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#50797 12/30/01 06:31 PM
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All for understanding those archetypes! So, we got Agony Abby and Agony Ann, both ants, who help you with your hants, tants, and dants.

Thanks, t!

Best regards,
DubDub


#50798 12/30/01 07:05 PM
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So what does an ant call its mother's sister?

(leaving now...getting close to Eagles/Giants time) and I guess I'd better run after that one!


#50799 12/30/01 07:06 PM
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Though it's attractive to suppose that Formica© has something to do with ants, t'aint so.

http://www.formica-europe.com/main_com.htm: Formica was invented in Cincinnati in 1913 by two young men, Herbert Faber and Daniel O'Connor. It was intended to serve as an electrical insulator and was created as a replacement for Mica, which was used for that purpose at the time. Hence the name 'for mica'.


#50800 12/30/01 07:12 PM
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"Agony Aunt" is chiefly a Brit expression, so I guess we can surmise how it's *supposed to be pronounced.

For further/previous discussion of regional pronunciations of "aunt", see another thread Wordwind started that also sort of warped off into insect kinship here recently in Q&A on Lifetime Pronunciation Addi(c[sic])tions.


#50801 12/30/01 08:13 PM
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... which is a pun of sorts, given what's transpired (or transgressed) in this thread while I've been ignoring it.

Imagine this Latin conversation, held between, say, Marcus and Brutus by a food stall in the forum on March 15, 44BC

"Marcus, estne haec?"
"Salve Brutus. Formica est."
"O me miseram! Barf! Chunder! Quo lamnia mea est?"

Brutus fumbles around frantically while retching uncontrollably, finds knife stuck in waistband of breechclout and then stabs Caesar multiple times. Caesar, who was innocently eating fried lampreys and thinking about which gladiator he was going to bet on at the arena that afternoon stumbles to his knees and dies, not uttering "Et tu, Brute!", but "Et tu, Lamprey!" He was going for his third when Brutus, who couldn't find a cat, in the heat of the moment chose to, ah, kick Caesar. Which wasn't felisitous at all, at least from Caesar's point of view.

And what was the root cause of the one of the most famous murders of all time? This:

Formica -ae f The act of paramecia mating both sexually and asexually on a table top of dubious quality.

Formica
Formicae
Formicam
Formicae
Formicae
Formica

Formicae
Formicae
Formicas
Formicarum
Formicis
Formicis


The mind just boggles.








The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#50802 12/30/01 08:40 PM
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[blue]
Formica
Formicae
Formicam
Formicae
Formicae
Formica

Formicae
Formicae
Formicas
Formicarum
Formicis
Formicis
[/blue]


Where did you get that order, CapK? You guys do everthang upside down there at the bottom of the world? It should be:

Formica
Formicae
Formicae
Formicam
Formica
Formica

Formicae
Formicarum
Formicis
Formicas
Formicis
Formicae


Sheesh!


#50803 12/30/01 08:49 PM
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Dear AnnaS:

Lifetime Pronuncation Additions was really what I intended the thread topic to be, although addictions are interesting, too. I started the thread because I'd been wondering about those words that we learn one pronuncation for in our youth, but, by the time you've lived to be as old as I, are overtaken by incorrect pronunciations and, finally, found to be acceptable by those boards of lexicographers. So, these are the pronunciation additions to the dictionary to which I was referring.

Sheesh! You done gone and zapped me on Cole Porter yesterday, and you're back "sic"'n the spelling dogs on me today! I am learning to feel the power of the ASP, indeed!

Best regards,
DubDub

PS: To CapK: Wow! Amazing post up there!


#50804 12/30/01 10:24 PM
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That, my dear WW, was not intended as a presumptious spelling correction but rather as a sort of internal wordplay, which apparently fell flat on its face. Not the first time, nor will it be the last.


#50805 12/30/01 10:43 PM
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" Brutus, who couldn't find a cat, in the heat of the moment chose to, ah, kick Caesar. Which wasn't felisitous at all, at least from Caesar's point of view."

Dear CK: If this is a pun, I don't get it. With, or without the apparent typo.


#50806 12/30/01 11:18 PM
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which apparently fell flat on its face

well, FWIW, i find it quite witty.


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