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I never thought of this before
This is a great thread, Bill! - I had thought of this before - well, had it thought of for me and pointed out to me. Guess perhaps it's a Canajun/French thing. Apparently left-handed people dislike these terms and their definitions....!
Related: the term "sinister," from heraldry, also has to do with the left - and also has bad connotations in modern language. Another term lefties get tweaked about, or so I understand.
Which reminds me of one more thing, non-word related, to do with lefties: I heard once that if a pregnant woman gets an ultrasound to check on the baby's progress, it is more likely the baby will grow up left-handed, because something in the ultra-sound waves affects that portion of the development of the fetus. Anyone know anything more about this?
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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...something in the ultra-sound waves affects that portion of the development of the fetus.
I doubt it.
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Dear MG: one of the biggest fallacies in medical research is the old post hoc, propter hoc. I read that about ultrasound affecting handedness in New Scientist. I think it is baloney. If it could change handedness, it could cause other fetal defects, which have not been a problem so far.
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Ah, Bill, not everyone would agree with you that a change of handedness was a "fetal defect"! Hell, it makes sense to me. The brain runs brain waves, yes? An ultrasound uses waves also, yes? Doesn't seem implausible to me that the latter might interfere with the former. Maybe it does interfere in more ways than we are yet cognizant of - but obviously not deleterious ways (just as the hand thing is not deleterious - just not desirable, to my way of thinking, because unfortunately this is a right-handed world and lefties are at a bit of a disadvantage because of it). The brain is a mysterious and wonderful thing. Perhaps the most curious thing about it, is that we use it, to study it.  Will we ever plumb its depths? I'm guessing no. Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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Dear MG: I think that ;if the ultrasound could change one thing it could change more than one. When you speak of waves, remember apples and oranges.
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We raised both beef and dairy cows, but never heard this word:
Agist To take the cattle of another to graze at a certain sum. The feeding of these beasts is called agistment. The words are from the Norman agiser (to be levant and couchant, rise up and lie down), because, says Coke, beasts are levant and couchant whilst they are on the land.
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Agnus-castus A shrub of the Vitex tribe, called agnos (chaste) by the Greeks, because the Athenian ladies, at the feast of
Ceres, used to strew their couches with vitex leaves, as a palladium of chastity. The monks, mistaking agnos (chaste) for agnus (a lamb), but knowing the use made of the plant, added castus to explain its character, making it chaste-lamb. (For another similar blunder, see I.H.S.)
I have heard of the element "palladium" but what does it mean in the quotation?
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An etymology new to me:
Agog He is all agog, in nervous anxiety; on the qui vive, like a horse in clover. (French, à gogo, or vivre à gogo, to live in clover.)
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Ague - a fever,usually malariall, marked by regularly occurring chills
Homer a Cure for the Ague It was an old superstition that if the fourth book of the Iliad was laid under the head of a patient suffering from quartan ague it would cure him at once. Serenus Sammonicus, preceptor of Gordian and a noted physician, vouched for this remedy.
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Well, as far as a pregnant woman having ultrasound and that making her babies left handed....I had many sonograms while pregnant with my two right handed children. With my son, I had sonograms every other week for 6 months. I had been in a car accident and broken my back. The repeated tests showed where he was in relation to the break that could not be treated without aborting him. With the aid of a chiropractor and physically manipulating the position of my womb to move him off the tender area, I was able to carry him to full term and deliver by c-section. He and I were definitely both subjected to alot of waves!
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