Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 4, 2015)

Super-Diplomacy

We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity.

–Memo from a Chinese Economic Journal

 

Facing Facts

Friends are relative, but relatives are not always friends.

 

From the Word Lab

Cuckold: A man whose wife is unfaithful. From the cuckoo bird, where the allusion to the cuckoo on which the word cuckold is based can be appreciated by those familiar with the nesting habits of certain varieties of this bird. The female of some cuckoos lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving them to be cared for by the resident nesters. This parasitic tendency has given the female bird a figurative reputation for unfaithfulness as well.

 

Weak Conviction

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

… Stephen Hawking

 

Ornithological Lesson

If people sing when they are happy, birds undoubtedly are always happy because they are singing all the time. In any case, they have a knack for rising above it all.

 

So, there!

Edo: What’s worse than eating hash at a restaurant where you don’t know what’s in it?

Bedo: Eating it at home where you do know.

 

What’s in a Name?

Beshigjian: Turkish in derivation, identified as a trade, beshigji is defined as a cradle builder.

The post Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 4, 2015) appeared first on Armenian Weekly.

Source: Weekly
Link: Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 4, 2015)

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