- This topic has 10 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 6 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
for you haifagirl i cant keep up with all the latest rules and regulations when to put in an apostrophe when not when to capitalize insert comma period it gets so complicated so ill let you do as you see fit ill supply you with all the material youll use at your own discretion thanks
<{Cap} {Cap} {Cap} {Cap} {Cap} {Cap} …….. ,,,,,,,, ””” :: ;;>
Forget about grammer? what about granpa?
from Wikipedia
He was one of the most foolish and gullible people in history, yet he made a huge fortune.
– People jokingly told him to “ship coal to Newcastle”, which he did, and through sheer luck there was a miners’ strike going on at the time, and his cargo was sold at a premium.
– At another time, practical jokers told him he could make money shipping gloves to the South Sea Islands. His ships arrived there in time to sell the gloves to Portuguese boats on their way to China.
– Someone told him to send warming pans (used to heat sheets in the cold New England winters) to the tropical West Indies – an unlikely market. However, his captain successfully sold them as ladles for the area’s burgeoning molasses industry, and again Dexter made a significant profit.
What does Timothy Dexter have to do with this thread?
At the age of 50 he wrote a book about himself – A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress. He wrote about himself and complained about politicians, clergy and his wife. The book contained 8,847 words and 33,864 letters, but no punctuation, and capital letters were seemingly random. At first he handed his book out for free, but it became popular and was re-printed in eight editions. In the second edition Dexter added an extra page which consisted of 13 lines of punctuation marks. Dexter instructed readers to “peper and solt it as they plese”.
That’s very funny ICOT you always have such interesting bits of knowledge.
forget about grammer
… and spelling too, apparently.
The Wolf
The Goq-
Thank you.
If you ever need useless info, I’m your man ?
ICOT: What’s your secret? Mine’s Uncle John.
Sam2-
Uh-oh, looks like I’m busted.
Yes, absolutely, Uncle John’s. The above story is written in far more detail in (IIRC) either “Uncle John Plunges Into History” or “Uncle John Plunges Into History Again”.
In the early 90’s there was another popular series of books by David Feldman, which included “Do Penguins Have Knees?”, “When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth?” and several other titles.
I’ll also read other trivia books, but nothing matches the breezy light and humorous style of the “Uncle John’s” series, and most other books have many more mistakes.
(The UJ series also has some mistakes, and rumors presented as facts, but overall they’re very accurate.)
Additional data sources are:
– Reading “Today in history” sites on the web.
– Interests in sports, history, science, politics and how things work.
– Print and web-based news, sports and business sites.
– Lots of time spent reading, especially as a kid.
All of the above are fun to read and good for trivia games, but not useful for much else.
ICOT: Uncle John’s is amazing and untouched in its level of both breadth and detail. They actually have quite an accurate description of Basar B’chalav and Ta’aroves in one of the early ones. And yes, I remembered that story from Uncle John’s as well, which is why I mentioned that. I do have to warn other posters though, there is sometimes some inappropriate material in them.
Grammar us make up we does. Is not indeed it true be it?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.