people who study birds!" She couldn't remember the much more common word ornithologist (which I now realize I've been saying wrong my entire life), and that is why my mother tells this story often.
Of course, she's sometimes repeated this story to people who have never even heard the word "ornithologist" and therefore have no idea why the story is funny. These people are just plain ignorant, but it can't be helped. (Well, it could be, but it won't be, so it amounts to just about the same thing.)
It's amazing the sort of random connections that come up, because this whole post really has to do with today's Sheldon comic. Arthur (the duck) clearly doesn't know that, in fact, you can interpret coffee grounds to see the future. Or at least, people do interpret coffee grounds to see the future, though I don't think it works. Reading the dregs of your drink is, as a group, referred to as tasseography, another largely useless, not-even-on-spellcheck word that springs instantly to my mind.
Still, one of these days I will find a purpose for all these random little bits of information I have floating about. Not sure what purpose that might be, but as long as I continue to pick information up almost from the ether (ask me about Catholic saints one day. I don't know as much as some people, but for a non-Catholic who cannot remember even once reading about saints except to corroborate what I already knew, I know quite a bit!) the odds of finding a use must be increasing.
At this my mother asked in disgust what sort of person would EVER need to use that word, to which my sister replied "I don't know, people who study birds!" She couldn't remember the much more common word ornithologist (which I now realize I've been saying wrong my entire life), and that is why my mother tells this story often.
Of course, she's sometimes repeated this story to people who have never even heard the word "ornithologist" and therefore have no idea why the story is funny. These people are just plain ignorant, but it can't be helped. (Well, it could be, but it won't be, so it amounts to just about the same thing.)
It's amazing the sort of random connections that come up, because this whole post really has to do with today's Sheldon comic. Arthur (the duck) clearly doesn't know that, in fact, you can interpret coffee grounds to see the future. Or at least, people do interpret coffee grounds to see the future, though I don't think it works. Reading the dregs of your drink is, as a group, referred to as tasseography, another largely useless, not-even-on-spellcheck word that springs instantly to my mind.
Still, one of these days I will find a purpose for all these random little bits of information I have floating about. Not sure what purpose that might be, but as long as I continue to pick information up almost from the ether (ask me about Catholic saints one day. I don't know as much as some people, but for a non-Catholic who cannot remember even once reading about saints except to corroborate what I already knew, I know quite a bit!) the odds of finding a use must be increasing.
