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The idea of Fletcherizing invites the question, "Is too much of a good thing better?" Horace Fletcher proposed that one should grind food once for each tooth in the mouth. That implies that we masticate each bite of pizza as many as 32 times. I'd rather stick with the idea that each byte has eight bits. At any rate, Mr. Fletcher, the art dealer turned nutritionist, did earn the moniker `The Great Masticator,' for his popular book at the time and got his name into the dictionary. This week we'll look at more such words, eponyms, coined after people from fact and from fiction.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Fletcher is of course an ancient name for arrow maker. I had not heard of The Great Masticator. But everybody has heard of his competitor nutritionist who gave his name to the graham cracker.Sylvester Graham invented the graham cracker in 1829. (www.straightdope.com)
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Briefly (yeah, right) on dear Mr. Fletcher... when I was growing up, my mother always made us sit there at the table and chew - we would take a bite, put down our forks or spoons or whatever, and she would count to make sure we had chewed each mouthful the required 32 times! Unfortunately, when I went away to college, I learned to shovel my food into my mouth and on my first trip home for a weekend visit, while I shoveled, my mother just sat there with her mouth open watching! "Where did you learn to eat like that?" she said in shock and amazement. "Why, in college," I replied and continued shoveling as fast as possible, eating everything on my plate before my mother had even finished chewing (32 times) her first bite! In reply to:
But everybody has heard of his competitor nutritionist who gave his name to the graham cracker.
About Mr. Graham and his cracker - a personal note: when I was in kindergarten at the ripe old age of 5, I was put in charge of passing out the graham crackers at snack time. I very quickly learned that I could easily break them all in half (again, as they were already prepared to give us each half of the whole thing) and give actually only a fourth of a graham cracker to each child in the class, thereby saving all the rest for ME! Of course, at the time, I didn't know the adage "once on the lips, forever on the hips" and so today, all my problems are behind me!
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TC 9-524 Glossary ... fixture). Johannson blocks (Jo blocks) - Common term for the precision gage blocks used and accepted as dimensional standards by machinists, toolmakers. and ... http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/tc/9-524/Gloss.htm [More Results From: www.adtdl.army.mil]
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A question about eponyms. Are trade names, such as "Stilson wrench" really eponyms? And is the lack of information about the person for whom an object was named, make it unsuitable for posting here?
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The Cardigan sweater. See last line.
Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of (1797-1868), British army officer, born in Hambleden, England, and educated at the University of Oxford. Cardigan was a member of the House of Commons from 1818 to 1829 and entered the army in 1824. He was forced to give up his first command in 1834, however, because of his dictatorial behavior toward a subordinate officer. In 1836 he was able to secure command of a unit later known as the 11th Hussars. As commander of a light cavalry brigade in the Crimean War, he led the famous Charge of the Six Hundred at the Battle of Balaklava on October 25, 1854. The British brigade was virtually annihilated by the Russians. Cardigan survived the battle, was acclaimed a hero, and became a lieutenant general in 1861. The cardigan sweater is named for him.
"Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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i have heard, that generals (even the ones in the US army) are permitted to design their own "bits" to wear as part of a uniform-- and "eisenhower" jackets are from a the general of the same name. Did Cardigan design a uniform jacket (a single breasted, collarless jacket of a knitted wool) and so give us a cardigans-- or what?
Nehru (while not a general) gave us the nehru coat -- for Jazz and all you other young folk, its is a 3/4 length coat, with a stand up collar--google and find a picture of Nehru-- or if you're Beetle's fans, check out album covers..
and how about chesterfield-- (was he a general? and are the coat and couch from one and the same chesterfield?)
Raglan (ragland) sleeves come from Baron Raglan-- a field Marshal-- which is (what sort of rank?) (okay, we need a thread on military rank names-- colonel alone is worth a thread! -- since i have no idea about who outranks who--exept that general is the highest rank, and private is the lowest--)
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I can help out a bit with Army ranks. Enlisted : private, private first class (PFC) corporal, sergeant, staff sergeant, master sergeant (and in recent years although I may be missing one) senior master sergeant and chief senior master sergeant. I think Warrant Officer comes in here. Men have a warrant rather than an officer's commission and are called Mister. Commissioned officers : 2nd Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, captain, Major, Lt. Colonel, Colonel, General, Brigadier General, Lt. General, Four Star General and then the special recognition starting in WWII given to a very few (i.e. Eisenhower, Marshall, McArthur etc) Five Star General. I think that's right! Maybe someone can help us out. By the way Command rank is a big step and comes between Capt and Major. full Colonels are called "Bird Colonels" to distinguish them from Lt. Colonels. The insignia changes from a gold leaf to an eagle. There's a series of books by W. E. B. Griffin each titled with an officer's rank The Lietenants, The Captains, etc...up through the ranks. Good stories. A group of recurring core characters in each book along with new peole. Highly recommend. "The Lieutenants" starts a bit slow but gets good fast. I caught on to them when they came out in paperback and would buy the next in series to have on hand in case I finished one and had time to go on! He also writes about the Marine Corps and has a cop series too. Can't wait for his next one. Like him much better than Clancy except for Clancy's "Red October" and "Patriot Games" which is a much better book than it was a movie. wow
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a field Marshal-- which is (what sort of rank?)
Field Marshal= (roughly) 5-star General
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of troy>if you're Beetle's fansJust a quickie - of course, it's Beatles, unless you are talking about either those cute little hard shell bugs that crawl around in the garden or the original VW... which, by the way, over here is called (the ch is like in the German 'ach') - CHEE-POO-SHEET which is the Hebrew for that little hard shelled bug that crawls around in the garden! Such a large word for such a little creature!Shoshannah
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