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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dickens mentions "equinoctial gales" which reminds me of September hurricanes in New England.
I first encountered the word "equinox" in Kipling's Elephant's Child:
"One fine morning in the middle of the Precession of the Equinoxes this 'satiable Elephant's Child asked a new fine question that he had never asked before. He asked, 'What does the Crocodile have for dinner?' Then everybody said, 'Hush!' in a loud and dretful tone, and they spanked him immediately and directly, without stopping, for a long time. "
"That very next morning, when there was nothing left of the Equinoxes, because the Precession had preceded according to precedent, this 'satiable Elephant's Child took a hundred pounds of bananas (the little short red kind), and a hundred pounds of sugar-cane (the long purple kind), and seventeen melons (the greeny-crackly kind), and said to all his dear families, 'Goodbye. I am going to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner.' And they all spanked him once more for luck, though he asked them most politely to stop."
When I read this in bed, with the covers over my head to hide my light, the mysterious words added to the appeal of
the story. It was a long time before I learned what "equinox" meant, and longer still before I read an explantion of the "precession of the equinoxes" and learned it was not some kind of a parade.
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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What is the 'precession' of equinoxes? And what does the crocodile eat for dinner?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A) The Earth is wobbling on its axis at about one wobble per 22,000 years. What this means is that the constellation that the sun is in at the equinoxes changes slowly, going around the Zodiac from constellation to constellation at a little less than 2,000 years per constellation.
2) Elephant's children.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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You're not supposed to answer the question, you're supposed to spank her till she goes to the great grey-green greasy Limpopo river to find out for herself.
Bingley
Bingley
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