Hooked on Abbreviations

Here are some select thoughts on some abbreviations I’ve seen:   

• ‘Merica – An abbreviation for America. While this eliminates a syllable, it only saves one letter.
• ID – as Norm MacDonald points out, this is simply a very skewed abbreviation. The I gets one letter and the D gets five syllables. !!!!
• INT – Now the common abbreviation for a football interception. This would make sense if you said the one syllable “int”.  Oh, but no! You need to say each letter as in, “It’s his first INT of the season.” Sounds too much like a medical procedure... 
  
•  Penna – Believe it or not, this used to be the abbreviation for Pennsylvania. At least it was the abbreviation for the Pennsylvania turnpike. Seriously? You, um, added that A at the end so we wouldn’t confuse this state with who exactly? North Dakota?  
  

Lastly, why is abbreviation such a long word. Five syllables? Twelve letters? C’mon. We’re trying to shorten things here. This is along the same lines as questioning why phonics starts with a P. C’mon.                                                                                                                                                                   

 

Once, Twice, Three Times Lionel Richie

When you walk by a construction site you often hear music. Typically the music falls into one of two (really boring!) categories:  classic rock or modern country. I think these are the most common denominators for the crews. I know that these are my expectations for what I'm gonna hear....

Well, those expectations may be changing. We have some construction going on in our building at work, and every time I go near it, the crew is listening to Lionel Ritchie. Yes, that Lionel Ritchie. Their work appears to be of decent quality. I don’t see any clowning around, although there was a guy “Dancing on the Ceiling” last time I went by...

I imagine these guys liked the song “Brick House” so they’re trying to bring Lionel’s music over to the construction world. I'm OK with that - just so they don’t play it “All Night Long”…

 

Joepardy

Sportscaster Joe Buck has been named as a guest host of Jeopardy. It sounds like he wants the full time gig. Will bringing a sports guy to a game show bring changes? Here are some possibilities:

1.        The Star Spangled Banner would be played prior to the game. (Why is this not done already? Why don’t we hear about this?)
2.        Contestants would wear numbers
3.       There would be a female sideline reporter. (They’re always female, strangely. What’s up with that?)
4.        There would be slow motion replay (especially on Final Jeopardy where they show the people thinking)
   
5.        There’d be a 90 minute pregame show
6.        Contestants could throw a red flag to protest a wrong answer
7.        All cash awards would be in terms of bucks, not dollars.

Buckle up.

 

Weighty Issue

We had a guy come into the office the other day. It was a co-worker’s birthday and she had balloons around her desk. As people are prone to do, he asked her how old she was. She appeared to be insulted and told him that that was a very personal question and that she wasn’t going to tell him how old she was. So he asked her what she weighed.

Well, we of course know we can’t ask anybody their weight except for maybe wrestlers. My problem with that is, when a guy tells me he wrestled in high school, I ask them what weight class.  I’ll say something like, “Did you wrestle 187 lbs?” And too many times, the answer is something like, “No. 122.” (Obviously they had gained a lot of weight.)  So yeah, that gets awkward. Don’t try it.

I think when I retire I may set up a “Guess Your Birth Weight” booth at the fair. I think people would line up for that, don’t you? And I’d get to see a lot of counties.

 

State Fare

Our local library is part of a state-wide library system. If they don’t have the book you want, they’ll get it from another community’s library which could be like 200 miles away. Wait. What? Do I need this kind of service? Do I need a $22 book sent here from some other corner of the state? It’s gonna cost the library more to clean and transport that book than it would for them to go out and buy it.  Sure, shipping the book 200 miles saves me money. But you and I are paying for it through the library tax (and that levy always passes).

I would like to propose the following: Keep the statewide shipping. But the borrower pays the shipping expense. Maybe half of that amount could be refunded when/if the book is returned on a timely basis.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       A while ago I wrote about our library’s vast assortment of cake pans we can borrow. Let’s hope those are not being shipped around the state (at no charge).