Thursday, February 26, 2009

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Easter Sunday is a holiday that celebrated by many Christians every year.
Unlike Christmas, which has a generally accepted assigned day, the date on the which the Spring holiday falls is calculated. Simply, the calculation (also known as Computus) is for the Sunday after the full moon, on or after the Spring Equinox. Accordingly, Easter can fall on 35 possible dates - between March 22 and April 25, inclusive.

Because the Easter Sunday is a movable feast, Mardi Gras (pseud., Shrove Tuesday), at the front end, also has variable date. At the back end, the Sunday that follows Easter is called "low Sunday" or quasimodo.

Quasimodo was also one of the main characters in Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris". Also known as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, he was, no only deformed, but deaf as a result of ringing the Cathedral bells. I often wondered if Quasimodo suffered from Tinnitus.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

These go to 11

One of the ways you can diagnose a subarachnoid hemorrhage is by way of a Lumbar Puncture (LP in medical talk - not Long Playing - that's music talk). This is more commonly known as "bleeding in the brain"

Now, this type of malady is a serious medical emergency and can lead to death (the ultimate seriousness) or severe disability.

Colloquially, an LP, is known as a spinal tap.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Tempus fugit.

There's a adage for daylight savings time that goes like this: "Spring forward and Fall back". The concept is controversial and was only possible when analog or digital clocks became of common use. Before that, sundials were one of the few means to tell time. They come in all shapes, orientation and sizes, but they all have one feature, it was a gnomon. The accuracy of the sundial is based on a variety of factors; such the shape of the gnomon, how it leans, the time of the year and the latitude.

Gnomom comes from the ancient Greeks meaning "to know". Also from the Greek is the prefix "a", which means "not". Thus the word agnostic, literally means "I don't know". Often this word is used in Religious context, it's use usually gets confused with another belief "athetisism".

Distinguishing these to concepts is difficult, but I believe that Henny Youngman said it best when he stated that "he used to be atheist, but there were no religious holidays". In turn, the ultimate agnostic was W. C. Fields. When he spent his last weeks in a hospital, where a friend stopped by for a visit and caught Fields reading the Bible. When asked why, Fields replied, "I'm checking for loopholes". Now, that's covering all your bases!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Master of my domain

King Phillip chases only funny Girl Scouts. That's the mneumonic that I was taught to remember the levels developed by Carl von Linné, in the mid 1700's, for the clasification of living things. Now I find out that Kingdom has been supplanted by Domain as the top tier for taxonomy. Since plants and animals are not the only items that make up "life", I suppose that a new classification had to be made up to accommodate the other things that make up living creatures.

Thus, a person's full taxonomic classification is :
Eukarya Metazoa Chordata Mammalia Primata Hominidae Homo sapiens sapiens.
( Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Sub-species )

It now makes more sense that Dumb King Phillip chases only funny Girl Scouts.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

On the tip of my tongue

One of the symptoms of dementia, or Alsheimer Disease, is loss of short term memory. One feature of this phenomenon is when one cannot recall a familiar word or name or situation, but with much effort one may eventually recall the elusive memory.

Acquired Hydrocephalus also mimics this form of "presque vu". Meaning "almost seen" from the French, this term is the sensation of being on the brink of an epiphany. Often very disorienting and distracting, presque vu rarely leads to an actual breakthrough. Frequently, one experiencing presque vu will say that they have something "on the tip of their tongue."

My guess is that people suffering from any form of memory recall malady wouldn't appreciate l'esprit de l'escalier. They're too busy thinking of the appropriate word.

Friday, February 6, 2009

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

It doesn't seem to exist anymore or at least they're hard to find. There used to be bakeries that the moment you passed through the door you knew you be buying too much because of all the wonderful smells. To top it all off there would be a lagniappe, or baker's dozen, for certain items thrown in for "good measure". Nowadays, if you want fresh baked goods, you go to the "bakery section" of the supermarket and get pre-packaged item that is wrapped in plastic to "assure natural freshness", even though the item contains all types of preservatives. It seems that nowadays they subscribe to the notion that "nothing is free" and "you get what you pay for".

TANSTAAFL is an acronym for the adage "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein popularized this saying in his novel "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". In this book he demonstrates the concept of "nothing is free and one way or another somebody will pay for it". Even if something appears to be free, there is always a cost to the person or to society as a whole even though the cost may be hidden or distributed. I guess that's why one doesn't see much lagniappe around anymore, it costs too much.

Monday, February 2, 2009

I've been here before


I wasn't always intrigued by words that are unique and express some sort of situation, feeling or experience. This fascination came about when one day a work colleague asked me "if I ever experienced a feeling of already doing something". I retorted "do you mean déjà vu?" A sudden look of horror on his face and an almost instantaneous blurting out, "there's a word for it! I have to admit that I sensed a bit of schadenfreude when I robbed him of that unique feeling, that until that moment, was entirely his.

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica