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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Honeymoon The month after marriage, or so much of it as is spent away from home; so called from the practice of the ancient Teutons of drinking honey-wine (hydromel) for thirty days after marriage. Attila, the Hun, indulged so freely in hydromel at his wedding-feast that he died.
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Hopkins (Matthew), of Manningtree, Essex, the witch-finder of the associated counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Huntingdonshire. In one year he hanged sixty reputed witches in Essex alone. Dr. Z. Grey says that between three and four thousand persons suffered death for witchcraft between 1643 and 1661. Nicholas Hopkins. A Carthusian friar, confessor of the Duke of Buckingham, who prophesied "that neither the king (Henry VIII.) nor his heirs should prosper, but that the Duke of Buckingham should govern England.
Three of four thousand makes the Salem witch executions look like small potatoes.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
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Houri (pl. Houris). The large blackeyed damsels of Paradise, possessed of perpetual youth and beauty, whose virginity is renewable at pleasure. Every believer will have seventy-two of these houris in Paradise, and his intercourse with them will be fruitful or otherwise, according to his wish. If an offspring is desired, it will grow to full estate in an hour. (Persian, huri; Arabic, huriya, nymphs of paradise. Compare ahivar, black-eyed.) (The Koran.)
Oh, Death, where is thy sting? A recent copy of NEWSWEEK said a number of Muslim scholars say this promise in the Koran is due to a calligraphic error, and should mean "a bunch of grapes".
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Huguenot (U-gue-no). First applied to the Reformed Church party in the Amboise Plot (1560). From the German cidgenosscn (confederates) Huguenot Pope (La pape des Huguenots). Philippe de Mornay, the great supporter of the French Protestants. (1549-1623.)
This really surprised me!
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Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
I work a few doors up from the Perth Ice Works - which has been in business at the same premises for decades. Not only do they sell ice, but they are licensed to sell alcohol as well.
Noticed on my Friday afternoon ("beer o'clock") pilgramage there last week that they have a new sign in front:
Perth Ice Works. Purveyors of Grog. Ice by the Bag or Block.
Jack lived there until my arrival.
stales
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Latest Smithsonian magazine has story about enterprising Bostonian who got rich shipping harvested ice around the world. So enterprising he contrived to keep a guy who had invented an ice making machine from selling a single one. http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues02/jul02/object.html
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 6 |
>> he contrived to keep a guy who had invented an ice making machine from selling a single one.
That's what inventor Gorie suspected, anyway. Don't know if it was sour grapes. "Gorrie suspected that Frederic Tudor had spearheaded a smear campaign against him and his invention."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I believe inventor Gorrie was correct. Tudor was rich enough to have crossed a lot of palms with silver.
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Posts: 6
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jul 2002
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In the same issue there's an article wondering if Thor Heyerdahl was a sham.
For some odd reason it's not in the online edition though. In the paper edition it's just before wwh's article, and the table of contents says
>Presence of Mind: Kon Artist? >Thor Heyerdahl's adventures sparked interest in archaeology and anthropology - but was he more shaman than scholar? >by Richard Conniff
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 6 |
wwh, to you last, "could do wrong" doesn't equal "did do wrong"
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