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#125708 03/24/2004 12:19 PM
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Nah, I am not EVEN gonna tell the old story about the milk bath. Well, maybe if someone who hasn't heard it asks me.



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#125709 03/24/2004 1:49 PM
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From the time I was a child (1930s) up until my children were approaching their teens (1965) we had daily milk delivery - even during the WWII years when retired milkmen were recalled to old jobs.
The containers were glass, one quart bottles with a cardboard cap that had a tiny flap which allowed easy opening. Cream was delivered in pint bottles and I think it was always heavy cream that could be whipped.
In winter if you didn't take the milk in early the milk would freeze and expand and you'd find the cream - which was on the top of the bottle - above the top of the bottle with the cap jauntily atop the cream!
The Milkman also sold butter and sometimes eggs,too, this was handy when snow storms hit - at least you had something for breakfast. A note in the empty milk bottle was all that was required. Milkmen knew their customers and never seemed to be short of what you needed. Like mailmen, they came in all kinds of weather! The Breadman was also dependable and he had cookies and cakes in addition to bread which, in those days was always white!
After the war, 1945, our milkman told us about the possibility the "bottles" would soon be made of plastic. This, he said would save the company money because plastic bottles could be discarded by homeowners and the truck would not carry the empty milk bottles back to the plant. A lighter load equaling less gas for the truck.
I don't know exactly when home delivery was stopped as we were moving a lot as the Captain's stations changed between 1965 and 1968...but ... when we returned from the Philippines in 1968 home delivery was a thing of the past.
Now I buy milk at corner store or the supermarket and only the Postman still makes daily rounds. In the US before WWII the mail came twice a day - once a day delivery was instituted during the war because of the manpower shortge and never was reinstated.





#125710 03/24/2004 2:10 PM
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We still had home delivery of dairy products available from Dairy Crest Farms when I moved from Denver in July last year. It wasn't overly expensive, and they had a menu you filled out and left on top of the milk box outside the door. The dairy person would fill your order and place it in the box.

They had great cookie dough, though in fairly large (maybe five-pound) sizes. And bagels to die for.



TEd
#125711 03/24/2004 2:26 PM
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a word that you have never seen before and all of a sudden it's showing up everywhere.
I think you have to distinguish two cases:
a. subjective only, something to do with triggered awareness
b. the sudden spreading of the thing is real: penetration (as used by the publicity trade), percolation (more physical)


#125712 03/24/2004 2:32 PM
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only the Postman still makes daily rounds.

and in urban area's, the newspaper man.

in sub urban areas, there are still newspaperboys with routes and bikes, but in urban areas (like my building) which might have 50 customers in one building, and the route might have a couple of thousand people, newspapers are delivered by adults, who drive cars. billing is by credit card, (but at christmas time, most delivery people will send you a card with their return address clearly marked on the card) but many are great.. i got my times consistant before 7AM--i could leave for work at 7:20 and it was always there.

and in urban area like mine, most grocery stores, (many of which are small compared to sub urban/rural areas) will deliver. you carry home your frozen foods, perhaps your meat purchases (in a small rolling grocery cart) and the bulk of your purchases, (canned goods, staples, fruits and vegetables) are delivered to your door in a hour or less.

this service, for many of the very elderly (over age 80), allows them to live at home. it makes cities a great place to go old. its not cheap, but cheaper than a nursing home.

some stores will take fax orders, or telephone orders, too. so the very old don't even have to leave their houses in the very coldest or stormyest days.


#125713 03/24/2004 2:42 PM
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Oh! Helen! How could I forget newspaper carriers (hitting self on head with wet noodles- e) after all those years in the business! Thanks for the reminder.
There is one supermarket in my area that will deliver orders for a reasonable fee. So far I haven't needed the service but it's nice to know it's available.



#125714 03/25/2004 12:38 AM
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so we reserve our generosity for the dustmen

What are dustmen dxb?


#125715 03/25/2004 12:54 AM
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In Québec, 80% of regular milk is sold in bags holding three, one-litre flexible plastic pouches. Every household has a holder for these pouches. The balance is sold in cartons.

We go through about 1 to 2 litres per day on weekends, and 1/2 litre per day during the week.

Chocolate milk is sold in 1L plastic jugs and cartons.

Bread products were still delivered by breadman until the early eighties. He'd have the usual breads, donuts and cakes along with fresh eggs. He'd always know exactly how much bread we needed, even if we were away when he passed. He'd leave the loaves on the counter beside the door in the kitchen. Those were the days where the doors were never locked.

Milk deliveries stopped in the early seventies.




#125716 03/25/2004 4:51 AM
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Dustmen = household refuse collectors

Bingley


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#125717 03/25/2004 4:54 AM
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Bel, "dustmen" are the guys who pick up your kerbside rubbish ...

"My old man's a dustman,
'E wears a dustman's 'at,
'E wears gorblimey trousers
an' 'e lives in a council flat.
'E looks a proper 'nana
in 'is great big 'obnailed boots.
'E's got such a job to pull 'em on
that 'e calls 'em daisy roots!"


#125718 03/25/2004 1:09 PM
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the sudden spreading of the thing

Yes, wseiber, like a sudden coalescence or "crystallization".

If you think of crystallization in a laboratory beaker, one moment the solution is completely clear, add another drop, a single drop, and the next moment the solution is completely transformed into color.

In the blink of an eye
You'll let out a cry
"It's all crystal clear to me now!"


There are only six degrees of saturation separating the invisible world from the visible.


#125719 03/25/2004 1:53 PM
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In Lancashire, we still have a daily delivery of milk in bottles with a silver-foil cap. In the spring and summer, the milkman puts a flat stone (left nearby) on top so that the bluetits can;t peck through the foil. He drives quite a distance, so uses a diesel truck for deliveries, but plenty of places still have the electric "milk float."

I also remember the cardboard caps with a tab, wow - at school in the '40s and '50s the free milk for the children came in 1/3 pint bottles with that sort of cap. It also had a perforated round area in the middle of the cap that you could poke a straw through to drink the milk.

As to Faldages original enquiry - if y'all remember what that was - could the 'heightened awareness' (which is what I believe you were searching for) be termed "altasensitivity" ?


#125720 03/25/2004 1:59 PM
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Rhuby!! Your presence is all too rare these days. I like that altasensitivity although, hearing no objections, I might go for hypersensitivity.


#125721 03/25/2004 5:00 PM
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were called pogs, and had a thankfully short-lived reincarnation as kids' toys of some kind a few years back. I don't remember how it worked, but the little tykes were gambling with them, causing most school districts to ban them. This, in turn, made them even more desireable, of course.

I'll look it up to see what the gambling thing was all about.

Edit:

Well, I'll be darned. This claims they were not from the milk bottles, though the concept's identical:

Cardboard money.
My serious addiction to Pepperidge Farms Goldfish Tiny Crackers(R) has enabled me to complete multiple sets of Goldfish milkcaps (collect all six!). Milkcaps, for those of you cowering under rocks, are small cardboard discs with images on them. These are implemented by the global youth in some sort of 90's Marbles game mutant offshoot. They used to be called "POG"s (for "Papaya Orange Guava", the types of bottled juice that originally yielded the game pieces), but of course someone snarfed the trademark to that one. If you can imagine a tiny Goldfish cracker engaging in he-man MTV-type sports depicted on a small cardboard disc, you're just as insane as the marketing board that came up with this idea. These are three concepts that should have never been crossed. Someone should keep track of this heinous trend and make a coffee table book: "Late 20th Century Travesties in Marketing". Anyone interested in acquiring the rarer "Spike!" (armless Goldfish wearing handkerchief and sunglasses, somehow playing volleyball) or "Shot!" (armless Goldfish somehow implements hockey stick) milkcaps should drop me a line to receive a true Christmas Miracle(tm). As an aside (is there anything that I write that isn't an aside?), I enjoy saying the phrase "tiny crackers" immensely and try to work it into conversations whenever possible.





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#125722 03/25/2004 8:23 PM
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I enjoy saying the phrase "tiny crackers" immensely and try to work it into conversations whenever possible

Very clever of you to sneak that in at the tail end of your post, TEdRem.

Since you are knackers for crackers, you might enjoy this old standard from Alfred E. Neuman of "Mad" magazine:

"It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsky in snide."




#125723 03/25/2004 11:53 PM
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I thought it might be a garbageman but the name dustman seems so much cleaner and lightweight...so then I thought, maybe, it could have been those men that clean your chimney of dust and such.

Thanks for the info guys.


#125724 03/26/2004 1:14 AM
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That would be a chimney sweep.

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#125725 03/26/2004 1:18 AM
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Do the dustmen wear dusters?


#125726 03/26/2004 1:22 AM
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Only in some people's fantasy life.

Though some may wear knuckle dusters when they're off duty.

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#125727 03/26/2004 10:36 AM
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Do the dustmen wear dusters?

If u dust a dustman off, will he still look dusty?

I don't want to get into a dust-up over this, but a chimney sweep can dust more dust than any dustman who ever dusted a dusty chimney.

This may seem like a speck of dust to you, but to a dustman, it's his living.

#125728 03/26/2004 3:18 PM
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I like that altasensitivity although, hearing no objections, I might go for hypersensitivity.


to me, Faldage, hyper- has the conotation of "too much" whereas my [re]alta- has the conotation of "heightened."

Besides, "hypersensitivity" is a recognised (and somewhat overused) word, whilst alta sensitivity is a bran-new coinage - I claim White Knight's privilege.


#125729 03/26/2004 3:43 PM
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White Knight's privilege

How could a say you gain? Altasensitivity it is.


#125730 03/26/2004 3:48 PM
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How could a say you gain? Altasensitivity it is.

I was going to agree with Rhubarb, Faldage, but I didn't want to poison his prospects.

Still, I think you have made the right decision.

Congratulations!

Maybe this is a move in the right direction.

When you create these word contests and act as the only Judge, there is no appeal to common sense.

At least, that has been the case up until now.

At last, we can ALL agree that I am not the only one who is always wrong around here.

I find you a lot more lovable when you're fallible, Faldage ... just like the rest of us.

I hope this means we can be "buds".



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Nope. Usually they wear a disgruntled expression. And take great pleasure in making as much noise as possible on the early morning when they come round our street. But the noise they make is nothing as compared with the dawn chorus of the recycling van men. I suspect they compete to see who can break the most bottles as they toss them into the van. Enough to turn you off being green.


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I suspect they compete to see who can break the most bottles as they toss them into the van. Enough to turn you off being green.

Try throwing at bottle at them, shanks.

You won't have to put a message in it. I think they'll get the message.




#125733 03/26/2004 8:55 PM
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Going back to the question..(sorry everybody, I know I am really late..just throwing in my 2 paise) I liked altasensitivity too, but here is another thought. Faldage, there is an anthropological term, called, 'Stimulus diffusion' used to explain the rapid tranmission of an idea or behaviour that is culturally inherited. One chimp cracks a nut with a stone and suddenly many more chimps are doing the same thing. You *could stretch the same concept to what you are looking for - ?epidemic awareness?



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>>>>Usually they wear a disgruntled expression. And take great pleasure in making as much noise as possible...

So I see dustmen/garbagemen are pretty much the same the world-round Mind you, if I had to be handling people's stinky garbage all day long, I'm not sure I'd be smiling all the time either.

Maybe because I'm a girl but anytime I've had encounter with them, they've been pretty nice (like when I'm running to catch up with garbage bags cause I forgot to take them out)




#125735 03/26/2004 8:59 PM
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Stimulus diffusion

good name for a band.

what was the "something-biquity" word that Max gave you in another thread? I liked that one.



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#125736 03/26/2004 9:02 PM
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ubiquiphany


#125737 03/26/2004 9:05 PM
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ubiquiphany

yah. dat be the one. thanks. did we ever get a proper pronunciation for that? or perhaps it could be just "ubiphany"?...



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#125738 03/26/2004 9:05 PM
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eta, max's word is right here, further up.... serendubiquity
Chemical Brothers (did I get it right) I think is the name of a succesful band; so, yes, stimulus diffusion might sell too!


#125739 03/26/2004 9:09 PM
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serendubiquity

missed that one! that flows off the tongue pretty well, but seems a bit long to gain acceptance. but, who knows?



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#125740 03/26/2004 9:12 PM
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Good double-dactyl fodder, at least.


#125741 03/26/2004 9:14 PM
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Maahey, ubiquiphany is Faldage's improvement of a rough draft I sent him privately. The signal to noise ratio in these fora has deteriorated rapidly, and markedly, of late, so I decided to make sure he could hear me by sending him a PM. Serendubiquity was my first attempt, the one I threw into the open here.


#125742 03/26/2004 9:17 PM
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I like serendubiquity. It's got dubious hidden in it (channeling Dub Dub'-e)


#125743 03/26/2004 9:19 PM
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Aah! Thanks Max. Just went over the whole thread twice searching for the other


#125744 03/26/2004 9:39 PM
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I like serendubiquity. It's got dubious hidden in it

Yes, it's a fine coinage if the phenomenon we are describing was dubious, and not simply rare and sudden and oftimes felicitous.

The only thing "dubious" about "serendubiquity" is its eligibility for this "contest" in the first place.

I agree with simaq, "the signal to noise ratio in these fora has deteriorated rapidly".

The next thing you know someone is going to suggest "serendupidity".

As long as it isn't me, it will probably get serious consideration.

Frankly, I think you got robbed, Rhubarb.

That's what happens when the Judge sits on his own case with no appeal to anyone who makes any sense.

Just kiddin', Faldage.

At least we can say we agreed on "altasensitivity".

#125745 03/26/2004 9:45 PM
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Faldage, you are looking for a word for "out of the blue and everywhere", like the first rain of our lives, right?


#125746 03/26/2004 10:00 PM
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you are looking for a word for "out of the blue and everywhere", like the first rain of our lives, right?

It's like rain, alright, raju. And we're all getting soaked.

You are a newcomer and I don't want you to get drowned on your first visit.





#125747 03/26/2004 11:25 PM
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"out of the blue and everywhere"

It needs a personal precipitating event, I think. Like the red car example, it wouldn't happen if I hadn't bought the red car to start with. But otherwise, yeah, that's about it.


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