Tag: language

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Quote of the Day – Charlemagne

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“To have a second language is to possess a second soul.” ~~ Charlemagne

Or from another tradition:

“The number of languages you know, the number of persons you are.” ~~ Local Oral Tradition from Asia

I heard the first quote while watching a Great Courses offering of all things, Earth Science.  The professor relayed the quote without attribution.  His contention being that to learn Earth Science was to learn a new language, the language of the planet.

I do not know about another soul, but learning Spanish has opened me up to learning about other cultures, other countries, other ways at looking at the world.

I’m going to keep an eye on it to see if I become a slightly different person when conversing in another language.

Here is an interesting article I am across while researching the origin of the quote: A Proverb on the Expansive Power of Language

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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I Taught Señora a New Cuss Word

I taught Señora a new four-letter word.  Well I might have had she been home.  All couples have their origin stories; our tale involves a lot of off-color words.

What got me scandalizing the neighbors Saturday was that one of the rear drive wheels of my new Toro lawnmower came off.  This mower is so new that just yesterday my check to pay off the credit card I charged it on cleared. I had ordered it online from Home Depot as they did not have it in stock at the Chesterfield store.  When I unboxed the mower I was glad to see Continue reading “I Taught Señora a New Cuss Word”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #876

yeah I know you did not ask!

Okay, this one is a little off-color.

For some reason I began to think of the word junk as being used as an euphemism for the male genitalia.  A brief search on the Internet describes the origin of this use of the word as murky.  First use in print with this context was in gay literature.  To me, it seems a little counter-intuitive to use the word, junk, this way.  Most guys that I know strive to keep their “junk” very well polished, one way or another, not something you typically do with junk. (Insert your own comedic rim shot here.)

Just for grins and giggles, if you are interested here are a couple links of the multitude of articles on the subject.

Origins of ‘junk’ as slang are murky

Even the New York Times weighed in: On Language:Junk