UNCLE GARABED’S NOTEBOOK (MARCH 13, 2010)
cle-garabeds-notebook-march-13-2010/
March 8, 2010
Honorificabilitudinitatibus: A made-up word on the Lat.
honorificabilitudo, honorableness, which frequently occurs in
Elizabethan plays as an instance of sesquipedalian pomposity.
Ex. "thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus"
-Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost, act V, scene i.
Anyone We Know?
I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps himself in the
Constitution than someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps
himself in the flag!
-Molly Ivins
Hitler’s Silly Dance In June 1940 Hitler accepted the surrender
of the French government at a ceremony in Compiegne, France. He
melodramatically insisted on receiving France’s surrender in the same
railroad car in which Germany had signed the 1918 armistice that had
ended World War I.
After Hitler accepted France’s surrender, he stepped backwards
slightly, as if in shock. But this is not what the audiences in the
Allied countries saw who watched the movie-reel of the ceremony.
Instead they saw Hitler dance a bizarre little jig after signing
the documents, as if he were childishly celebrating his victory. The
scene was played over and over again in movie theaters. Of course,
Hitler had not done a little dance. Allied propagandists had simply
looped the footage of Hitler’s step backwards, so that it appeared
as if he were dancing. The film clip served its desired purpose,
which was to ridicule the Nazi leader.
An Abstract Expression The artist Pablo Picasso surprised a burglar
in his new chateau, but the intruder got away.
Picasso told the police he could make a rough sketch of what he
looked like. On the basis of his drawing, the police arrested a mother
superior, the minister of finance, a washing machine, and a lawn mower.
What’s in a Name?
Kabadayan: Turkish in derivation, identified as a descriptive name,
kabadayuh is defined as swashbuckler; bully; tough; having guts;
the best of anything.