Need to Knead
My wife has a sore hip so she needs me to knead her,
I have a bad back so I need her to knead me,
So, it is needless to say that we both get relief from being needed (kneaded).
Ross La Spina
Bicton, WA
Keep your shirt on!
Have you ever wondered why it is thought that impatience leads to undressing?
This exclamation comes from a time before modern manufacturing technology allowed clothes to be mass produced.
A shirt was a much more expensive item than it is today and so if someone were to get into a fight, it made good economic sense [more…]
With A Little Help From My Friends
Could you please settle an argument for me? As I live by myself I always buy the monthly BIG magazine. I send in what I can do each month. My other favourite hobby is Bingo. Sometimes I take my book to Bingo and when we have a break I often ask the ladies some of [more…]
Posh
You can sound posh, look posh, come from a posh family, visit a posh restaurant or go to a posh school. We all know what it means but where does POSH originate from?
We usually associate POSH with the British upper-classes and it has gained the wider usage to describe, sometimes pejoratively, ‘smartly-dressed, well-groomed, looking [more…]
Quackery
If a physician is described as a quack, he is to be avoided, but how did the term come about?
The word has nothing to do with ducks, but comes from the Dutch quacksalver, from quacken meaning prattle and salf meaning a healing ointment.
A quacksalver then was someone who prattled on about the efficacy of [more…]
Ampersand
You may be interested to know where the ‘&’ symbol on our keyboards came from and why it is called the ampersand.
Well, in medieval times the symbol & derived from the Latin et, meaning ‘and’.
The & appeared on every child’s hornbook as part of the alphabet; the 27th symbol after Z. It was [more…]
Chinese New Year
On February 10, 2013, Chinese New Year will be celebrated and it will become the Year of the Snake, according to the Chinese horoscope.
In the build up to New Year, houses are cleaned and newly painted and gifts, food and clothing are bought. Paper cut-outs of words such as happiness, wealth and longevity are used to decorate houses [more…]
Christmas Day
What is the significance of December 25? We all know that it is Christmas Day, the celebration of the birth of Jesus and a time of families, presents and laughter, but why is it celebrated on that particular day?
In Armenia it is January 19 and in some eastern countries it is January 6 [more…]
