| Word
Play
The
Washington Post recently published a
contest for readers in which they were asked
to supply alternate meanings for various
words. The following were some of the
winning entries:
-
Abdicate:
to give up all hope of ever having a
flat stomach.
-
Flabbergasted:
appalled over how much weight you have
gained.
-
Negligent:
a condition in which you absentmindedly
answer the door in your underwear.
-
Gargoyle:
an olive-flavored mouthwash.
-
Balderdash:
a rapidly receding hairline.
The
Post also asked readers to take any word
from the dictionary, alter it by adding,
subtracting or changing one letter, and
supply a new definition. Here are some
recent winners:
-
Giraffiti:
Vandalism spray-paint very high.
-
Inocullate:
to take coffee intravenously.
-
Dopeler
Effect: the tendency of stupid ideas to
seem smarter when they come at you
rapidly.
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Prevent This
Horror From Happening To You
Ever
mistakenly thrown out the wrong version of a
project, thinking that it was an earlier version
instead of the most recent? It's a nightmare,
especially when you spend hours trying to find the
copy you threw away and then you still have to make
your edits all over again (not to mention, trying to
do so from memory).
To save yourself from this time-wasting
tragedy, remember to put a date and version number
on all copies. Save all drafts of a project until
you're done. You never know: You may want to revert
to the text of a previous version. However, put all
versions except the most recent away in a file so
that you have only one working copy out at a time.
-The Working Communicator
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Mouth-watering
Fact
According
to the National Restaurant Association, the
average American spends more than
$2,000 a year in restaurants and typically
eats out four times a week. Lunch is the
most popular meal out, and fast food
restaurants the most popular choice. Half of
all Americans celebrate their birthdays at
restaurants, making it the most popular
holiday or occasion. Young people (age 25 or
younger) eat out the most - more than five
meals out a week; people 65 or older eat out
less - less than two meals a
week.
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Fairly Useless Trivia
-
A
duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
-
In
the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel
1 to mobile services two-way radios (in
taxicabs, for instance) but did not renumber the
other channel assignments. That is why your TV
set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
-
A
group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a
group of geese in the air is a skein.
-
The
underside of a horse's hoof is called a frog.
The frog peels off several times a year with new
growth.
-
The
reason firehouses have circular stairways is
from the days of yore when the engines were
pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the
ground floor and figured out how to walk up
straight staircases.
-
Non-dairy
creamer is flammable.
-
Texas
is the only state that is allowed to fly its
flag at the same height as the U.S. flag.
-
The
main Library at Indiana University sinks over an
inch every year because when it was built,
engineers failed to take into account the weight
of all the books that would occupy the building.
-
Each
king in a deck of playing cards represents a
great king from history. Spades - King David,
Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts -
Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
-
"Stewardesses"
and "reverberated" are the two longest
words (12 letters each) that can be typed using
only the left hand.
You Could Be A
Winner!
What would you do if you won a million dollars?
According to a survey by Regis Philbin, Wards and
its Win a Fortune Sweepstakes, more Americans
promise to be thrifty than be spendthrifts. The
survey of 1,000 Americans found the following:
Top three ways you'd spend a $1 million
winnings:
-
63% would think
about the future and invest in stocks, their
401(k), or CDs
-
50% would pay off
debts and bills
-
48% would make a
charitable donation
-
32% would get a
bigger house
-
30% would travel
the globe
-
23% would spend it
on luxury items like a sports car or a yacht
-
15% would go on a
shopping spree.
What
would you do for a quick $1 million:
-
7 out of 10 would
enter a contest or sweepstakes
-
6 out of 10 would
appear on a TV trivia game show
-
3 out of 10 would
swallow 10 live goldfish
-
3 out of 10 would
bungee jump off a hot air ballon
-
2 out of 10 would
scale a high-rise building
-
1 out of 10 would
wrestle an alligator.
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