ABC Wednesday Archives - Page 70 of 91

D is for Duplication; D is for Duplication

To this day, I have copies of correspondence from the 1970s and 1980s, back in the day when I used to write something called “letters.”

From here: “The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo) is a low-cost printing press that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. Mimeographs…were a common technology in printing small quantities, as in office work, classroom materials, and church bulletins. Early fanzines were printed in this technology because it was widespread and cheap. In the late 1960s, mimeographs… were gradually displaced by photocopying and offset printing.”

This is just one of many technologies I was not particularly good at. But my father, who usually did the bulletin even into the early 1970s at our church, Trinity AME Zion in Binghamton, NY, was excellent at typing the stencil, then wrapping it “around the ink-filled drum of the rotary machine.” When I attempted to do this, the stencil was always wrinkled, and the subsequent output of copies not particularly attractive.

A YouTube video of the Gestetner 180. My wife still remembers mimeos in her small rural school district as recently as the early 1980s.

Here’s something I did not know: “The word ‘mimeograph’ was first used by Albert Blake Dick when he licensed [Thomas] Edison’s patents in 1887.” The A.B. Dick Company of Chicago once owned the trademarked name, but “over time, the term became generic and is now an example of a genericized trademark.”

But what if you were going to write something, and you wanted to have one or two copies of it? From The Exciting History of Carbon Paper! “Carbon paper is thin paper coated with a mixture of wax and pigment, that is used between two sheets of ordinary paper to make one or more copies of an original document.”

To this day, I have copies of correspondence from the 1970s and 1980s, back in the day when I used to write something called “letters.”

Of course, the limitation of carbon paper was that it “could only produce copies of out-going correspondence…; if copies were needed of incoming documents, they still had to be copied by hand. This problem was not solved until the middle of the twentieth century when xerography became commercially available in the form of the photocopier… The invention of the photocopier began the decline in demand for carbon paper that has continued to the present day.”

Still, the terminology of making a “carbon copy”, or cc, has survived, in e-mails. One can even make a bcc, or blind carbon copy, with no wax and pigment required.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

C is for Cereal

I was rather sad to read that the sale of breakfast cereals were declining in the United States, the reason being that it “takes too much time”!

I saw this post from SamuraiFrog about The Great American Cereal Book and immediately wrote: “OMG – this is a book for me. I LOVE cereal.” Believed I should write about it, but then thought, “Didn’t I just do that?” As it turns out, the post I was thinking about I wrote in 2006 (!) – time is so strange – when I described my peculiar and specific rules involving the mixing non-presweetened cereal. So I guess I can revisit it here.

Why I love cereal:
1. It was the first meal I could prepare myself.
2. As alluded to in the previous post, it is very educational. As an active reader of the box, it was where I learned that riboflavin and niacin were B vitamins.
3. I learned the difference between brand names and generic names. I realized that “raisin bran” was not trademarked, which allowed Kellogg’s and Post each to have an iteration. Whereas, round oat cereals not made by General Mills were called something other than Cheerios, such as Tastee-Os.
4. They would sell several brands, usually six or ten, in something called “Snack packs” or “Variety packs”, little boxes with perforations so you pour in the milk and could eat them right out of the box.
5. They were entertaining. From the coloring of my cereal milk to the “Snap, crackle, pop” of Rice Krispies.
6. The ads. Often featuring future icons such as Tony the Tiger (Frosted Flakes – “they’re great”) to the rodent of Trix (“silly rabbit, Trix are for kids”) to Captain Crunch, I loved these little videos designed to lure me to buy – or get my mom to buy – their products. (Now, I’m more jaded…) The ads were so engrained in the culture that the Kellogg’s rooster and theme (“the best to you each morning” for Corn Flakes were echoed in the Beatles’ song “Good Morning Good Morning.”

I was quite fond of the Post Crispy Critters ads; I can’t explain why except I loved the King Leonardo show; the cereal itself was not all that good. But no ad did I love more than this Rice Krispies ad, which is absolutely brilliant musically, the way the verses work together in the last 15 seconds.

Here are 10 Trippiest Cereal Ads, most of which I had not seen
Cereal commercials from the 1960s and 70s, all of which I remember

I’ve now discovered that some of the generic brands are just as good, but certainly not all. I have had Cheerios substitutes that tasted like cardboard.

I was rather sad to read that the sales of breakfast cereals were declining in the United States, the reason being that it “takes too much time”! This led to the development of breakfast bars; I tried 2 or 3, and hated them all. I also tend to dislike cereals with stuff in them – Cheerios with these dried out things they call strawberries, or Lucky Charms, with those so-called marshmallows. We actually have a box of Lucky Charms in the house right now; one of my wife’s students brought her a box when they discovered that the marshmallows weren’t halal.

Since SamauraiFrog listed his 20 favorite kinds of cereal of all time, I thought I would do the same. Please note that I don’t eat most of these now.

1. Sugar Smacks (Kellogg’s) – they changed the name eventually to Honey Smacks
2. Sugar Crisps (Post) – “can’t get enough of those Sugar Crisps, they keep me goin’ strong”
3. Alpha-Bits (Post) – I used to spell out words in my bowl
4. Shredded Wheat (Nabisco, now Post)- pour hot water on it and watch the biscuits sag
5. Total (General Mills) – loved the idea of a cereal that gave me ALL the vitamins
6. Froot Loops (Kellogg’s)
7. Honey Nut Cheerios (General Mills)
8. Wheaties (General Mills) – hey, it was the “Breakfast of Champions”!
9. Corn Flakes (Kellogg’s)
10. Rice Chex (Purina, now General Mills)
11. Trix (General Mills)
12. Cheerios (General Mills) – still eating these
13. Raisin Bran (either brand) – but generally better than the generics
14. Rice Krispies (Kellogg’s)
15. Corn Chex (Purina, now General Mills)
16. Spoon-Sized Shredded Wheat (Nabisco, now Post) – still eating these, too
17. Corn Pops (Kellogg’s)
18. Life (Quaker Oats)
19. Quisp (Quaker Oats)
20. Kix (General Mills)

Info about cereal and nutrition.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

B is for Backgammon

Backgammon is a simple game, at least in concept, where one rolls a pair of dice to move the checker pieces around the board.

When I was a kid, there was this weird board on the backside of my checkerboard; I had NO idea what it was there for. As it turned out, it was almost perfect for a game called backgammon. I never learned it, though, until I was in the latter stages of college in the mid-1970s. I went to a bar in New Paltz, NY, appropriately named Bacchus, and saw a bunch of people playing this game. I eventually befriended one of the players, a townie named Anne, and ended up playing a lot of the game.

I discovered that backgammon is an ancient game, certainly invented in some form in southwest Asia, perhaps Persia, before A.D. 800. A version of the game spread from India to China and Japan. It was introduced to Europe by the Arabs. From BOARD and TABLE Games from Many Civilizations by R.C. Bell: “Early in the seventeenth century, a new variant appeared…the old game enjoyed a tremendous revival and swept through Europe, being played in England as backgammon, in France as tric-trac…in Germany as puff, in Spain as tablas reales…”

It is a simple game, at least in concept, where one rolls a pair of dice to move the checker pieces around the board. In the board above, the white pieces move around the board to get all its pieces into its inner board (the lower right quadrant) while the black pieces move around the board to get all its pieces into ITS inner board (the upper right quadrant) before bearing off. The clash occurs when an opposing piece wants to land on your space. A space with two or more checkers is safe, but one with only one checker is vulnerable to be hit and have that piece to start all over again.

All of this is laid out quite well in this rule book.

A lot of the calculation in backgammon involves probability. The odds of getting hit, specifically. Above are all the combinations of two dice. Say you have a piece that’s six unrestricted squares away; it’s quite vulnerable to a throw of 1/5, 2/4, 3/3, 4/2, 5/1, but also 6/1, 6/2, 6/3, 6/4, 6/5, or 6/6, or even 2/2, since throwing doubles means you get four of the number. In other words, there’s a 12 out of 36 chance of getting hit. Whereas being 11 away, there is only a 2 in 36 chance (5/6, 6/5) of being hit.

There is a doubling cube, whereby one raises the stakes of the game, but it can be played without using it; probably sacrilege, I know. I play at least once a month, and I enjoy it greatly.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

A is for Adjectives and Adverbs

Native speakers of English “will use the rules without realising they’re doing so while [non-native speakers] will be much more aware of the rules.”

From JEOPARDY! Show #6302 – Tuesday, January 31, 2012 ADVERBS:

It’s the way the crew of the Enterprise “go where no man has gone before”
Though it appears to mean “angrily”, this adverb can mean “extremely”, as when it precedes “in love”
Yea, in truth, really, this archaic 6-letter word doth mean indeed
Othello said, “Then must you speak of one that loved not” this “but too well”
Completes the Tom swifty “Which way is the cemetery?” Tom asked in this serious manner

As always, correct responses at the end of this post.

Some months ago Shooting Parrots was talking about his daughter, who is learning about Teaching English as a Foreign Language, when he wrote: “Until she mentioned it, it never occurred to me that there is a natural order of adjectives.” And I didn’t either. So I ran to my wife, who is a teacher of English as a Second Language. “Did you know about this?” “Of course, I do.”

So why didn’t I? SP explains that native speakers of English “will use the rules without realising they’re doing so while [non-native speakers] will be much more aware of the rules.”
And what ARE the order rules? From HERE:

Opinion – An opinion adjective explains what you think about something (other people may not agree with you).
For example: silly, beautiful, horrible, difficult
Size – A size adjective, of course, tells you how big or small something is.
For example: large, tiny, enormous, little
Age – An age adjective tells you how young or old something or someone is.
For example: ancient, new, young, old
Shape – A shape adjective describes the shape of something.
For example: square, round, flat, rectangular
Colour – A colour adjective, of course, describes the colour of something.
For example: blue, pink, reddish, grey
Origin – An origin adjective describes where something comes from.
For example: French, lunar, American, eastern, Greek
Material – A material adjective describes what something is made from.
For example: wooden, metal, cotton, paper
Purpose – A purpose adjective describes what something is used for. These adjectives often end with “-ing”.
For example: sleeping (as in “sleeping bag”), roasting (as in “roasting tin”)

But the Wikipedia begs to differ, somewhat:

quantity or number
quality or opinion
size
age
shape
color
proper adjective (often nationality, other places of origin, or material)
purpose or qualifier

Surely, quantity must come first, as in Five Easy Pieces.

There are also rules for forming comparative and superlative adjectives. One-syllable adjectives generally add -er or -est. “For adjectives with three syllables or more, you form the comparative with more and the superlative with most.” The adjectives with two syllables are…complicated.

Adverbs are words that modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb. There is a lot to say about adverbs, but my favorite is this: “One of the hallmarks of adverbs is their ability to move around in a sentence. Adverbs of manner are particularly flexible in this regard.” Here is a list of adverbs; note that they DON’T all end in -ly.

JEOPARDY! responses (respectively): boldly, madly, verily, wisely, gravely

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

How Did I Become in Charge?

If you would like to contribute to ABC Wednesday, please feel free.

I have mentioned before the Olin family, my mother-in-law’s people, who can trace their roots back to the late 17th century. Every year, there are several Olin family reunions, in eastern Washington state; Ashtabula, Ohio; Southern California; Ontario, generally near Peterborough; and the New York/Pennsylvania group, held near Binghamton, NY most years since 1936. I’ve been the vice-president of the NY-PA reunion the last couple of years, making me only the second Olin in-law in about 40 years to become an officer.

Well, guess who was elected president this month? I’ll give you a hint: he blogs a lot. My mission will be to try to reach out to some folks who haven’t attended lately, extending invitations to other reunion groups.

Around the same time, Denise Nesbitt, who had started something called ABC Wednesday, in which I’ve been participating for nearly three years, was feeling a bit burnt out. Though she has had a trusted assistant (moi), and a number of other contributors, she was feeling a bit tired of coordinating the contributors, putting on the link so that everyone’s links are shared, and making sure the participants follow the simple rules of engagement. So guess who’s now in charge of ABC Wednesday, Round 11? That guy I saw in the mirror this morning. Not incidentally, we will be starting again this week with the letter A, so if you would like to contribute, please feel free; you are most welcome. Make sure your post has something to do with the letter A, link to ABC Wednesday, and, I hope, go visit a few of the sites of fellow abecedarian folks.

Why do I feel like Alexander Haig in March 1981?

Fortunately, in each case, I have a group of folks who have promised to help me through the processes, which I will most definitely need.