We have Lyme Regis in Dorset, home of Mary Anning as our famous dinosaur spot. You can also find a large number of fossils in Parliament, in Westminster.
Today I learned...
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Today I learned that the word draco originally meant a Roman battle standard, a sort of windsock in the shape of what we would recognise as a dragon. As the Romans withdrew from Britain, the original meaning was lost and came to be associated with the symbol of a dragon, thus giving us the Brittonic draig, which became the Welsh ddraig and the English dragon.
Which brings us to another weird anomaly: In Germany, what we call string kites are called "dragons" because when they became fashionable in toys, they were in the shape of those wind-socks or had dragons painted on them, the way Asian competition kites are still decorated.
Here's where it gets weird. In the US and English-speaking countries, hang gliders are sometimes called called "kites" because their airfoil design, derived from Melvin Rogallo's string kites, was used by the most popular models. In Germany, they're known colloquially as "dragons." So of course, when I built a personal glider while working at Flight Designs, I had to design a "dragon" sail for it:
And when I started a company to manufacture replicas of medieval tents and repair hang glider sails, I called it Dragonwing, as a way of combining the two activities with one logo:
. It's still the name of my publishing company.
Louanne Learning
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Today I learned that Dildo, Newfoundland will be one of our stops while we're visiting that province.
That's funny. I thought draco was the name of an ancient Athenian lawmaker, whose laws -- the first written down in Athens in 621 BC -- were so drastic that they gave us the word draconian (meaning "excessively severe and harsh", especially when referring to laws).
How severe were his laws? Basically, almost any crime was enough to warrant being put to death for, even petty theft (like stealing a cabbage). Being unable to pay your debts was enough to warrant becoming enslaved -- but only if you were of a lower status than the person you owed money to. If you were of a higher status, the law was more lenient.
Tradition held that all of his laws were repealed by Solon about 100 years later, save for those on homicide. But according to some scholars, Draco may have been a fictional figure, entirely or in part, because biographical information about him is almost entirely lacking.
Ah yes, home of The Inn by the Bay, where you can take boat tours and go whale watching. (Apparently Dildo Island was named by Captain James Cook, who mapped Newfoundland in the 1760s, for humorous reasons of his own).
Words can have two meanings, and two separate (although related) etymologies. The greek word for dragon is Drakon, not Draco, which is latin. It's like how a pony refers to a small equine as well as a £25 (or £50) casino chip.
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Louanne Learning
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Trinity Bay
Be sure to take home samples from the factory there.
Or a measure (roughly one fluid ounce) of liquor, as used for mixing drinks.
How does a pony keg fit into all this? It's more than an ounce, I think.
Technically it's a quarter barrel (7.75 gallons), though you rarely hear that anymore. More common to call it a log or a torpedo, though those are technically sixth barrels. The names and formats are all tossed around willy-nilly now.
In my neighborhood, "pony up" meant "put your money where your mouth is" or simply "lay out the money" (as in "Everybody else was short of cash, so Anne ponied up the money for the drinks.").
Then there are the type of dog and pony shows which rarely, if ever, involve dogs or ponies.
Well, not today, but recently I learned that one should never wear a necktie with a button-down collar. Button-down collars have the buttons to keep the collar down (duh), hence are indicative of some sort of physical activity like sport or horseback riding, which aren't things to which one wears a necktie.
Not that it's relevant anymore. I definitely grew up seeing button-down collars and neckties, most recently on the personage of noted style icon and clotheshorse Bernie Sanders. But still, learning the rules of style is an ongoing process, and like we say in writing, gotta know the rules to know when to break them.
Not that it's relevant anymore. I definitely grew up seeing button-down collars and neckties, most recently on the personage of noted style icon and clotheshorse Bernie Sanders. But still, learning the rules of style is an ongoing process, and like we say in writing, gotta know the rules to know when to break them.
Or whether you care enough to abide by them.
I heard a "rule of fashion" which dictates that one should never wear socks with sandals. I have been gleefully breaking that rule for forty-some years. I prefer sandals to shoes, a habit I acquired while flying hang gliders at Marina Beach, California. I hated to get sand in my shoes all the time, so I started wearing sandals, so I could simply waggle my foot and shake the sand out.
And sometimes it was too chilly to go barefoot, so I wore socks. (Mark Twain's alleged comment on cold San Francisco summers applies equally well to Monterey Bay, particularly when a stiff wind is coming off the bay.)
<rant> My own gripe about shirt design is that pocket, usually located on the left side for the convenience of right-handed people. I am left-handed. Why can't they put pockets on both sides? What with glasses, pens, and phones, there's ample need for two pockets, anyway. Sure, I can pay $80 to L.L. Bean and get shirts with two pockets, but I shouldn't have to. </rant>
