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THE uNIVERSALLY DESPISTED POT HOLE

5/4/2025

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The other day my grandson, who lives in Indiana, called me from his car while he was running errands…just to keep in touch. We had a nice but rather unusual conversation about – you’ll never guess it – potholes.
​
The title of the blog gave it away, huh?
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​I assumed he had just experienced some potholes in the street which brought the subject to mind, but he asked me what I thought about them. After thirty-five years working in government land use planning, I am more knowledgeable on the subject than most 84-year-old grandmothers. We discussed truck traffic, weather, and all the many hours I’d sat through planning commission and city council hearings listening to the public complain about potholes…which is about equal to the number of hours of complaints about leaf blowers. Finally he said he thought I might do a blog about it.

Say what? The thought had never once occurred to me!

Yet here I am, trying to find a way of making this subject, which concerns and angers many people yet is deadly dull and uninteresting, into something readable.

THE UBIQUITOUS POTHOLE
Most living adults know what a pothole is. These common nuisances exist throughout the world, disrupting smooth drives and often leading to vehicle damage, costly repairs, and potential liabilities. Furthermore, repairing potholes can lead to significant expenses and inconvenience caused by having sections of a parking lot or roadway closed off for repairs.

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     Image Credit: O de R // Shutterstock
      Image Source: stacker.com/most-pothole- complaints
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         Image Credit: Vadim Lukin // Shutterstock
           Image Source: stacker.com/most-pothole- complaints
And no one seems to be a big fan. In fact, “the word pothole is universally despised by both public works agencies and the citizens they serve.” apwa.org/insights/the-us-pothole-problem.
​

THE HISTORY OF POTHOLES
Mind-boggling as it may seem, potholes have a history…an ancient one at that. They have been around “since the dawn of time.” nationaltoday.com/national-pothole-day

Whether or not the “dawn of time” is a stretch, certain pertinent events have been recorded since then, after humans discovered the wheel and learned to write.

Origin of the Word
This word seems to be pure Anglo-Saxon. The word "pothole" is a compound of the Middle-English words "pot" (meaning "hole") and "hole" (meaning, unsurprisingly, "hole").

"Pot" originally referred to a hole in the ground: a more or less cylindrical cavity from a few inches to several feet deep in rock (1826), originally a geological feature in glaciers and gravel beds. "Pothole" was originally used to describe holes in the ground that were created naturally, such as those caused by erosion or subsidence

Origin of the Terminology
In the 1400s/1500s, pottery makers in what is now England, “took advantage of the ruts carved into roadways by wagon and coach wheels. They would dig further into these deep ruts to uncover clay deposits beneath in their search for a cost-effective source of raw materials for crafting clay pots. Teamsters who drove wagons and coaches across the roads were aware of who or what produced the holes, which is why they called them ‘pot-holes.’” nationaltoday.com/national-pothole-day
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In 1884, a coal miner discovered the 42-feet wide and 38-feet deep Archbald Pothole in eastern part of  Pennsylvania. The Archbald pothole is now a state park. American ingenuity can make a tourist attraction out of anything.
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◄  Image Source: visitepa.org

By 1909, the British term had become a staple of American English. 


WHAT CAUSES POTHOLES?
While most discussions focus on those occurring in streets paved with asphalt, dirt roads and roads build of gravel or paving stone, fall prey to the hazard. Even reinforced concrete is at risk, although this is about the toughest material used for paving. It is most often plagued by cracks or buckling, which can develop into potholes.

● Wear and tear on the roads from traffic, not just in volume but in weight and frequency, has a significant impact on breaking down the material any road is made of.

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​Federal highway officials cast an “evil eye” on the unexpectedly heavy pounding delivered by American traffic, in particular behemoth 18-wheelers. Many U.S. roadways carry three or even four times their design weights.

◄ Image Credit and source: Alamay.com


● Age and maintenance are other factors. Over time, as road paving materials age, they become more susceptible to cracking. Eventually all paving materials can crack, exposing the base to the weather. Ongoing and timely maintenance can extend the life of the roadway and help keep it free of potholes.

● Water is the biggest culprit. Potholes form primarily due to water seeping into the pavement and weakening the soil beneath. Cracks allow more water infiltration and and subsequent pothole development.

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​                   Image credit: kolt_duo // Shutterstock
           
Image Source: stacker.com/states-most-pothole-complaints
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                    Image credit and source: Dreamtime.com
Colder locations, where snow and ice form, are even more affected by the freeze-thaw cycle. When the water freezes and expands, it puts pressure on the paving material, creating a void which gets bigger as the cycle continues through the winter, resulting in subsurface hollow spaces beneath the pavement.
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These voids compromise the structural integrity of the surface, making it more susceptible to damage under the pressure of passing vehicles. Eventually the pavement deteriorates leading to the formation of a cavity under the surface. Traffic over these weakened voids causes the material to collapse, forming a pothole which gets bigger and deeper unless properly maintained.
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             ​Cracked concrete road 
        Image Credit /source:  Dreamtime.com 
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Buckled concrete road 
         Image Credit: Dreamtime.com    

             Image Source: www.wsb.com 
   ​
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Dirt Road
Image Source: www.doityourself.com

WHY AREN’T POTHOLES FIXED RIGHT AWAY?
Think about it. Do you fix everything at your home as soon as it needs maintenance or replacing? Maybe a lot of smaller things, but not everything, particularly expensive items like a new roof, jack-hammering out a cracked driveway, or replacing fifty feet of eight-foot high retaining wall. Most people can’t do everything at once, and the government entities which are responsible for roads are in the same situation. You pick and choose based on many factors.

● Cost and Competition for Funds
Money is tight and the needs are many, even for governments. Generally speaking, the public tends to believe that all government does is spend tax money so why don’t they fix the streets. Just like families, money doesn’t go as far as it used to and dollars are tight at all levels of government. And like everything else, the costs to fill potholes and maintain streets have gone up.

Some jurisdictions choose to save money in the long run by making long-term repairs to likely pothole hotspots rather than wait to patch them after they’ve become a problem. “It is an issue of dollars available. A good proportion of America’s roads need resurfacing, but transportation departments simply don’t have the funding to do that.”
stateline.org/2018/potholes-cities
​

● Unreported Potholes
Sometimes potholes don’t get reported. People may believe that surely someone has complained the the government agency, but not necessarily. And sometimes people don't know which agency is actually responsible for that piece of roadway and report to the wrong one.
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● Scheduling
So many potholes, so little time; so few crews.
                                                                             Image Credit: Grossinger // Shutterstock
                                            Image Source: stacker.com/states-most-pothole-complaints


● Weather
As recent years have emphasized, we are at the mercy of the weather, and much of the US has suffered severely from such natural events. Not only does a cold climate make roads more susceptible to potholes, but it limits the hours and locations where they can be repaired.
During the warmer months, hot asphalt can be manufactured and delivered to repair the holes. During the winter months (October through March or April), asphalt plants are typically closed in cities like Minneapolis. Instead, the city uses “cold mix,” a temporary solution until the warm weather returns and asphalt plants reopen.

Is that uninteresting enough for you? Kudos if you are still awake and got this far. 

TOP15 STATES WITH THE MOST POTHOLE COMPLAINTS
In search of something interesting about potholes, I came across an article written by Brian Budzynski and posted in February 2022 by stacker.com/ which lists the number of pothole complaints by state. Below are the top fifteen from the post giving the number of pothole complaints for every 621 miles of roadway. With all the snow and flooding this year, the numbers of complaints will rise along with the water.

15. Michigan:  7.7 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
Surprisingly few considering that In this state, drivers can apply for reimbursement for repairs needed to their vehicles as a result of a run-in with a pothole.

14. Illinois: 7.8 complaints / 621 miles of roadway. 
Even with the second-highest gas tax rate in the country, funds for which go toward infrastructure maintenance, Illinois just can’t seem to get a handle on this problem.

13. Nevada:  7.9 complaints / 621 miles of roadway

12. Georgia:  9.5 complaints / 621 miles of roadway

An Atlanta driver recently encountered car-sized potholes on I-85 that resulted in thousands of dollars of damage to his car. Other drivers have reported potholes the size of swimming pools.​


11. Louisiana: 11 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
In one case, a local resident sat right along a pothole edge like he was dangling his legs in a pool.

10. Florida: 11.4 complaints / 621 miles of roadway.
One Florida resident planted a banana tree in a pothole outside his business, just to send a message. A different Florida solution is to paint yellow lines around the hole to warn drivers.

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                            Image Credit:  WINK-TV                                                                                     Image Credit: Flystock// Shutterstock
 ​                                Image Source: fox13news.com  
                                             
 Image Source: stacker.com/most-pothole-complaints
9. Connecticut:  12 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
One resident declared on Twitter that “My favorite Connecticut pastime is dodging potholes.”

8. Pennsylvania: 15.4 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
This state has the second-worst bridge condition situation in the country and with more than 50% of statewide roads not even maintained enough to call “fair,” naturally, a pothole problem is going to follow. 

7. Maryland: 15.5 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
Leaders are talking about tax cuts and more spending on law enforcement—but as for road repair, state is devoting more than half of its $16.4 capital budget to maintaining degraded roads and other infrastructure.

6. New Jersey: 16.5 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
The average additional cost to drivers in vehicle damage is referred to as a "New Jersey pothole tax."

​
5. California: 18.4 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
The mayor of Vallejo, California, had to recently ask residents to stop fixing potholes themselves, claiming such “pothole vigilantism” presented a liability problem.

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 Vallejo, CA “citizen vigilantes” -- Image Credit: mercurynews.com
Image Source: www.reddit.com/vallejo
 Image Source:bendigostandard.com/council-turns-potholes-into-swimming-pools/
4. Massachusetts:  18.7 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
Boston is among the cities with the most pothole complaints, with an average of 303 anger-venting tweets per 1,000 km of road.

3. New York: 20.5 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
The national transportation non-profit, TRIP, estimates New York drivers are losing in extra vehicle operating costs due to deteriorated and congested roads, as well as roads that lack appropriate safety features. This breaks down to more than $3,000 per driver.
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                                       Image Credit: rapideye                                                                                    Image Credit: Andriy Blokhin // Shutterstock
                                   Image Source: istockphoto                                                                          image source: stacker.com/most-pothole-complaints
2. Hawaii:  20.6 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
Despite having fewer roadway miles than any other state per capita, the generally underbuilt road system has resulted in one-third of roads being in poor condition.

1. Rhode Island: 23.4 complaints / 621 miles of roadway
The smallest geographic state takes the “bituminous taco” of having the most pothole complaints. Some refer to Rhode Island as "The Pothole State."

The article lists all fifty states, if you are interested. The state with the least complaints is Idaho with only 0.4 complaints per 621 miles of road.

NATIONAL POTHOLE DAY
National Pothole Day, January 15,  is an observance day created to focus attention on the ever growing problem of potholes. Below are the ways two people chose to increase awareness.
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                          Image Credit: Peretz Partensky                                                                                  Image Credit: Malachy Quinn
                             Image Source: Highways.today.com                                                                         Image Source: cyclingmagazine.ca.com


This approach may not be for all of us, but there are things which most drivers could do. Suggestions include:
● Raising awareness
● Leave your car at home when you can. Walking is good for you, or take a bus.

● Learn more and share what you know.

JUST SAYIN'
Is this dull enough for you? This is probably all you’ll ever want to know about potholes.

Sources:

https://stateline.org/2018/06/18/to-combat-potholes-cities-turn-to-technology/
https://stacker.com/stories/government/states-most-pothole-complaints
https://pavingfinder.com/expert-advice/what-causes-potholes/
https://mcconnellassociates.org/how-do-potholes-form-understanding-the-causes-and-prevention/
https://time.com/archive/6720166/why-america-has-so-many-potholes/
https://www.apwa.org/insights-and-solutions/the-us-pothole-problem/
https://www.assetpanda.com/resource-center/blog/why-do-potholes-take-so-long-to-fix/
https://tripnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Transportation-Funding-Fact-Sheet-March-2022.pdf
https://newsroom.aaa.com/2022/03/aaa-potholes-pack-a-punch-as-drivers-pay-26-5-billion-in-related-vehicle-repairs/
https://nationaltoday.com/national-pothole-day/
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/150494/why-are-pot-holes-called-pot-holes
https://www.thecollector.com/why-roman-roads-dont-have-potholes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbald_Pothole_State_Park
end
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THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "rACE"

4/4/2025

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The Human Race-image source: www.nih.gov
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​When I was in grammar school, at least a hundred and fifty years ago, I learned that the Taxonomy of Homo Sapiens Sapiens had three sub-classifications. Yes, Homo Sapiens Sapiens. No, my word-processing program does not stutter. Those three basic groups were identified as Caucasian, Oriental (or Mongoloid), and Negroid. 

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And what do you know? Once again my good ole’ California education has let me down. In fact, there is no such thing as race! At least, not based on modern scientific knowledge.  (I suppose I should cut the old school system some slack.)

​RACE
Origin Of The Word
● The word “race was first recorded (in the English language) in this form around 1490–1500. English borrowed race from the French word, which derives in turn from the Italian razza, meaning “kind, breed, lineage.” The deeper roots of razza are obscure. dictionary.com/race-vs-ethnicity/

Originally, the term functioned in English much like the word ethnicity and simply referred to groups of people connected by a common descent or origin. The earliest example defines the meaning as a "group of people belonging to the same family and descended from a common ancestor".

● “Until the 18th century it (race) had a generalized meaning similar to other classifying terms such as type, sort, or kind. Occasional literature from Shakespeare’s time referred to a “race of saints” or “a race of bishops.” britannica.com/topic/race-human

● After that time, as European colonization spread, the term was widely used for sorting and ranking the peoples in the English colonies, including: “Europeans who saw themselves as free people, Amerindians who had been conquered, and Africans who were being brought in as slave labor—and this usage continues today….white Europeans used race to sort humans by place of origin as well as skin color, creating the social hierarchy which served as the foundation of slavery.” britannica.com/topic/race-human

What Does The Word Really Mean?
According to Merriam-Webster, race means: “1a. Any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry.” (This dictionary also contains other definitions which are either redundant or don’t apply in this discussion.)

The above, out-of-date definition from the 18th century, was applied, in times past, in scientific fields such as physical anthropology referring to physical traits regarded as common among people of a shared ancestry such as skin color, hair form, head shape, and particular sets of cranial dimensions.

By the end of the 20th century, the science of genetics proved definitively that all humans alive today share 99% of their genetic material. For this reason, the concept of distinct sub-sets of the human race has no scientific basis. Thus, race is human construct used primarily as a sociological designation to identify a group sharing some outward physical characteristics and some commonalities of culture.

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Residents of different parts of Africa
Image Source: www.pinterest.com
Wait a minute! Do these people look like they share physical characteristics and commonalities of culture?
 

Not to me. This photo illustrates that there is no generic "African" race. In Africa, there are groups who speak Kikuyu, Zulu, Ashanti, Fulani, and so on. The differences are more related to where people are from and the language they speak.

According to Nina Jablonski, an anthropologist and paleobiologist at Pennsylvania State University who is known for her research into the evolution of human skin color, "'Race' and 'ethnicity' have been and continue to be used as ways to describe human diversity…Race is understood by most people as a mixture of physical, behavioral and cultural attributes. Ethnicity recognizes differences between people mostly on the basis of language and shared culture. But just as soon as we've outlined these definitions, we're going to dismantle the very foundations on which they're built. That's because the question of race versus ethnicity actually exposes major and persistent flaws in how we define these two traits, flaws that — especially when it comes to race — have given them an outsized social impact on human history.”

Even in a politically correct world, people continue to identify others as being Black, White, or Asian, plus all the other classifications that have come into the language, based on visual cues. These are identifiers humans have ascribed to each other or themselves.
​

The terms are used but they do not express scientific truth. Nothing in our genomes can be used to separate human beings along such clear lines.
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​ETHNICITY
Ethnic is defined as:
1a. Of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, religious,
tribal, linguistic, cultural origin, or background.                                                         Image Source: www.whyy.org  
1b.Being a member of a specified ethnic group.
1c. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a minority ethnic group
2. Of or relating to the Gentiles or to nations not converted to Christianity: i.e. pagan.

Don't you hate it when dictionaries used the same word to define itself?


Ethnicity is drawn from a Latin word derived from the Greek term éthnos meaning “nation” or “people.” The English word ethnic was first used in the mid-1700s as a noun for a heathen or pagan, and was also used to refer to anyone who originated from nations that were not Christian or Jewish.

Actually, the word pagan, f
rom the Latin word paganus, originally lacked any religious significance. It meant villager, rustic, or civilian, and is derived from a “pāgus” which refers to a small unit of land in a rural district. It was a demeaning Latin term (like the word hick).   thoughtco.com/pagan

HUMAN DIVERSITY: RACE and ETHNICITY
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Race and Ethnicity are irrevocably intertwined — not only because some-one's ascribed race can be part of their chosen ethnicity but also because of other social factors. Today most people use these terms almost interchangeably, either because they are ignorant or just sloppy in their use of the language.

​These words are used to describe human diversity, but in fact, race and ethnicity are not the same thing. Still, it’s a complicated distinction because the words overlap, and because of the historical and often personal interpretations.

“Race is often perceived as something that's inherent in our biology, and therefore inherited across generations. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is typically understood as something we acquire, or self-ascribe, based on factors like where we live or the culture we share with others.” livescience.com/difference-race-ethnicity

AN AUTHOR’S DILEMMA
Whether or not an author’s view of writing diversity is a dilemma, bringing diversity into your writing not only makes it more realistic but definitely enriches the content and the impact on the reader. It is only a dilemma because most white writers do not wish to offend others. There are many mistakes to be made. The operative word is Research.

“White” Is The Readers Default Setting
Colette Aburime, author and founder of WritingWithColor, a writing advice blog focused on diversity, writes, “One key to strong representation is making the race of your characters undisputedly clear….Society ensures we view white people as the default. That default human is probably also straight, cis, able-bodied, etc. until proven otherwise. This way of thinking won’t dissolve overnight.”

Aburime suggests authors be clear about their character’s race as soon as they are introduced and drop in a few discreet reminders throughout the novel. Physical description is one of the most straightforward ways to do that, particularly at the point a character comes on stage, but writing that a character has black hair and dark skin could be a description of many different ethnicities. Besides, just reciting a person’s physical attributes can be really dull reading. Avoid socially-constructed race terms like African-American, Asian-American, etc. to describe only the characters who aren't “white.”

Character Descriptions
Also, everything about the character doesn’t come out in the introductory depiction. Throughout the novel, the author can combine the physical attributes with other observations about the character, ethnicity, and actions, depending on the circumstances of the story, including:
  ● Culture: Such as family names, clothing, holidays, traditions, language, accents, food, heirlooms, values, religion, etc. One rite of adolescence in North American culture is to identify one's own ethnicity.
  ● Social issues: Throughout the story, what social issues does the character react to? Do they have about friends and/or relatives in other countries?
 ● Activities - PoC-specific organizations, activism, local businesses, social media, professional groups, religious connections.
  ● Focus: The character’s internal thoughts and the kind of things the character notices can also be used to establish any ethnicity. Our brains filter all input based on what is important to us.

There is nothing new about this. It’s what authors should do with all the primary and secondary characters in a novel. 1) The first point is to be aware that all these facts about this character should express their ethnicity. Make every word count; 2) The second point is to use specific and avoid generic descriptions; and 3) The third point is to do your research. Don’t think you know already. Don’t wing it.

However, Nanditha Narendran, a medical student whose spare time is spent writing short stories, has a slightly different take on how to make the character’s ethnicity clear. She writes, “State the character’s race along with any combination of all the other traits already discussed. Be it Black, White, African, Asian, or any race, depending on how important it is for your story that the reader does not misread your character’s race, explicitly stating it works perfectly well, too. It’s just a matter of avoiding overuse. This can work well for all primary and minor characters."


Minor and Walk-on Characters
One potential stumbling block can be what to do with characters who are very minor or walk-ons like a waiter in a restaurant or a bag-lady on the bus; those who have no real role in the story.

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A rule of thumb is that the more description you give of the character, the more the reader will expect to see the person again in the story. Description means that the character warrants some attention, and that translates into doing something (important or not).


If the waiter comes to the table, serves the food, and leaves, a description isn’t necessary or can be very generic, such as “a bald waiter with a white towel over his arm.”
If the character is background and takes no action affecting the story, should their ethnicity be called out by the author? How much description does that person get?

If The Story Is Not About Ethnicity
If the story is not particularly about ethnicity, why describe the ethnicity of the characters? You should know your reason. It could be that the setting for the novel is diverse, or because the protagonist knows how to do something that is usually restricted to a particular ethnic group, or even set on a sci-fi solar system. The story and characters should determine whether or not you provide ethnic cues in description.

Also, today’s readers are usually exposed to diversity, either by where they live, their interest and activities. or through entertainment and the media. They probably expect diversity as simply being realistic, at least in a contemporary setting.

When writing a historical, and perhaps believe there wouldn’t have been people of other ethnicities around at that location and time, do your research. There probably were, and those people probably had specific kinds of jobs. Your minor characters should be appropriate for the time and place, but try not to stereotype. It is okay to have someone break out of the ordinary.


Verbals And Non-Verbals
There are many non-verbal cues that can define ethnicity, whether the author intends to or not. When your character pales, blushes, or tosses back a long blond ponytail, she is most likely of European descent. Again, research! I know from personal experience that cues also can be misread, in life and in writing. I had a Chinese friend and co-worker who had rather dark skin. I assumed his coloring protected his skin, but when we spent a workday surveying a campground, he got one heck of a sunburn.

If you use verbal cues such as jargon, diction, or accent to establish or reinforce ethnicity, do your homework. Language, if done accurately, can be a powerful tool. Author Mitali Perkins writes, “The storyteller who crafts dialogue with jargon, diction, and accented English must be diligent in study as well as creative -- listening, learning, and communicating linguistic differences in the right way at the right time for the right reasons.”

Be thoughtful when using jargon and accents. Writing the entire dialogue in either can become very difficult for the reader. Once the language or ethnicity is established, I select certain words and phrases that identify the particular character’s voice and use only those.


BE RESPECTFUL AND THOUGHTFUL
All of this is about be respectful and thoughtful with others.
 
Sources:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/difference-between-race-and-ethnicity
https://scientificorigin.com/whats-the-difference-between-ethnicity-and-race
https://scientificorigin.com/whats-the-difference-between-ethnicity-and-race
https://www.dictionary.com/e/race-vs-ethnicity/
https://www.livescience.com/difference-between-race-ethnicity.html
https://blog.prepscholar.com/race-vs-ethnicity-vs-nationality#google_vignette
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/race-and-ethnicity
https://www.britannica.com/topic/race-human/The-history-of-the-idea-of-race
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-pagan-120163
https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/95-FE-Write-Race-Ethnicity-in-Fiction.html
https://writingtheother.com/writing-characters-of-different-races/
https://www.mitaliperkins.com/2008/10/ten-tips-about-writing-race-in-novels.html
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/01/contemporary-writers-represent-race-new-ways-literary-scholar-finds
https://blog.nanowrimo.org/post/188519134840/the-dos-of-writing-people-of-color-describe-your
https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2016/03/native-people-respond-to-rowling.html
https://www.essence.com/news/5-code-words-media-needs-stop-using-describe-black-people/?ps_theme=essence25

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WHY PEOPLE COLLECT THINGS

2/15/2025

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The other day I heard on the news that someone paid $28 million for a piece of Hollywood memorabilia. 
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The sum is mind-boggling for the average person, and I couldn’t help wondering why people seem compelled to collect things: a question pondered by professionals in various fields (psychology, anthropology, history) and a motivation to seek the truth behind the human desire to gather, categorize, and cherish material possessions.
    Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers – Wizard of OZ Movie
    Image Source: silverscreenmodes.com/the-wizard-of-oz


​Over the years I have collected a number of various useless things, many of which are now stored in my garage somewhere. Whole collections will most likely be sold by my children at a garage sale for five dollars, although some of the items were on the expensive side for my budget. Thus someone else who loves owls or ceramic cats or decorative plates will be happy they made a good deal.

Why did I collect these things? Sometimes I simply fell into collecting. I saw something I liked, usually home decor, and would buy it, only to discover later there were more pieces to the set. I’d buy more. Then a piece of the same type would show up. Soon people would give them to me as presents, “…because Ann always likes owls.” (Not real ones, of course.)

My other impetus for collecting came with travel. I would buy a souvenir of a place I visited, usually something small and easy to pack. On the next trip, I would buy the same kind of thing as a keepsake – because I already had one from the last trip – and eventually it became a collection. My saving graces were that I never collected too many, and I never spent beyond my means. Since the items tended to be home decor, I soon ran out of space…and went to something else.

But what is the psychology behind collecting?


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLLECTING
Prior to humans abandoning the nomadic lifestyle more than 12,000 years ago, collecting did not exist. But since then, people everywhere have fallen to the beckoning behavior of collecting. This often resulted, and still does, in vast numbers of unusual objects and unique storage solutions. I’m guessing this desire to accumulate “stuff” has intrigued others for as many millennia as people have been collecting.

The psychology of collecting attempts to identify the reasons why people dedicated so much time, money, and energy to this activity, often collecting items that seem to others as “ridiculous.” “The psychology of collecting also offers insight into variance between similar behavior that can be recognized on a continuum between being beneficial as a hobby and also capable of being a mental disorder.” en.wikipedia.org/ Psychology_of_collecting

Researchers have 
com e to believe collecting is more than just accumulating things. It is a deeply personal and  often emotional journey that reflects the collector’s innermost desires, fears, and aspirations. neurolaunch.com/psychology-of-collecting

The theories fall into four basic categories:
● Consumerism
This set of theories is based on a social and economic order in which the aspirations of many individuals include the acquisition of goods and services beyond those necessary for displays of status and wealth.

● Materialism
Materialism is the philosophical belief that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of the interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are caused by physical processes, such as the neurochemistry of the human brain and nervous system, without which they cannot exist.
● Neurobiology
Neurobiological theories propose that collecting behaviors can, in some cases, be explained by brain damage or abnormalities in the medial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for regulating cognitive behaviors such as decision making, information processing, and organizing behavior.
● Psychoanalytic theory
Of the four, psychoanalytic theories -- what drives the compulsion to collect -- are the ones most of us relate to. The psychoanalytic perspective generally identifies four main motivations for collecting:

• Selfish purposes,
• Selfless purposes; as preservation, restoration, history, and sense of continuity,
• Financial investment,
• A form of addiction, now termed hoarding.

Shirley M. Mueller, M.D., neuroscientist, and collector, has studied this phenomenon and writes that 33 to 40 percent of the American population collects one thing or another. Her research convinced her
“…not only can there be an instigating factor or factors for collectors to collect at all, or, in a particular area. There also are reinforcing contributors that make the activity worthwhile and pleasurable for which we now know the scientific basis. For example, the rarity of a piece can not only make it valuable, but it can also stimulate certain parts of the brain that register this uniqueness. The scientific research relating to this phenomenon is called the Oddball experiment.”

According to Dr. Meuller, this experiment uses a magnetic resonance machine to measure activity in the brain when the subject sees a string of ordinary objects punctuated by the extraordinary. Specific areas of their brains light up when the unusual items are presented. She theorizes that the collector’s brain may “light up” when the unique object they collect is seen. “It stimulates our brains in areas that connect to our pleasure center. This may also have an evolutionary benefit. We explore the new until we determine whether it is a benefit to us or not.”

DRIVERS BEHIND COLLECTING BEHAVIOR
According to an article in neurolaunch.com/psychology-of-collecting, a collector’s behavior is driven by one or more of the following:
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● The Hunt for Completeness and Control
In this case, filling the gaps in a collection results in a deep satisfaction for the collector. It seems to fulfill the individual’s desire for completeness which is motivated by a need for control and order. This search for order can be exciting, but it also can be frustrating. The collector is engaged in the hunt, but always behind on achieving the goal.

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● Nostalgia
These collectors are gathering memories, links to their past, which may create strong emotions. This is termed the Psychology of Sentimental Items. Studies reveal that the items being collected carry “the weight of personal history and shared experiences” i.e. the identify of the collector.The objects in question can comfort as well as create a sense of continuity in a world that is changing more and more rapidly.


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● The Financial Motivation
While the drivers of collecting may be internal, financial investment is also very real. Collecting, particularly works of art, is also motivated by the potential for making a profit someday. Buying for investment melds the emotional motivation with the strategic thinking thrill of collecting.
neurolaunch.com/psychology-of-collecting-things/

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● Social Status and Identity Expression
“In many cases, collections serve as extensions of the collector’s identity, showcasing their interests, expertise, and social status. The act of collecting can be a form of self-expression, allowing individuals to curate a physical representation of their personality and values.”
neurolaunch.com/psychology-of-collecting-things/

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● Building Connections
Often collections are used, subconsciously or not, as a way to build connections with others, preferably with similar interests. A hobby or collection can lead to rich social connections and community building. Collector conventions, online forums, and local clubs provide opportunities for like-minded individuals to share their passion, exchange knowledge, and form lasting friendships. The The social aspect of collecting is when groups of individuals with common interests develop shared beliefs, ideas, and values.


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● Loneliness  
While this could be related to the driver to build connections, it is somewhat different. Some people collect objects in the absence of healthy interpersonal relationships. Anxious attachment and excessive acquisition can both be explained by loneliness.


According to an article by Karen Wu, Ph.D., loneliness has become an epidemic, and “currently, over half of Americans are lonely, with higher rates of loneliness among younger adults. At the same time, technology has made it easier to acquire things, often with little or no social interaction.”  psychologytoday.com/why-do-people-collect-things-it-could-be-loneliness​

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● Mastery and Knowledge
Serious collectors often become experts in their fields. The pursuit of knowledge about their chosen objects can be intellectually stimulating, offering a sense of accomplishment and mastery.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROS and CONS OF COLLECTING
Like most behaviors, collecting can have positive and healthy benefits or become negative and problematic conditions.


POSITIVES
● Stress Reduction and Relaxation: The act of organizing and admiring a collection can be meditative and stress-relieving. It provides a structured escape from the chaos of daily life.

● Cognitive Stimulation: Researching and learning about the items in a collection can keep the mind active and engaged, potentially staving off cognitive decline in older adults. The activity provides cognitive stimulation and intellectual growth, ands the collector is engaged in expanding their knowledge base.

● Sense of Achievement: Successfully acquiring a rare item can provide a profound sense of achievement, boosting self-esteem and overall well-being. The sense of accomplishment that comes with building a collection can also boost self-esteem, provide a feeling of mastery, and reinforces a positive self-image.

● Sense of Anticipation: Collecting inherently involves anticipation. “In its nascent stage, yet fulfilled, the collector’s craving allows her to imagine anything she wants about the desired returns the object will bring. We know that it is in this phase that the pleasure center burns most brightly. Once the prize is obtained, the pleasure center quiets. In other words, the anticipation of the reward is more exciting to our pleasure center than possessing it. This explains, in part, why collecting frequently transcends a mere pastime and often becomes a passion. It gives sufficient pleasure that the participant wants to continue it more and more vigorously.”
psychologytoday.com/the-mind-of-a-collector

NEGATIVES
Like anything else, collecting can become a negative when taken to the extreme, and the line between healthy and problematic behavior can be very fine. Each of the positives, when taken to an extreme, could become a problematic behavior.


● Hoarding Disorder: When individuals accumulate items to an excessive and often detrimental degree, this can be a serious condition that goes beyond normal collecting behavior. In addition to the collections of things taking up most of the living space, the difference between the two lies in intention and functionality. Collecting is typically an organized, purposeful activity, whereas hoarding involves accumulating items indiscriminately, often leading to clutter, disarray, and dysfunction.
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Hoarding is linked to psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It is an obsession for retaining control. Things provide a protective barrier between feelings of loss or inadequacy, and the behavior is often related to obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
​ 
  
Extreme Hoarding Disorder
   Image Source: Phoenix-Extreme-cleaning-Ireland.ie

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● Over-Spending: While post collectors do not aspire to item like the Hope Diamond valued at $350 million, the activity becomes dysfunctional when the individual does not adhere to a budget and over commits to buy collectibles, leaving other needs unmet.              The Hope Diamond $350 million
                               Image Source: living.alot.com/most-valuable-artifacts
 

● Excessive Feelings of Superiority: People who are motivated to collect for reasons of status or who become highly learned in the topic, might develop attitudes of superiority which hurt others.

● Stress: The emotional need to find the next “prize” could end up adding stress, as could being outbid at an auction.

● Living In The Past: Too much nostalgia could lead some people to live too much in the past.

SOME UNUSUAL COLLECTORS ITEMS
The value of any item is simply the amount that someone is willing to pay. Objects related to celebrities can command some very impressive sums of money, no matter how weird the connection is. A very few of them are:

● George Washington's Hair
Collecting hair is a tradition that goes back for centuries. George Washington’s hair is a coveted collector’s item. His set of hair was sold by Sotheby's in 2016 for $30,000.
​

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● John Lennon’s Fancy Toilet
John Lennon’s fancy toilet from his Tittenhurst Park home in Berkshire was given to the builder, to use as a planter pot, when the home was remodeled. Instead, the builder kept it as a collectible. It showed up on the auction block in 2010 and sold for $11,500.
   John Lennon's toilet:  Image Credit:The Beatles Shop
   Image source: barnebys.com/weirdest-collectibles-ever-sold


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● Winston Churchill's False Teeth
Winston Churchill was voted number 1 in BBC's 100 Greatest Britons list, and the interest in owning something he possessed is great. Churchill had a natural lisp and wore dentures for his speech defect.

   Winston Churchill's false teeth: Image credit: © Bonhams
   Image Source:
barnebys.com/weirdest-collectibles-ever-sold

The set of teeth was saved for many years. They were offered at auction for the first time in 2010 when a small UK-based auctioneer sold them for $18,400. In 2011 they were sold by Bonhams for $23,300.

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● Queen Victoria's Bloomers
British royal collectibles are most sought-after, but items directly connected to the royal family are rare finds at an auction. In 2015, collectors had the opportunity to bid on custom-made panties belonging to Queen Victoria. The bloomers were by auctioned for $14,600.

   Queen Victoria's underwear
   Image source
: www.irishmirror.ie

If these really belonged to the queen, I would have expected them to go for a lot more. After all, she was also the Empress of India and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in history.

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● Lee Harvey Oswald's Coffin
The high interest in JFK's killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was proven when his coffin came up for auction in 2010. That happened because Oswald’s family -- to put a rest to the conspiracy theories about Lee Harvey Oswald's body not being buried -- approved his body be exhumed.


   Lee Harvey Oswald's coffin: Image credit: © Nate D. Sanders
   Image Source: barnebys.com/weirdest-collectibles-ever-sold


​​The body was identified through dental records and it was definitely Lee Harvey Oswald. The original coffin was replaced with a new one and later buried in Fort Worth, Texas.
The original coffin, sold by Nate D. Sanders at auction, went for $87,000.


● William Shatner's Kidney Stone
Actor William Shatner took his place on the list of unique collectables when he sold one of his kidney stones. Although he did it for a charitable cause, it's still awfully weird. The selling price ended at $25,000 when it was sold in 2006 via Julien's Auctions.


● Ronald Reagan's Blood
An attempt to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan took place on March 30, 1981. Reagan was shot and seriously wounded after a speech held in Washington, D.C., and was taken to George Washington University Hospital in serious condition. Blood tests were taken, but someone managed to steal one stoppered glass vial with Regan's blood in it and a hospital document about Regan.

The blood-thief was never identified, as far as I could tell from the internet, and the blood and certificate ended up in the hands of a collector. This glass vial was sold via an American auction house in 2012 for $3,550. In the same year it was offered at auction by PFC Auctions, and the high bid was over $30,000. Eventually, the seller decided to donate the blood to the Reagan Presidential Foundation.


Sources:
https://www.kindafrugal.com/14-crazy-expensive-collectibles-ever-sold/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_collecting
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mind-of-a-collector/202010/collecting-an-urge-thats-hard-to-resis
t
https://neurolaunch.com/psychology-of-collecting-things/
https://www.invaluable.com/blog/collecting-psychology/
https://listen-hard.com/social-and-cultural-psychology/collect-things-psychology/
https://www.thecollector.com/what-makes-art-valuable/
https://collectorizing.com/2024/09/19/the-wild-world-of-collectibles-what-makes-their-values-soar-and-sink/
https://www.barnebys.com/blog/top-10-weirdest-collectibles-ever-sold
https://www.kindafrugal.com/14-crazy-expensive-collectibles-ever-sold/
https://disruptorsmagazine.com/the-psychology-of-collecting-why-we-gather-and-hoard/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-heart/202211/why-do-people-collect-things-it-could-be-loneliness

Researchgate.net/publication/336587786_Collecting_as_routine_human_behavior_motivations_for_identity_and_control_in_the_material_and_digital_world

https://living.alot.com/entertainment/15-most-valuable-artifacts-you-can-find-in-museums--12806
https://www.workandmoney.com/s/weirdest-things-sold-on-ebay-acd719963f994cec

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WHAT MAKES A WORD A WORD?

11/6/2024

0 Comments

 
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WILL THE "REAL" WORD PLEASE STAND UP?
How many times have you heard someone say, "That's not even a real word!"

"A real word? I said it, didn't I?"

If the conversation deteriorates with the statement, "It's not in the dictionary," you can be sure you are dealing with an amateur. Go ahead and ask the key question. "Since when has being in the dictionary the criterion for a word being real vs. fake?"

Answer: "Never."

According to Lexicographer Erin McKean and her team at Wordnik, 52% of English words aren’t in major dictionaries. That is an amazing number considering that Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries. The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, reports that it includes a similar number.

Even more amazing is the estimate -- Made using a Ouija Board? -- that there claims there are one million English words (many of them real). Some experts insist the number should be at least a quarter million higher.

REAL OR FAKE? TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

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I found two basic approaches to new words. First, if a pronounceable sound comes out of a human mouth and the sound means something, even to only one person, it is a real word. After all, every word begins as a made-up word. Whether or not it becomes a common word through usage, is one issue. Another is whether or not it is entered into a dictionary. But it is "real." 

The other slant on new words is that new words are made-up and not real, therefore they are fake. These made-up words appear to be real, but actually don't exist and don't have any meaning. They initially appear real because they can be pronounced which makes it seem like they would be real words.
Here are some samples of what the experts consider fake words.                                                                             Image source: www.easyvectors.com

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Dullema - (duh-‘leh-muh) n.--The choice between two equally boring outcomes.

Cellfish - (‘sel-fish) n.—Someone who talks on the phone to the exclusion of those he or she is with.

Foupe - This fake word actually showed up in a dictionary at one point! In 1755, back when people wrote long S’s, which looked
like F’s
, a dictionary editor misread “soupe” as "foupe” and mistakenly put the latter in the dictionary.


None of the articles I read explain what happens to these fake words after they are created.

WHAT’S A NEOLOGISM?
The definition of neologism is a new word -- one invented or coined that has never been used before. The etymological origins of the term are Greek for “new” and “word.”

Many new words come from new technologies and disciplines, but they can also be invented, most often by authors and writers but also comedians and people in the performing arts. Those words, often called slang, reach a large audience and may catch on quickly.

William Shakespeare is one of the foremost neologists who is credited with creating over 1,700 new words in the English language by combining existing words into one, adapting usage, using verbs as nouns, etc. At that time, stage plays were one of the primary sources of entertainment and thus reached a broad audience.

By the way, "neologist " is not yet in the dictionary.

One Lexicographer calls fake or made-up words by the terms “madeupical” and "nonce formations" (words which are coined by one person, but which never get more widely used). But shouldn't every new word be given a chance to succeed?

New words are contrived by different means, including but not limited to:
1. Absorption of a foreign word into English (with or without the same spelling, pronunciation, or meaning).

2. Creation of an Anglicized word from a foreign word (again, with or without the same meaning, but English spelling).

3. Combination of two separate words smooched together, such as humongous or ginormous, which mean more or less the same thing, or which mean something totally different.

4. Exclusion of a letter or two (usually at beginning or end), such as Vacay which is simply the shortened word for vacation (used since 1991).

5. Exclusion of a letter plus a more updated or slang definition, such as the slang word  "rando", which used to mean "random". Editor Tina Donvito speculates that "Apparently pronouncing one letter more in the already slang use of the word random is too much for today’s youth". https://www.rd.com/list/slang-words-in-the-dictionary/

In years past, “random” trended as a way to express dismay at something that was unexpected or unwelcome, but “rando” finesses the disparaging slang into noun form: “Some rando just showed up at the party.” (A change in the part of speech).

6. Addition of a new definition, such as with "stinger" which now refers to the short scene that you see during or after the closing credits of a movie or TV program. "Hophead" is now also a person who likes to drink beer.

7. Substitution of an abbreviation in place of a word or words, as in the newly added abbreviation "TL;DR". I mean, why waste breath saying, "Too Long; Didn't Read"? But didn't you save a lot of time by not reading it?

Merriam-Webster reminds us that the word "acronym” only refers to an abbreviation that’s pronounced as a word, such as UNICEF or POTUS.

8. Modification of an existing word but with a different pronunciation, spelling, or both.

I'm sure there are many more ways that words become real, but these were all my brain could handle. See how many other ways you can think of. Just for the fun of it, make up some words.  Are the fake or real? 

WHAT’S A LEXICOGRAPHER?
A "logophile" is someone with a passion for words. A lexicographer is a person who compiles dictionaries as their profession. Lexicographers also get to decide which words make it into the dictionary, and what terms go into slang dictionaries. A dictionary is a "living document" which is being revised and updated constantly by living people.

THE FIRST DICTIONARY
The earliest dictionaries were created by the 1st century Greeks, and emphasized the changes in the meanings of words over time. Later, the close juxtaposition of languages in Europe led to the appearance, from the early Middle Ages on, of many bilingual and multilingual dictionaries. www.britannica.com/dictionary

The first English dictionary was Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabetical, published in 1604, which contained around 3,000 words. A Dictionary of the English Language, by Samuel Johnson, was published as Johnson's Dictionary on 15 April 1755.

Image Source: www.bing.com/images/SameulJohnson

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​It was commissioned by a group of London booksellers in 1746 and written by Samuel Johnson single-handedly. It took seven years. He produced several revised editions during his lifetime. This dictionary is among the most influential in the history of the English language.

While chronologically this work was not the first, Johnson grounded his wordlist in the works of English authors, as well as describing subtle shades of meaning in numbered senses, and providing extensive quotations showing the words in context. These innovations make this the first English dictionary of its kind.


HOW WORDS GET INTO THE DICTIONARY
The simple answer is, well, it's simple: USAGE. When we get down to the process, however, it's more complicated.

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Word Search
This is not the quick computerized word search you may be familiar with. To decide which words to include in the dictionary and to determine what they mean, editors called Definers spend at least two hours a day reading a broad cross-section of published materials, including newspapers, books, magazines and
A Definer at work                          electronic publications. 
Image Source: WebStockReview 2024.

The Editor-Definer searches all these materials every day for new words, new usages of existing words, various spellings, inflected forms, meanings, and so on which might help deciding if a word belongs in the dictionary. Words of interest are marked.

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Citations
All the marked passages are then input into a computer system and stored both in machine-readable form and on 3" x 5" slips of paper to create citations. Merriam-Webster's citation files, begun in the 1880s, now contain 15.7 million examples of
Image Source:
 www.grammarly.     words used in context.
com​/citations/


Yowza! Does this mean they store nearly 16 million slips of 3"x 5" paper? It boggles the mind.                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                               Image Source: www.gusto.com/gopayroll/058-gentm

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​Each citation contains the following elements:
1. The word itself,
2. An example of the words used in context,
3. Bibliographic information about the source from which the word and example were taken.

​Citations are also available to editors in a searchable text database, called a corpus, that includes more than 70 million words from a vast variety of sources.


Citation to Entry
So far our words are in a data-base and on little pieces of paper. The process of going from citation to entry starts with the dictionary Definers reviewing groups of citations for one small part of the alphabet (eg. gri-gro) plus entries that are currently being reviewed for update.

The definer's job is to determine which existing entries can remain essentially unchanged, which entries need to be revised, which entries can be dropped, and which new entries should be added. In each case, the definer decides on the best course of action to be taken, such as adjusting entries or creating new ones.

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Rejection
Before a new word can be added to the dictionary, it must have enough citations to show that it is widely used. Too many citations may make the word difficult to define.

A word may get rejected due to inadequate general usage, if all its citations come from a single source, or if they are all from highly specialized publications that reflect the jargon of experts within a single field. Many words have been in use for a long time but may not have been used in a substantial number of citations that come from a wide-enough range of publications over a considerable period of time. Don't worry, 52% haven't made it yet.

During the COVID pandemic, new words and medical terms appeared on the scene almost immediately. Obviously, the usage was broad and spread rapidly, so the time to go from citation to dictionary entry was abnormally short.

SIZE DOES MATTER
The size and type of dictionary also affects how many citations a word needs to gain admission. Dictionaries do have limited space, so in many only the most commonly used words can be entered. Annually, that is about 1,000 new words. There are a few words that drop out because they are no longer used, but those do not offset the new words being added.

To address part of the problem, there are many specialized dictionaries which deal with one subject, such as medical terms, biblical references, music, etc.

EVEN EDITORS MAKE MISTAKES

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Of course, editors are human and everyone makes mistakes. Words get into the dictionary that are fake words, words made up as a joke -- such as the longest word, or simply misspelled by accident. One of the best known Dictionary Error occurred when compiling the 1934 Webster’s New International Dictionary. A card for an abbreviation coded “D or d” (where the capital D was used as short for "density") ended up in the dictionary as the word "dord" meaning "density." No one even noticed for five years. There are also instances when words which should have been included were simply left out by mistake, one went missing for fifty year before it made its dictionary appearance. "bondmaid".

DISCLAIMER
This description of the process substantially comes from a publication by Merriam-Webster dated 2010. I found no updates and only a few other articles, all dated around the same time. Although there are parts of the procedure that require good old human eyes and brains, it's hard to believe libraries are not taking advantage of the most up-to-date technology available.

We (humans) are irreplaceable ... for now. Imagine a totally AI-created  dictionary! What fun
words it might contain. We can barely communicate with each other now; the future is a bit scary.


FUN TO KNOW FACTS
The Word With The Most Meanings
The word with the largest number of separate definitions is the word "set" which has 430 separate definitions.

The Most Misused Word
Of all the words that have had their meanings diluted over time, dictionary.com has declared one the most misused word as “ironic.” Their argument is that the word is almost never used correctly. People often hear it used to mean something that’s funny, coincidental, or unexpected. And while it can describe something that is any of those adjectives, it has to be funny, unexpected, i.e. all of those things, because it’s the exact the  opposite of what you’d expect.

The Least Popular Letter

While it's an easy guess that X is the least used letter in the English alphabet, it stands proudly as the beginning letter for at least 400 words in the current Oxford Dictionary. But when Noah Webster first produced his Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the number of listed words beginning with X was a grand total of…one! (It was, of all things, “xebec,” which describes “a three-masted vessel of the Mediterranean.”)

The Longest Dictionary Word in English

The longest word most of us know is "antidisestablishmentarianism." That word held the record until the name of a lung disease with forty-five letters displaced it with  “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis." According to Lexico, this word was actually created to poke fun at long, overly technical medical terms.. Another, much longer word is actually considered the longest in English with 189,819 letters—and it’s another scientific term. It’s the name for a protein nicknamed “titin.” It would take a full 12 pages to write each letter out, so, understandably, dictionaries choose to omit it." www.rd.com/list/fascinating-dictionary-facts/

According to Grammarly, “incomprehensibilities,” at 21 letters, has been named the longest word “in common usage.”

Contributor To The First Oxford English Dictionary
They say that fact is stranger than fiction. This is a true and tragic tale that supports that theory. William Chester Minor was a Civil War veteran suffering from serious paranoid schizophrenia after experiencing the horrors of war. Specifically, his symptoms were similar to PTSD. He underwent treatment and moved to England hoping a new environment might help. Instead he suffered from frequent nightmares that there was an intruder in his room who was trying to kill him. So far, therapy had not helped

One night in 1872, Minor shot at someone he was sure was the intruder, and he killed an innocent passerby, George Merrett. Minor confessed to the murder, explained why he did it. Seven weeks later, a court found William C. Minor, 37, not guilty on the grounds of insanity. Once a respected army surgeon who saved lives, he had suddenly been rejected as a deluded lunatic who took lives. He was sentenced to the Asylum for the Criminally Insane at Broadmoor.


While imprisoned at the asylum, Minor started contributing to the Oxford English Dictionary’s “mail-in volunteer system.” He regularly sent words to the editor, James Murray who had no idea Minor was incarcerated.
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Image Source: www.bing.com/search?q=images+-+william+chester+minor

Murray found that Minor was one of the most prolific and by far one of the most valuable contributors. The two men would eventually meet almost 20 years after the start of their correspondence.


​​JUST SAYIN'

​Sources:
https://randomwordgenerator.com/fake-word.php#:~:text=Fake%20words%20are%20simply%20made%20up%20words%20that,it%20seem%20like%20they%20would%20be%20real%20words.

https://knowinsiders.com/top-15-new-words-in-english-for-20242025-39356.html
https://bookriot.com/dictionary-com-releases-list-of-new-and-updated-words-for-2024/#
https://www.rd.com/list/phrases-people-never-use-sound-smart/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq-real-words#:~:text
https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq-words-into-dictionary
https://ideas.ted.com/20-words-that-arent-in-the-dictionary-yet/
https://www.rd.com/article/dictionary-editors-prank/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language
https://www.britannica.com/summary/dictionary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictionaries_by_number_of_words

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-english-dictionaries/samuel-johnson-and-the-first-english-dictionary/D3999C74ED1D776735E1C3F682E43F9B

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=images%20-%20Samuel%20Johnson&form=IQFRBA&id=8BE9739A55D1A3C41E7DE89C05EC26AF08938DB6&first=1

https://www.grammarly.com/citations/mla/clip-art?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=627085131&utm_content=81157820688367&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.grammarly.com%2Fcitations%2Fmla&keywordid=2332957515897084&targetid=dat-2332957515897084:loc-190&ad

​https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/504609/murderer-who-helped-make-oxford-english-dictionary

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LET THE OLYMPIC GAMES BEGIN

8/26/2024

0 Comments

 
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​THE OLYMPIC GAMES
Most of us have a vague idea about the ancient Greek Olympic games that were held every four years at the sacred site of Olympia, Greece, beside the city-state of Elis in northwestern Peloponnese from 776 BCE to about 393 CE. (Wow! A forty-word sentence. Shame on me.)

The games were part of a religious festival that honored Zeus, and the name of the competition was derived from Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods. The Olympics was not the only one of these sporting matches held in Greece, but it was the most important. It is said that the Greeks even scheduled some of their wars so they would not interfere with the timing of the event between August 6 and September 19.  

https://www.britannica.com/sports/ancient-Olympic-Games

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The first Olympic champion listed in the records was Coroebus of Elis, a cook, who won the sprint race in 776 BCE. ​


Site of the original Olympics in Olympia, Greece
Image Source: https://www.ontheluce.com/ancient-olympia-let-the-games-begin/

FAST FORWARD TO 1896
After a few centuries to think about it, important men decided it was time to revive the Olympics. The first Modern Olympic Games took place in Athens, Greece, 1896. Members of the Greek royal family played an important role in the organization and management of the Games.

Under the leadership of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the recently created International Olympic Committee billed the Modern Olympic Games being for the first time held since 393 CE. The Opening Ceremony was held on Greece's Independence Day (April 6) to an enthusiastic crowd filling the refurbished Panathenaic stadium and spilling into the streets and hillside beyond.
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​​The second modern Olympic competition was like a sideshow of the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. The French government took over the control of the Games from the recently formed ICO responsible for organizing and administering the new event. The results were, at best, chaotic.
​                                                                                                     Image Source:  https://bvmsports.com/2020/07/23/paris-hosts-1900-olympics-

​
The Committee still hadn’t settled on the major events that would define the games, and the rules and procedures were less than rigid. This resulted in some bizarre situations. Since the aura around the games is often so serious, it is tempting to poke a little fun at the not-so-intense moments. Unfortunately, these are often quite intense when they happen, but in sports and other performing arts, you have to lean to laugh at yourself, after the fact. It helps keep you sane.

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CHARIOTS OF CHEATING – OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT? 
1896, Athens                                                          Spy
ridon Belokas
                                 
         Image Source: en.wikipedia.org/Spyridon_Belokas                                    
                                


Human nature never changes. During the inaugural Olympic marathon, Spyridon Belokas cheated by taking a carriage ride for a good chunk of the race. Yet somehow, even with that extra boost, he only managed to cross the finish line in third place.

Belokas was disqualified, and Gyula Kellner was awarded third place. Nonetheless, following his “victory”, Belokas was celebrated as a national hero.

O.M.G. - WOMEN? WHAT A SCANDLE!
1900, Paris
Twenty years before American women could vote, they were allowed to compete in the Olympics, which caused quite the k
erfuffle. Wat does that say about American culture and attitudes?
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​

                                                                          Image Source: https://www.redbookmag.com/scandalous-moments-in-olympics
That first year, 22 women competed in five events: tennis, equestrian, sailing, croquet, and golf, but it was a significant step for women.

According to
https://americaninquiry.com, the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal was Chicagoan Margaret Ives Abbott, who won the Olympic competition in women’s golf in Paris in 1900.


"Apparently the Paris Olympics were run in an off-hand fashion, for during her lifetime Margaret was never fully aware of what she had won. Only after her death did historians realize that her victory in what seemed to be just another golf tournament was actually part of the Olympic competition.  She received a bowl, not a medal." https://americaninquiry.com

BLOOD AND FEATHERS FLY
1900, Paris
Live pigeon shooting appeared for the first and only time as an Olympic event in the second modern Olympic games. Over 300 live pigeons were killed.

American sports historian Andrew Strunk wrote in a 1988 article on the 1900 Paris Olympics, “Maimed birds were writhing on the ground, blood and feathers were swirling in the air and women with parasols were weeping in the chairs set up nearby.”



CHEATING AND STRYCHNINE
1904, St. Louis Olympics
The 1904 long distance Marathon takes the prize for one of the most flagrant Olympic mishaps. Set in St. Louis, the modern Olympic Games were still in their infancy and, for the most part, the people in charge knew squat about what was required for such an event.

The foot race was set under the worst circumstances. The 25-mile race ‒ which was actually 24.85 miles ‒ started in the afternoon in hot 103°F weather. The roads were dusty, and automobiles were allowed to use the roads during the race, making the dust worse. The only water stop for the runners was at the 12-mile mark. These unfortunate conditions resulted in several unusual situations.

Frederick "Fred" Lorz was a competitor in the marathon and headed the pack of 32 runners and reached the 12-mile mark first. He had to stop there due to exhaustion. As a joke ‒ or maybe not ‒ his manager gave him an 11-mile lift until the car broke down. Lorz ran the rest of the way to the Olympic stadium where he broke the ribbon. The crowd screamed for the American. 


Alice Roosevelt, daughter of the US President, laid a wreath on Lorz's head and was going to hang a gold medal on his neck, when the organizers called him a cheater (other versions say it was spectators who blew the whistle).  Either way, Lorz laughed and said he was not going to accept the award and had finished the race merely as a joke.
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Fred Lorz - Image Source:                       Image source: unbelievable-facts.com/2017/09/
en.wikipedia.org/Frederick_Lorz 
      

Lorz was banned for life by the Amateur Athletic Union. He apologized for the prank and was ultimately reinstated because the AAU determined he had not intended to defraud. He continued in the sport until he died of pneumonia in 1914.

Thomas Hicks, in second place and still limping along the track, heard that Lorz was disqualified, came back to life, and forced himself to jog. His coach gave him more strychnine, this time with brandy.

"Over the last two miles of the road,” one of the people who watched the race wrote, “Hicks was running mechanically, like a well-oiled piece of machinery. His eyes were dull, lusterless; the ashen color of his face and skin had deepened; his arms appeared as weights well tied down; he could scarcely lift his legs, while his knees were almost stiff.”


Winner, Thomas Hicks, had his own secrets. Near the 19-mile mark, he started to hallucinate. He asked for food and then decided to lie down. His handlers bathed him head to toe in warm water and administered a concoction of eggs, brandy, and strychnine.

By the end of the race, he could barely shuffle his feet as the result of exhaustion and the strychnine - basically rat poison - and had to walk the rest of the way. Several of the 32 contenders in the race became ill that night, and Hick even came close to dying. He gave up running the next day.


TUG OF WAR
1904, St. Louis Olympics
Tug-of-war was introduced in Paris 1900 and remained an event through the Olympics at Antwerp in 1920, although the 1916 games were cancelled because of WWI.

Traditionally, the best teams came from Scandinavia and Great Britain, but in 1904 one of the American squads ‒ the Milwaukee Athletic Club ‒ managed to capture gold despite the fact that none of the team members were from Milwaukee nor were they members of the Milwaukee Athletic Club. Losing teams filed a grievance to no avail.

Needless to say, the rules still tended to be a bit haphazard even by the third modern games and the precedent for manipulating the teams had been set in 1900 when competitors from Sweden and Denmark teamed up to beat the French.

The fate of the American team in the event's debut is even more bizarre: Some sources say they never competed, while others say they were disqualified.


DECIDE ON THE RULES BEFORE THE RACE
1908, London
In 1908, in the finals of the men’s 400-meter race, American John Carpenter maneuvered to block Britain's Wyndham Halswelle ‒ legal under American track rules, but illegal in Great Britain. Of course, Carpenter was disqualified. Well, after all, the games were in being held in London. Obviously, their rules took precedence.

The two other athletes who qualified with Halswelle were American. They were angry enough at the ruling that they boycotted the final. Halswelle ran the redo of the final all by himself. Guess who won?

GENDER TESTING WITH A TWIST
1936, Berlin
When Polish Stella Walsh ‒ defending gold-medalist of the 100-meter dash and favored to win again ‒ lost to an 18-year-old bullet from Missouri, Helen Stephens, Walsh supporters insisted that Stephens’ time was simply impossible for a woman and demanded a gender examination. Stephens agreed to the humiliation of examination by the Olympic Committee and they, indeed, found her to be a woman. She carried home the gold medal.
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Image Source:  Helen Stephens ▲- Image Credit:                De Desconocido - [1], Dominio público
redbookmag.com/scandalous-moments-in-olympics          Image credit: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index                                                                                 
The Twist: Forty-four years later in 1980, Stella Walsh was shot to death outside a Cleveland shopping mall. When the autopsy was performed, it was discovered that Stella Walsh had male genitalia, not Helen Stephens.

28 YEARS LATER, GENDER TESTING STILL UNRELIABLE
1964, Tokyo
Again, gender testing proves unreliable. Ewa Kłobukowska, a Polish sprinter, competed in the 4×100-meter relay and the 100-meter sprint and took home a gold and a bronze medal, respectively, which were stripped from her in 1967 for failing a gender test. 


Surprise, surprise!  In 1968 Klobukowska became pregnant and gave birth to a son.  Her medals were never restored to her, however.  It took years for people to realize that she must have had a genetic abnormality of having one chromo-some too many. 

NOT SO FUNNY ANY MORE
By the second half of the 20th century, the Olympics was evolving into big business internationally. TV coverage and the competition of professional athletes changed the name of the game, so to speak.

With this shift, there was no official tolerance for incidents of cheating and incompetent management. No doubt such events occurred, but they were not amusing anymore, and kept a quiet as possible. In addition, no matter the rhetoric, the games had great political importance.

With the advances in photographic equipment and technology, the sources of funny incidents during the Olympics narrowed done to offer abundant opportunities for funny photos. Nobody is posing, and many of the sports require close body contact. If a photographer happens to be in the right place at the right time, some of the results are hilarious. Some of them make you feel mean for laughing, but you can’t help it.

You do get to see a lot of open mouths, teeth, and tongues in Olympic candid shots, and athletes sometimes just goofing around.   


WRESTLING                                  BOXING                                                     
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SAILING                                           SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING
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​SYNCHRONIZED PEOPLE WATCHING
​PING PONG                                      SWIMMING
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​WOMEN'S TRACK        GYMNASTICS               MEN'S TRACK
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                                                         "I seem to have lost my head!"            "Oh! There it is!"

JUST SAY'IN

■
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Lorz
https://unbelievable-facts.com/2017/09/craziest-historical-incidents.html

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/9-olympic-moments-that-changed-history/
https://www.stadiumtalk.com/s/weirdest-olympic-sports-faa578fdf7fe437f

https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/athens-1896
https://olympics.com/en/news/the-history-of-the-olympic-games
https://thesilversword.com/sports/2016/08/29/top-10-ridiculous-olympic-sports/
https://bvmsports.com/2020/07/23/paris-hosts-1900-olympics-even-though-many-didnt-know-it/
http://www.allrefer.com/12-unknown-facts-about-olympic-games
https://americaninquiry.com/tag/margaret-abbott-dunne/
http://www.insidethegames.biz
.com
https://birdinflight.com/world/20160824-marathon-during-1904-olympics.html
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30478212
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyridon_Belokas
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/olympic-controversy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41546035
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89624871
https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/1900_Paris_Games_Olympics_79847.jpg

https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/revival-and-reinvention-olympic-games-athens-1896?language_content_entity=en

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/31386/11-craziest-events-olympic-history#:~:text=The%201904%
20marathon%20was%20one%20of%20the%20most,that%20were%20permitted%20to%20drive%20alongside
%20the%20athletes.


https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/revival-and-reinvention-olympic-games-athens-1896?language_content_entity=en

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1041711/anniversary-of-boxings-battle-of-seoul-highlights
-the-continuing-struggle-to-rid-the-olympics-of-controversy-in-the-ring


https://www.theage.com.au/sport/from-the-archives-1988-referee-flees-seoul-olympics-after-ring-assaults
20200918-p55wxa.html


https:/www.theage.com.au/sport/from-the-archives-1988-referee-flees-seoul-olympics-after-ring-assaults
-20200918-p55wxa.html


https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1041711/anniversary-of-boxings-battle-of-seoul-highlights
-the-continuing-struggle-to-rid-the-olympics-of-controversy-in-the-ring

Sources for “Funny Photos”:
https://worldwideinterweb.com/the-100-funniest-summer-olympics-photos-of-all-time/
https://www.heart.co.uk/news/sport/hilarious-olympic-pictures/
https://acidcow.com/pics/35912-crazy-and-funny-olympic-photos-105-pics.html  
https://www.qunki.com/93428/funny-olympic-fails-that-might-make-you-feel-bad-for-laughing/
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/talking-olympics-hilarious
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/talking-olympics-hilarious
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/158189005632300669/
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/best-rio-2016-olympic-faces-agony-ecstasy-wtf-1575365
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/158189005632300669/
http://thumbpress.com/can-norway-get-any-more-awesome/#sthash.RSDfwyRp.dpbs
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/10/27-pictures-of-funny-faces-from-the-sochi-2014-winter
-olympics-photos_n_4758755.html#gallery/5d023352e4b09d75a615c871/2

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1041711/anniversary-of-boxings-battle-of-seoul-highlights-the
-continuing-struggle-to-rid-the-olympics-of-controversy-in-the-ring

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WHAT'S IN A NAME? gelato vs. Ice Cream - A Conflict of Terms

8/9/2024

0 Comments

 
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Summer is here, and what better time to kick back, relax, and enjoy the delicious, smooth taste of a dish of ice cream to tickle the taste buds, or maybe a cup of gelato. Most Americans delight in the taste of frozen desserts without knowing or caring what the ingredients, as long as it tastes good. 

​Eating Ice Cream in front of the Pantheon, Rome
Image Source:
diaryofawannabeworldtraveler.com

CONFUCIUS SAY "CONFUSION OF DEFINITIONS"
The world’s love affair with icy delights is centuries old. The earliest evidence of frozen desserts can be traced back to ancient China, when people consumed ice flavored with various syrups and extracts. This gives humankind thousands of years to get confused about names of frozen desserts, of which there are many.
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The need for an explanation exists because of a confusion of definitions. I place this at the feet of the English language, which has been quick in previous years to absorb words from other languages. While these new English words may have the same spelling and pronunciation (or not), Americans usually give the new word a different meaning, often unintentionally.

​​
A BBC publication claims that "Although English is now borrowing from other languages with a worldwide range, the number of new borrowed words finding their way into the shared international vocabulary is on a long downward trend. One big reason for this is the success of English as an international language of science, scholarship, business, and many other fields." www.bbc.com/news/magazine

BE SPECIFIC
In order to explain the difference between gelato and ice cream, I have to get excessively specific. Sorry.

First, ice cream and gelato are only two of a large variety of frozen desserts made worldwide, including cakes and drinks. This blog does not attempt to address those.

Second -- and be very clear on this -- Gelato is the Italian word for the English word ice cream. Another definition of the word in Italian is frozen. Linguistically, there is no difference between gelato and ice cream, other than the way it is prepared, i.e. the recipe, which isn't part of the simple definitions. Just as different locations and countries have different recipes for preparing the same foods, gelato is Italy's recipe and process for making ice cream. France, America, and other locations have their own unique recipes for ice cream plus many other frozen desserts which go by a variety of names.

Third, the word gelato has been subsumed into the English language, not meaning just ice cream, but the particular recipe and process the Italians use when they make ice cream.

If you look gelato up in Merriam-Webster dictionary, it means "a soft rich ice cream containing little or no air." In the Oxford and Cambridge Dictionaries it is "the Italian style of ice cream (a cold, soft, sweet food), made from milk, cream, sugar, and fruit or other flavors mixed together and frozen." 


A BRIEF HISTORY OF GELATO
The website whygelato.com/history gives a brief rundown of the history of gelato, the word for ice cream in Italian.

"• 7000 BC - Asian cultures discover they can consume crushed ice and flavorings.
  • 2500 BC - Egyptian pharaohs offer their guests a cup of ice sweetened with fruit juices.
  • 0 - The Romans begin a custom of consuming the ice of Mt. Etna and Mt. Vesuvius with honey.

  • 1500-1550 - Ruggeri participates in a competition in Florence and wins with a frozen sweet (a sorbet or sorbetto)."

"• 1550-1600 - Buontalenti prepares a banquet for the King of Spain and gelato is served for the first time..."  At this point, there were two types of gelato.l "... one made by mixing water with fruits such as lemon and strawberries (also known as Sorbetto), and another made by mixing milk with cinnamon, pistachio, coffee or chocolate."

Here is where some of the confusion starts. The Italians, and I presume other Europeans, referred to both types of frozen desserts by the name gelato (and continue to do so as far as I can tell from my Italian relatives and dictionary). From the 16th century forward, references to gelato appear to mean the kind of gelato Americans call ice cream, i.e. made with dairy products, not water or ice.


"• 1686 - Francesco Procopio moves from Palermo to Paris and opens a café, making gelato famous all over Europe.
  • 1770 - Giovanni Basiolo introduces gelato in New York.
 • 1846 - Hand-crank freezer is perfected in America and changes the way the frozen dessert is made.
  • 1967 - Luciano Rabboni starts PreGel and creates the first semi-finished gelato product."

Let's take a look at the differences.


ICE CREAM
All ice cream is made with a base of heavy cream, milk, sugar, and sometimes eggs and/or egg yolks. The base is churned at specified speeds in an ice cream maker before mix-ins are added. Recipes vary but those are the basic ingredients of all ice cream.

American Ice Cream
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that, in the US, food products to be labeled as "Ice cream" (traditional hard ice cream, not soft serve), must contain at least 10% milk fat by weight, although most American brands will have 14 to 25%
BE SPECIFIC
In order to explain the difference between gelato and ice cream, I have to get excessively specific. Sorry.

First, ice cream and gelato are only two of a large variety of frozen desserts made worldwide, including cakes and drinks. This blog does not attempt to address those.

Second -- and be very clear on this -- Gelato is the Italian word for the English word ice cream. Another definition of the word in Italian is frozen. Linguistically, there is no difference between gelato and ice cream, other than the way it is prepared, i.e. the recipe, which isn't part of the simple definitions. Just as different locations and countries have different recipes for preparing the same foods, gelato is Italy's recipe and process for making ice cream. France, America, and other locations have their own unique recipes for ice cream plus many other frozen desserts which go by a variety of names.

Third, the word gelato has been subsumed into the English language, not meaning just ice cream, but the particular recipe and process the Italians use when they make ice cream.

If you look gelato up in Merriam-Webster dictionary, it means "a soft rich ice cream containing little or no air." In the Oxford and Cambridge Dictionaries it is "the Italian style of ice cream (a cold, soft, sweet food), made from milk, cream, sugar, and fruit or other flavors mixed together and frozen." 


A BRIEF HISTORY OF GELATO
The website whygelato.com/history gives a brief rundown of the history of gelato, the word for ice cream in Italian.

"• 7000 BC - Asian cultures discover they can consume crushed ice and flavorings.
  • 2500 BC - Egyptian pharaohs offer their guests a cup of ice sweetened with fruit juices.
  • 0 - The Romans begin a custom of consuming the ice of Mt. Etna and Mt. Vesuvius with honey.

  • 1500-1550 - Ruggeri participates in a competition in Florence and wins with a frozen sweet (a sorbet or sorbetto)."

"• 1550-1600 - Buontalenti prepares a banquet for the King of Spain and gelato is served for the first time..."  At this point, there were two types of gelato.l "... one made by mixing water with fruits such as lemon and strawberries (also known as Sorbetto), and another made by mixing milk with cinnamon, pistachio, coffee or chocolate."

Here is where some of the confusion starts. The Italians, and I presume other Europeans, referred to both types of frozen desserts by the name gelato (and continue to do so as far as I can tell from my Italian relatives and dictionary). From the 16th century forward, references to gelato appear to mean the kind of gelato Americans call ice cream, i.e. made with dairy products, not water or ice.


"• 1686 - Francesco Procopio moves from Palermo to Paris and opens a café, making gelato famous all over Europe.
  • 1770 - Giovanni Basiolo introduces gelato in New York.
 • 1846 - Hand-crank freezer is perfected in America and changes the way the frozen dessert is made.
  • 1967 - Luciano Rabboni starts PreGel and creates the first semi-finished gelato product."

Let's take a look at the differences.


ICE CREAM
All ice cream is made with a base of heavy cream, milk, sugar, and sometimes eggs and/or egg yolks. The base is churned at specified speeds in an ice cream maker before mix-ins are added. Recipes vary but those are the basic ingredients of all ice cream.

American Ice Cream
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that, in the US, food products to be labeled as "Ice cream" (traditional hard ice cream, not soft serve), must contain at least 10% milk fat by weight, although most American brands will have 14 to 25%

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         American Ice Cream                               image source: www.magnumicecream.com/icecream-

French-style ice cream incorporates egg yolks into the base, while American and Philadelphia style may not. American ice cream also has a faster churning process which introduces more air into the product which affects the density. 

Italian Ice Cream / Gelato
Italian ice cream is also made with the same ingredients: heavy cream, milk, sugar, but most commonly without eggs or egg yolks, but it may have them. The lower milk fat content is usually 3.8 to 9%, yielding a softer, denser texture and smaller ice crystals. That results from the base containing less cream and more milk, as well as a slower churning process that introduces less air into the final product rendering it softer and denser.

According to Italian-feelings.com/ the four distinctions between American and Italian ice cream are:

1 – Italian ice cream has much less fat because it is made with fresh milk and not powdered milk or cream as with America ice cream.

(I couldn't verify that all commercially American-made ice creams are made with powdered milk, but I did find that at least some of them are. Using powdered milk is claimed to make the ice cream creamier.)


2 – Italian ice cream is blended slowly, so it contains less air than industrially produced ice cream (10% air in Italian vs. 50% in American ice cream). A balanced quantity of air affects the consistency, smooth texture and appearance.

3 – Italian ice cream is kept at a temperature of around -12°C, while American industrially produced ice cream is usually kept at an average of -20°C. This makes an unmistakable difference to the product’s taste.

4 – Italian handmade ice cream is usually made in small batches that are consumed shortly afterwards. That’s why it doesn’t need the preservatives or additives that industrially produced ice cream needs to be stored for long periods of time.

Overall, American and Italian ice cream (Gelato) are differentiated by the proportion of ingredients in the base and the rate at which they’re churned. The Italian version contains less milk fat and is churned at a slower rate, and is typically served at a warmer temperature, introducing less air to the dessert and yielding a softer and denser texture. 

Gelato tastes differently from American Ice Cream and results in greater flavor experience because there is less fat that coats the taste buds, more flavor per spoonful due to lower quantity of air and, the taste buds are more alive since the temperature is not so cold as to dull their sensitivity.
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Italian ice cream is softer and silkier
Image Sources: 
https://www.talentigelato.com/us/en/products/gelatos.html?gclid


Italian ice cream is often made fresh and in lesser quantities which allows Italian ice cream shops to keep the temperature of the cases higher than American shops. This higher temperature gives Italian ice cream a silkier texture. The Italian government requires a milk fat content of at least 3%. You didn't really need to know that, did you?

SORBET
But wait! What happened to the other type of Italian gelato that has no dairy products? What should we call that?

Technically, it is still gelato. As generally used by Italians, the term may include both sorbet and granita, another similar frozen dessert which is very popular in the southern parts of Italy.
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   Italian Sorbet                                                         Italian Granita
   Image Sources: 
https://www.talentigelato.com/us/en/products/gelatos.html?gclid


The most notable difference with sorbet is that the concoction does not contain any dairy products. Its composition is simple: water, sugar, and a flavoring agent (typically fruit purée or fruit juice). Its smooth consistency comes mainly from its churning process, which is near-identical to that of ice cream. Sometimes, producers will even put alcohol into sorbet to give it a smoother texture, due to alcohol’s low freezing point.

Compared to its sibling Italian ice, sorbet is much richer and packs roughly twice the calories. However, it is also low fat because there are no dairy products in the mixture of the base.

ITALIAN ICE
Italian ice was created in America, despite its name, by Italian immigrants in the early 20th century. Italian ice contains water, sugar, fruit purées or juices, and sometimes natural or artificial flavoring. These are the same ingredients as Italian sorbet and granita, and some gelatos.

The key difference between sorbet and Italian ice is the ice itself: The latter contains larger chunks and is churned at a slightly slower rate than sorbet, giving it a more grainy, slightly crunchy texture. Italian ice is less dense than sorbet, which explains its lower calorie count — there’s simply more ice in it.
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Water ice is another form of Italian ice, native to the Philadelphia area. It’s slightly chunkier than standard Italian ice, but it’s more or less the same thing — unless you ask someone from Philly.

FROZEN CUSTARD
Here is another frozen dessert to throw into the mix(er), just to confuse the issue, and I can assure that the dairy case at your grocery store will have even more products.

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The FDA requires frozen custard to include 1.4% eggs yolks in the base. Like ice cream, it must also include a minimum of 10% milk fat by weight.

Retail shops make this frozen dessert in a machine that incorporates minimal air, creating a richer, silkier product that is more gelato-like in texture, but with a pronounced custard flavor from the egg yolks.


SHERBET
Another delightful version is sherbert or sherbet, a frozen dessert made from water, sugar, a dairy product such as cream or milk, and a flavoring, such as wine, liqueur, fruit juice, purée, and occasionally non-fruit flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, or peppermint.
It is distinct from sorbet, which contains no dairy products.

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Image Source: http://www.Beyers.com/Beyers

The United States defines Sherbet in the Code of Federal Regulations as a frozen product containing one or more optional dairy products. Sorbet, on the other hand, is made with sweetened water and no dairy, similar to Italian ice.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME...
Actually, may not be as sweet, but all frozen desserts are yummy and taste oh-so-good on a hot summer day, or any other day, in my opinion. So, what is all this whoop-la about?

Italian gelato -- primarily the ice cream kind but also the non-dairy product version -- is increasingly popular in the USA. Studies show the consumption of Italian ice cream (aka gelato) in the USA has been constantly increasing since 2009, with annual sales estimated to be worth approximately $210 million. It is a smaller share of the frozen dessert market but has the fastest growth (up 32% in 2016).


WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU ORDER GELATO
If you are in Italy, the United States, or any other place in the world, and you ask for a "gelato", there is no telling what you are really going to get, or what the purveyor will call it. In Italy you will probably be served Italian ice cream... but maybe not. In the United States, you might have to go to a specialty store or Italian restaurant to get gelato. Decorated and ready to serve, these products look very similar unless you pay close attention.

My advice: Ask Before You Order
If there is something you are allergic to, can't eat, or dislike, always ask about the contents of a frozen dessert product. Most of the products in the category of gelato will contain a dairy product or two. Sorbet (although this may be called gelato by the retailer or restaurant) and ices or Italian ice are not made with dairy products. Remember, flavorings can also cause an allergic reaction. You don't need to argue about the name, only the ingredients.


In the United States there are no government standards for gelato, so whatever you are served, if it is advertised as "ice cream", it has to have 10% milk fat by weight. If it bears another name, all bets may be off.

JUST SAYIN'
Sources:
https://ouritalianjourney.com/gelato-vs-american-ice-cream/
https://italian-feelings.com/italian-gelato-vs-ice-cream-the-four-differences-between-them/
https://lifehacker.com/make-creamier-ice-cream-with-powdered-skim-milk-1715528125
 https://www.foodandwine.com/gelato-vs-ice-cream-8609179
https://vinepair.com/articles/ice-cream-sorbet-italian-ice-gelato-differences-explained/
http://www.dreamstime.com-Images-Free
https://www.menuswithprice.com/culvers-menu
https://nationaltoday.com/national-frozen-custard-day
https://news.italianfood.net/2021/01/07/the-us-ice-cream-market-is-worth-5-billion/
https://whygelato.com/gelato-101/what-is-gelato/

https://www.talentigelato.com/us/en/products/gelatos.html?gclid=c5864670a38e1e60737620fe720ee7f4&gclsrc=3p.ds&msclkid=c5864670a38e1e60737620fe720ee7f4&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=EN_ICEUND_General-Gelato_Inf_Txt_CPC_GenProd_PM_Bads_Tal00000

https://www.magnumicecream.com/us/en/products/icecream-bars.html?&msclkid=97c0d8d722ea15cb0831be59fa1a0a96&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=EN_ICEUND_Always-On-CN000557_Inf_Txt_CPC_GenProd_BM_General-_Bads_Mag0000126&utm_term=ice%20cream%20w

ttps://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26014925#:~:text=Although%20English%20is%20now%20borrowing%20from%20other%20l

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherbet_(frozen_dessert)#:~:text=Sherbet%20%28%E2%AB%BD%20%CB%88%CA%83%C9%9C%CB%90rb%C9%99t%20%E2%AB%BD%29%2C%20often%20referred%20to%20as,non-fruit%20flavors%20such%20as%20vanilla%2C%20chocolate%2C%20or%20peppermint.

https://fthmb.tqn.com/JUp6yBMz7ZPjB7OCpggoNi6aXXs=/2500x1844/filters:fill(auto,1)/rainbow-sherbet-2500-57638b923df78c98dcd30fa9.jpg
https://slicesconcession.com/blogs/frozen-dessert-industry-and-machine-articles/liquid-vs-powder-ice-cream-mix-what-you-need-to-know​

https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/whats-the-difference-between-ice-cream-frozen-custard-and-gelato/#:~:text=For%20a%20product%20to%20be%20labeled%20ice%20cream%2C,standard%20prevents%20manufacturers%20from%2C%20essentially%2C%20selling%20you%20air.,

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The First American Flag

7/4/2024

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Nobody has the time to look into everything, so people often have to take some things which we know are common knowledge for granted. But in this case, you've been taught this myth in school. I'm sure that will continue because, so far, there is no way to prove it once and for all.
​
MYTH: Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag.

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WHO WAS BETSY ROSS?
There is a lot written about Elizabeth Griscom of Gloucester City, New Jersey. Some of the information about her is highly debated. After reading endless articles, I decided that as far as I was concerned, National Geographic was likely to be the most accurate.

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Depiction of Betsy Ross sewing the flag
​Image Source: 
Nicholas L. Vulich's Blog (goodreads.com)
​

Elizabeth (Betsy) was born in 1752 and raised as a Quaker. After she eloped with John Ross, a member of a prominent Philadelphia family that included one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, she was expelled from the            A Betsy Ross Postage Stamp
Quakers for marrying a Protestant.                                               Image Source: https://flagsusa.com

Her name now shows up as Betsy Ross in history books and school lessons everywhere in the US, along with some of the most prominent names from that era. John and Betsy had their own upholstery business, and lived a lively social life in Philadelphia They attended Christ Church with people like George Washington, and rubbed elbows with some of the young nation's most prominent people.

John was killed in the Revolutionary War in 1775. Betsy Ross later married two more times and bore seven children. She is credited as having sewn (and some say designed) the first American flag. But if she did sew the flag, she died in 1836 (84 years of age) without anyone ever mentioning a connection with it. Apparently, she did make flags for various organizations during her lifetime, but there was never a reference to the first American flag being one of them.


INTO THE BREECH
There is always someone who won't leave well enough alone, and those people always want to write their own version of history (of which there are many, and many of them are correct and have been passed along as family legends). The ones told in my family were not true at all.

In 1870, almost forty years after her death, her grandson William J. Canby, a historian, made a speech on the history of the American flag to the Historic Society of Pennsylvania. In that speech Canby claimed that
"a bereaved Betsy Ross had been approached in 1776 by George Washington and members of a congressional committee appointed to create a flag for their new nation. She suggested the flag include five-pointed stars instead of the six-pointed stars the committee had suggested, and she demonstrated how to cut them out with a piece of paper. Canby called on the world to acknowledge Ross as “an example of industry, energy and perseverance, and of humble reliance on providence.”

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William J. Canby
Image Source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/william-canby


Of course, the press of the day, just as today, is always looking for something to capture the reader's attention. A scoop!

The press picked up on the story and soon it was printed in the newspapers. In 1873 an article in one of America’s most-read magazines, Harper’s Weekly, spread it to the nation, treating Canby’s anecdote as proven fact.


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​The article depicts Ross was “carrying on business of her own account in her little shop when Washington, members of Congress, and other influential men paid her a visit."

According to the article, they "showed her a sketch of a proposed design, and asked her to make a flag with 13 six-pointed stars. She intimated her willingness to try,” the author  continued, repeating the grandson's story about    
Image Source: www.timetoast.com/timeline-of-early-american-history
her suggestion to use five-pointed stars.

CONCLUSION
Although her name has found a permanent abode within our history books and may remain there forever, no official documentation has been found yet to confirm that Betsy Ross was responsible for creating the very first flag. There is also nothing to proves that she did not.

But you know how family stories are. Each time it is the tale is told, there is a bit of an exaggeration, so who knows.


THE HISTORIANS CARRY ON
Some historians attribute the design of the first flag to Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence, who also played a role in designing seals for various departments within the U.S. government​.

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Francis Hopkinson
Image Source:www.thefamouspeople.com/francis-hopkinson


I am inclined to believe this version, although both could be true. 

In 1780, Hopkinson sought payment from the Board of Admiralty for his design of the “flag of the United States of America.” However, his petition for payment was denied on the grounds that “he was not the only one consulted” on the design.
​JUST SAYIN'

Sources:

https://www.ushistory.org/betsy/more/canby.htm
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/betsy-ross
https://www.history.com/news/did-betsy-ross-really-make-the-first-american-flag
https://www.biography.com/history-culture/betsy-ross
https://www.readwritethink.org/sites/default/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson153/july4th-myths.pdf
https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Canby
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-07-02/betsy-ross-descendants-reunite-2030954.html
https://flagsusa.com
https://wethepeopleholsters.com/betsy-ross-flag?tw_source
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/07/11/betsy-ross-husband-diary/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/betsy-ross-likely-didnt-sew-the-first-us-flag#:~:text=Although%20seamstress%20Betsy%20Ross%20is%20often%20credited%20as,nearly%20a%20hundred%20years%20after%20the%20Revolutionary%20War.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/meet-the-american-who-stitched-the-stars-stripes-betsy-ross-reputed-wartime-seductress/ar-BB1od3sv


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GRANDPARENTS: NEITHER A LENDER NOR A LANDLORD BE...

6/5/2024

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No doubt you have heard the old adage:
"NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH FAMILY OR FRIENDS."
Once again, this has proved sage advice.

A FAIRY TALE [based on real life]
Once upon a time in a medieval galaxy not far away, there was an old, retired knight and his wife who owned two houses within the Realm of King Skinflint Pennypincher the Third. They lived in one house; the other they rented.

After their grandson got married, Grandpa said, "Why not rent the house to our grandson and his new wife, and give the kids a break."

Grandma replied. "Good idea. We can charge them a fourth of the usual rent for a few years. We can manage without, and they can save up some money to put down on an estate of their own."

So, pleased with their generous decision, they presented the proposal to the grandson and his bride, saying, "All you have to do is keep up the grounds and the house as if it were your own."

Joyfully, the young couple moved in and everyone lived happily ... but not for ever after. Only for about two years. During that time the young couple never visited the grandparents with their new baby. They never invited the old jouster and his wife over to their house, much less for dinner or Harvest Festival. The grounds became overgrown with weeds and cluttered with toys and abandoned barbecues. The house looked worn out, and the young couple spent the Coin of the Pennypincher Realm, called PP3 for short, like Chinese college girls on a Singles-Day spending spree.

One day, a new gold carriage and two beautiful horses appeared in the young couple's driveway.

That was the last straw. The grandparents refused to renew the lease without a rent increase. The haggling went on for a year. Everyone in the family got so riled up that the young couple began to argue a lot and eventually decided to get a divorce. They both moved out, without forcing the grandparents to go to court, thank goodness.

But, alas, this did not solve the grandparents' dilemma. First of all, divorce was not held in good esteem in the Pennypincher Realm. Both the nobility and the villagers gave them a hard time. Soon, both of them looked years older. They were really tired and could really, really use some time without family quibbling.

The same was said by King Pennypincher, who heard daily from one of the family or some offended villager who had nothing to do with anything. He ordered the extended family to get the matter resolved, or they would all be hanged from the city gate.

Terrified, they ceased to speak to each other at all.

The grandson, left with no place to go -- since neither parent, each with a new spouse, would take him in -- ended up moving in with 
the beleaguered grandparents, who at first thought it might be a good idea to have someone there who could help them in their old age.

Sadly, they quickly discovered that was not the case, and the grandson was eating them out of house and home.

The next blow came when the old couple tried to rent the house to someone else, and the King Pennypincher declared it could only be occupied if it was refurbished.

"Of course," the king added, and flipped his shoulder-length bob, "You'll get a break on next year's taxes when harvest time comes around."

All in all, that turned out to be a very bad deal. The old folks got to work and refurbished the rental house, but in the end, when the old couple took account of the end result, the story was grim indeed.
   

   • 2,000 Coins of the Realm (PP3) had been spent to have for the groundskeepers haul away all the trash, couches, furniture, junk, and filth left behind at the rental house, and pay the dump fees.

   • 280 PP3 went to the drudges hired from the village to clean the place, which was filthy.

   • 3,000 PP3
had been spent for the village weaver to replace the carpeting.

  • 3,800 PP3 went to the royal general-handyman for re-hanging doors, fixing rollers on closet doors, new bathroom fixtures, and a ton of other minor repairs.

   • 1,000 PP3 had been paid to the Plumbington Monks for repairing the outdoor watering system.

   • The whopping cost of 9,000 Pennypincher Coins to refurbish the master bathroom wasn't really the young couple's fault. The roof had leaked inside the bathroom walls and ruined everything. However, the grandson might have mentioned it two years previously when the light beige tiles of the shower walls started turning bright pink from something leaking through from behind.

He claimed he'd never seen the pink color until that day when it was discovered, but his eyes were good enough to scold his grandmother because he had counted three fleas on her cat.


   • Also, the 30,000 PP3 Coins to replace the roof was not the fault of the grandson and his wife either, but the grandparents might have been able to put off the expense another three or four years if the issue had not come to the attention of King Pennypincher... the Third. Once his minions had their teeth in the old couple, there was no letting go.

Of course, both contracts were awarded to Count S.I.L. Skinflint Construction, the initials S.I.L. standing for son-in-law of the King.

THE FINAL H.E.A.
Unlike any good fairy tale, this one does not have a final HEA ending [Happily Ever After]. It is more in the genre of a Family Saga that can go on and on for generations. But worry not. This particular tale ends here even though the events may continue on, undaunted, into infinity.

LOOSE ENDS
The old folk ended up more than $50,000 PP3 Coins in the red. The grandson was judged by the Royal Medical Minions as mentally incompetent to hold a job because of PTSD resulting from these recent, unfortunate traumatic events. Despite having sold the rental to be able to hire a good barrister, the courts saw fit to appoint the Grandparents as Guardians of the poor sod of a grandson, so he continued to live with them.

The Grandparents, alas, found they now had little revenue to live on. The useless grandson still drove them to distraction and ate all their food, but of none of the rest of the family would speak to them much less anyone else in the family.

Desperate, the old couple secretly sold their house out from under the grandson, packed up a few belongings and the family heirlooms still in their possession, and escaped in an Uber in the darkness of night. At the port they boarded the once-a-decade space transport, and immigrated to another galaxy, this one far, far away, where they knew no one and had no relatives.

To date, neither the grandson nor the rest of the family has found them.
THE END

JUST SAYIN'
This is just a fairy tale. The names of people and places have been changed to harass the guilty, and the end of the real story is yet to be written. 
​

Sources:
https://www.medievalists.net/2021/12/medieval-family/
 
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lOGLINES AND TAGLINES

5/24/2024

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Nearly fifteen years have passed since Lucy V. Hay (script editor and novelist) stated in an article that every week she saw scores of pitches and every week she saw loglines and taglines being mixed up. She begged that it stop.

I would like to believe we've improved but authors still confuse the two. Although repetition does not make the heart grow fonder, it sometimes inspires us to remember, so here we go again.
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IMAGINE MY SURPRISE
So here I was (fifteen years ago), cruising along, a relative newbie as a published author, following the lead of others who were more seasoned in the business than I will ever be. And since many of these authors seemed to use the terms logline and tagline interchangeably, I labored under the delusion that these were just different terms for essentially the same thing.

Wrong! You know that. While the terminology was initially borrowed from the movie industry, the terms are defined the same way for both literature and film.
  • A logline provides a concise summary of the plot and characters in no more than                   thirty words.
  • In contrast, a tagline is a catchy phrase no more than 8 words used in marketing and on
     the poster to capture the film’s essence without revealing the plot.

 
Since a lot of attention focuses on these two similar, but different, tools of the trade, research was in order. I found plenty of blogs and articles that confuse the two, or describe the difference but use examples for one term that are clearly samples of the other. A few pointed out the difference.

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  • THE TAGLINE
  • ​First, taglines, tag lines, or tags are American terms, so if you are in the UK, you know them as end lines or straplines. In Italy, they are called pay offs; in Belgium, baselines; in France, signatures.

  • In the film industry, a tagline is a piece of marketing copy designed to go on posters to sell the film, or in a writer's case, to sell the book.

  • Another definition, this time by Author Stacey Nash, describes a tagline for books as "a one-sentence summary of your story. Its goal is to intrigue and make the person that you are delivering it to want to read the story. The most important thing about the tagline is that it needs to be high concept. It should sum up the entire plot in one quick compelling sentence."

  • The samples of taglines (all for movies) used by Lucy V. Hay, which she found in a Google search, are:
      ● "He lived the American Dream…With a vengeance." (Scarface)
      ● "An epic of miniature proportions" (A Bug's Life)
      ● "The Toys are back in town." (Toy Story 2)
      ● "Whoever wins…We lose." (Alien Vs Predator)
      ● "EARTH—take a good look. Today could be your last." (Independence Day)
     
    The longest is ten words: short and high concept.

  • Whatever art form they're selling (movies, TV shows, music, books), taglines are one sentence (or maybe two) that describes the product. They utilize puns, clever wording, and images that the average person already knows about, at least superficially, to intrigue the individual into wanting to see the film, hear the music, or read the book.
    The key is using imagery most people know and understand to convey an expectation of what the book is about.

  • Some blogs call a tagline an elevator pitch. I guess that depends on how many floors you're going to travel in the elevator, but it's basically a one-story pitch. Whatever you call it, it's the Big Hook. The Attention Grabber. And your book, and everyone else's, needs one.

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THE LOGLINE
Origin of the term logline

The origin of the logline (or log line) is not the movie industry tie. Actually, according to Stanley D. Williams, it is a nautical term. Log lines were thin ropes with knots tied in them and wound on a spool. Mariners unreeled these ropes behind them to measure their speed-- in knots--by counting how many evenly spaced knots passed through their hands as the sand in the hourglass drained from the top to the bottom. 

The log line was a necessity which helped them navigate the journey and not get lost, since it would show how far the ship had gone in a certain direction and when to turn to find their destination. It was a navigation tool. 

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​​The log line was a necessity which helped them navigate the journey and not get lost, since it would show how far the ship had gone in a certain direction and when to turn to find their destination. It was a navigation tool.

I'm not sure how the use of the nautical term got transferred to the movie industry, but according to Wikipedia and others, the logline came into use when the old movie studios had script vaults. In those vaults, they stored screenplays, apparently one on top of the other, in stacks.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Image Source: http://www.Amazon.com/books/sports

    Image source: https://www.bing.com/aclick?ld=e8q7FQvoy  

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​Readers supposedly "wrote a concise one line summary of what the script was about either on the cover of the script, on the spine of the script, or both." This allowed people to read the loglines without actually unstacking the scripts.

I suppose, in a sense, this was also a navigation tool.

What is a Logline?
The logline, while short, is longer than the tagline and presents a basic description of your plot in about twenty-five to thirty words. It should contain all the necessary elements for telling a good story.
​
That's right. And it's tough to condense 90,000 words into twenty-five. It's a two-story elevator pitch or a thirty-second time bite in real time.


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RULES OF THUMB

● Be succinct without being sparse. The trick is to create a logline that is pithy but has substance. It must be clear that the antagonistic force is an obstacle to the major goal. It must imply that something is at stake; it must suggest that something can be lost.

● Don't use the main character's name.

● Use a descriptive adjective to give the main character depth in a word or two. Instead of describing the main character as "a detective" say "a cynical fifty-year-old detective" or "a young, enthusiastic detective." Using "an ex-superhero" tells a lot more than "a superhero." "An alcoholic ex-superhero" conveys even more to the reader (or listener).

● Make the genre clear in the text. If your novel is a romance, you need a hero and heroine in the logline. Whether science fiction, comedy, or mystery, the logline should tell the reader what the genre is.

● Present a succinct description of the protagonist's main goal and place it as close to the beginning as possible.

● Make your protagonist pro-active. Show the action of the story. Even if the protagonist is reactive, that's not the same as passive.

● Include the stakes or a ticking time-bomb. Urgency. Show that something can be lost. I like the example used by Erik Bork in his article.
To save his reputation, a secretly gay fraternity boy must sleep with fifteen women by the end-of-semester party.

● Include the set up, particularly science fiction or paranormal where the rules are different. More Erik Bork examples:
   • In a world where all children are grown in vats…
   • Driven to a mental breakdown by an accident at work, an aquarium manager…

● Don’t reveal the twist or surprise at the end. The logline (and the book) should work by itself without the "bonus" surprise at the end.

● Make every word count.

● Sell it, don't tell it.

One final suggestion from a number of screenwriters and authors: Write your Log Line before you write your novel, or at least at the beginning. James Burbridge writes that the bad news is that if you can't make the logline work, it's probably because the story doesn't work. When things were getting pretty fuzzy and definitions overlapping and contradictory, this example brought clarity to me.


Close Quarters - Press Kit. Please note that there are several movies and books with the same title.
  ● Tagline
  A film about sex, betrayal, friendship, jealousy, love, hate, death, and coffee.
  ● Logline
  Forced to work an extra shift, two young baristas must come to terms with their own
  relationship while being bombarded by the very different issues of their diverse customers.
  (29 words)
  ● Short Synopsis
   BARRY and ABBY are two baristas in a Chicago coffeehouse. Barry is passionately and
   blindly in love with Abby. She knows this all too well, but is hardly ready to move into any
   kind of formal relationship with him. This does not stop Barry, though, who has decided
   that the best way to win her over is to propose to her in front of the largest group possible.
  This evening will be his opportunity. It is Abby’s birthday and her friends are planning
  a surprise birthday party for her. Barry is planning an even bigger surprise.


Jaws.is a movie we all know.
  ●Tagline
  Don't go in the water.

  ●Logline
   A sheriff struggles to protect his beach community after a grisly shark attack, but greed
   rules the Chamber of Commerce. (21 words) 

Alien often comes up as an example.

  ●Tagline
  In space, no one can hear you scream.
  ●Logline
  After responding to a distress signal, a space crew is forced to confront a deadly alien who
​  stows aboard their ship, leaving one member to fend for herself. (28 words)

JUST FOR FUN
So, authors, write your taglines and loglines, and if you run out of ideas or just want some fun, go to Brian Stoke's Random Logline Generator. This link is for the Zombie edition of the generator: http://www.lifeformz.com/cgi-bin/idea/idea.fcgi
Another random generator is: http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/modules.php?name=Logline

Have fun, and please share your logline and tagline in your comments.

JUST SAYIN'
□

Resources
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/whats-your-novels-log-line/http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/writing-good-log-lines.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_8663965_write-taglines.html
http://www.bang2write.com/2010/05/loglines-are-not-taglines.html
http://www.staceynash.com/2012/08/24/taglines-hooklines-loglines/
http://theloglineblog.blogspot.com/p/how-to-do-log-line.html
http://www.kimberlykillion.com/writers.asp
http://www.closequartersmovie.com/cms/uploads/press-kit.pdfhttp://www.flyingwrestler.com/2013/02/loglines-dont-tease/http://www.raindance.org/10-tips-for-writing-loglines/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_line
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_line
http://www.lifeformz.com/logline.html
http://carissa-taylor.blogspot.com/2013/02/pitch-factory-twitter-pitch-logline.html

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"I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE"

4/1/2024

0 Comments

 
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WHEW! WE MADE IT 
The Primaries are over. After the fact, it seemed to be a big to-do over not much. Of course, that's not the way the politicians and their closest followers see it. To them it's life or death, and they are getting warmed up for the real battles -- which consist mostly of seeing who can sling the most
                          mud. But enough said about our political system.

We have many happy months to go before all the campaign hoopla will be over. I was just wondering how many of you out there are already as tired of political ads as I am. After all, I am almost 84 years old.

One of the things I dread the most when important elections come around is the constant pummeling of the ads and the ubiquitous refrain accompanying them. 
"I'm So-and-So, and I approve this message!"

STAND BY YOUR AD
Believe it or not, this isn't just a catchy phrase...is a legal mandate!

Of course it is!

You knew that. I mean, after all, we’re talking about
government, aren't we?
​
Image Source: https://imgflip.com/meme/12244012/Godzilla-approved 

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The SBYA (Stand By Your Ad) Provision is part of the “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act” adopted in 2002 ("written by Democrat Russ Feingold and the late John McCain, both of whom were serving in the U.S. Senate. McCain, a Republican, and Feingold wrote the bill in an effort to legitimize campaign contributions by banning large corporate donations.")
https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/.


The Act amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require candidates for federal political office, as well as interest groups and political parties supporting or opposing a candidate, to include in radio and television advertising the statement that the candidate has approved the statement. The goal, according to The New York Times, was to limit insults and accusations at one another.


How's that working for you?                                           Image Source: cagle.com/jason-stanford/
                                                                                                                          https://www.nj.com/hudson/dupuy

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​The SBYA provision was intended to minimize the “Attack Ads” which began to proliferate in the 1960s, criticizing an opponent's political platform, and turning the whole thing into a slandering contest.

I suppose it is a miracle it ever got passed. The provision was an attempt to force candidates to associate them-selves with the attacks in such ads (rather than do it anonymously) and to discourage defa-mation of character as a campaign strategy.


Representative David Price of North Carolina, proposer but not author of the amendment, stated: "The American people are sick of the relentlessly negative tone of campaigns, particularly in presidential races. ‘Stand By Your Ad’ isn't just about restoring civility to campaigns. It's also about restoring people's faith in our political process."
wikipedia.org/Stand_by_Your_Ad_provision

In my opinion, which no one asked for, that would be a good thing. Unfortunately, it hasn’t seemed to achieve its purpose, but at least the public knows who is saying what.

THE “BAD TIMING AWARD” GOES TO….
As Jon Levine says in mic.com/articles/, “Despite noble intentions, the major flaw of the Stand By Your Ad provision wasn't in the text but its timing.” Adoption preceded subsequent actions which rendered it somewhat ineffective.

The Legislation addresses only radio and television ads without anticipating the popularity of the internet and social media. Also, the Supreme Court allowed unlimited donations to super PACs, not named in the SBYA statute. “Now, rather than any single person, massive political ad campaigns are often bankrolled by groups with names like ‘Security is Strength’” not subject to the disclosure.

Violation of the “Stand By Your Ad” provision can result in penalties levied by the Federal Election Commission and the loss of lowest rates for campaign ads. Attempts have been made to broaden the text to include internet ads, but the original bipartisan support has fallen victim to the ever-expanding schism between political parties and platforms.
I predict a long and full life for the words “I’m ---, and I approve this message.”


MUDSLINGING: A GOOD OLD AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION
l
MAGE SOURCE: https://www.slideserve.com/vlad/mudslinging
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​I also predict that in 2024, and many year after, the American Political System will continue to honor the long tradition of negative campaign rhetoric. It shall carry on as before.

Most likely, the first presidential election in the United States of America (1788–89) is the only one not plagued by badmouthing the other candidates. That’s because no one else ran against George Washington. Washington had no political party and did no campaigning. He was our first, last, and only non-partisan president.

By the election of 1800, between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, influential outsiders and journalists took up the banner. There is a history to the election, which I won’t bother you with other than to give some of the quotes.         
Thomas Jefferson           John Adams

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The President of Yale publicaly suggested that if Jefferson were elected “we would see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution.”

An article in a 
Connecticut newspaper stated that “Jefferson would create a nation where murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will openly be taught and practiced.”
                                                                                  
Others in the Adams camp called Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”


Not to be left out, an influential journalist and supporter of Jefferson, named Callender, wrote that Adams was “a rageful, lying, warmongering fellow; a ‘repulsive pedant’ and ‘gross hypocrite’ who ‘behaved neither like a man nor like a woman but instead possessed a hideous hermaphroditical character.’”

An interesting side note to the above story: Callender expected to be named postmaster as a reward for his support. When Jefferson appointed someone else, Callender wrote a series of unflattering articles charging the new president with having fathered children with a slave named Sally Hemings.

In presidential elections, no one was exempt and the candidates’ wives were also subjected to public name-calling. In the words of one historian, the election of 1828 boiled down to: “do you want to vote for someone whose wife is a whore or do you want to vote for someone who pimped for the czar of Russia?”

And not one of them had to tag his ads with "I approve this message."


ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Jefferson was elected, and later he and Adams mended fences and became close friends again, but the tradition of badmouthing their competition to the point of slander and lies has lived on into the 20st century when things seemed to reach the anonymous-ad-boiling-point in 1988 with the Willie Horton ad on television.

Who, you ask, is Willie Horton?

In 1974, William Horton was a convicted criminal serving time for first degree murder, who became eligible for the weekend furlough program. He was allowed to take furloughs and spent them shopping, attending church, and being with his daughter. At that time the furlough program was highly praised as a success.

However, in 1987, one particular furlough weekend, Horton escaped and committed more crimes. Personally, he had nothing to do with the presidential election in 1988, but his recently high profile on the news stoked a debate on whether the furlough program should be deep-sixed because it was "soft on crime."


During the 1988 presidential election, Horton became a central figure in Bush’s campaign as a way for the candidate to imply that his opponent, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, was "soft on crime." 

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When a political action committee used Horton’s mug shot in an attack ad, he became part of an infamous election-season strategy to stoke fear and racial anxiety among white voters. The ad was produced by supporters of a candidate without that candidate's authorization, and devastated the other candidate.
​Image Source: https://www.history.com/news/

"The 30-second ad was financed by the National Security PAC, not Bush’s campaign. It was designed to expose Dukakis’ policies on crime as weak, taking advantage of an issue that historically drove Republican votes. But it also used photos of Horton, including his mug shot, to panic prospective voters about black men and crime." https://www.history.com/news/

All this set the later stage for the bipartisan adoption of the advertisement portions of the SBYD in 2002, which was intended to curtail such advertising in the future by being sure the candidate was clearly tagged as supporting the ad's claims.

But the relentless, undying ingenuity of the American Political System has found ways to continue the example set by our forefathers who, after all, were just human beings like everyone else.

That’s my message, and I’m sticking with it. 
​
I AM AUTHOR R. ANN SIRACUSA AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE

Picture
Image Source:  https://www.reddit.com/r/conservativecartoons/
JUST SAYIN'
□

sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_by_Your_Ad_provision
https://www.mic.com/articles/126897/when-the-hell-did-i-approve-this-message-become-a-thing
https://www.marketplace.org/2016/10/17/where-did-i-approve-message-come/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-campaign-mud-slinging-history-flashback-perspec-1002-md-20160930-story.html
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/04/facebook-and-google-asked-to-suspend-political-ads-before-general-election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_advertising
https://www.heraldcourier.com/news/the-presidential-election-had-plenty-of-mudslinging/article_309eebb2-efc5-5e70-a9e7-5225158b8101.html
https://westfieldfinancialplanning.com/mudslinging-political-tradition/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/10/ten-most-awesome-presidential-mudslinging-moves-ever/
https://www.cagle.com/jason-stanford/2012/10/confessions-of-a-political-junkie
2024
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/bipartisan-campaign-reform-act-success-or-failure/
https://www.mic.com/articles/126897/when-the-hell-did-i-approve-this-message-become-a-thing
https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/candidates-say-i-approve-this-message-but-why/KT5OG7W2BZFDBHYX3VFXGAB4HI/
https://www.thenewsherald.com/2022/09/28/candidates-dont-want-you-to-know-their-party-affiliation/
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/630073/why-politicians-say-i-approve-this-message-in-ads
https://theweek.com/articles/470977/craziest-most-nailbiting-elections-history
https://www.history.com/news/george-bush-willie-horton-racist-ad
https://www.reddit.com/r/conservativecartoons/comments/jxpigi/if_the_2024_election_were_held_today/?rdt=57873&onetap_auto=true&one_tap=true

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    Author R. Ann Siracusa

    Novelist, retired architect and urban planner, world traveler, quilter, owl collector, devoted wife-mother-grandmother, great-grandmother, and, according to some, wild-assed liberal.

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