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No object other than havoc is ever used with the verb wreak, and vice-versa it seems.

Why not get rid of the apparently redundant word wreak and just say “havocking”?

That should make sense.

Because what else do people wreak other than havoc? Does anyone wreak peace? Wreaking order?

Although havocking for some reason does sound friendlier than wreaking havoc.

Bonus grammar/etymology question: shouldn’t someone have to furl something first before it is unfurled? Yet I never hear of anything being furled.

Nothing to see here today. I’m trying to catch up on sleep after changing time zones. More posts on that will be coming up soon. Plus today is a holiday, at least where I am it is.

I’ve heard or read about the term “herd immunity” with regard to vaccinations. The concept is that once enough people (a large enough percentage) are vaccinated against a certain disease, then that disease can’t spread freely because there aren’t enough hosts. It kind of dies out naturally because there is no place hospitable. Any new member of the community is then safe from the disease just because no one else will have the disease.

I’m trying figure out the opposite effect. What if everyone is infected with something and any new members of the community are not safe? Plague? Epidemic? That’s how I feel about social media.

I’m not on Facechat, but enough people who know me are on Facechat, so anyone can still learn about me through Facechat. Same thing for Instabook and Snapgram.

How can I avoid appearing on social media when everyone around me is infected? It’s nearly impossible unless I avoid people.

I was near someone who was listening to headphones. Not earbuds, but full headphones. And I could hear his music fairly well, even though I didn’t want to.

And that got me thinking.

Why don’t they make noise-canceling headphones which the mechanism turned around? In other words, instead of cancelling the outside noises for the headphone wearer, have the headphones cancel the noise they’re making to the outside world.

You may be trying to answer that question literally, and your answer is probably “because no consumer would pay for that feature”. If someone could find a way to market and sell that, the world would be a better place.

When someone who is familiar with the English language hears “Lapis Lazuli”, this is what he pictures:

But I imagine that someone who is more familiar with the Spanish language would picture “Lapis Lazuli” as this:

Delta, watching Gamma throw a rock into a puddle : Look, you’re making the internet go!

It took me a second to catch on, too. What he meant is that the ripples in the puddle look like the standard Wi-Fi symbol.

The Scene: Some Wife had just made a statement that everyone interpreted to mean something different than what she meant.
Me : She said one thing and we all heard something different.
Gamma : No, we all heard the same thing but thought different things.
Me : Well, yes.

The Scene: I am getting Gamma his portion of dinner, attempting to keep food items separate. I spill some gravy on his vegetables.
Gamma : That’s okay – gravy is like maple syrup because it tastes good on everything.

That’s the spirit!

Gamma, having just read an older comic strip that didn’t make much sense to him : What’s a long-distance carrier?
Someday I’ll have to explain collect calls to him too.

The Scene: We just watched the TV report on how the Philadelphia Eagles were owning their status as underdogs for the Super Bowl.
Gamma : So then, the Patriots are the overdogs?

I just finished reading a compilation of short stories by a certain author who is listed as O. Henry. No, actually, The Gift of the Magi was not one of the 68 stories in this particular compilation.

I found I liked his writing style better than I had anticipated. I had to break up reading the book over a couple weeks though, because reading too many short stories in one sitting got tedious.

Here are my favorites in this collection (simply called “Selected Stories” and compiled by Guy Davenport, but with O. Henry listed as the author of course):

There were some other good stories too, but those are they that stood out.

He had three main settings that he liked to use: New York City, Texas, and the South. A nice variety. And for some reason he seemed fond of Ann Arbor, Michigan – he mentioned it in more than one story.

He wrote his stories shortly after the time when Little House on the Prairie was set, but his stories seem more modern. Probably because they included more cities and trains and even cars.

Also interesting to note is that O. Henry to the Civil war is like us to the Vietnam war – about 40 years after. But everyone was familiar with it and everyone knew someone who had been in the war as a lot of them were still alive. So he wrote about slaves somewhat. Of course they were now freed, but their roles in his stories reflected how their lives were back then – still mostly servant-type roles. And he used several different terms to describe them, some of which are quaint and others of which would not go over well today.

O. Henry seemed sympathetic to the working-class girls and unfavorable toward the factory owners who paid them so little. And he really did not like national bank examiners.

A number of his stories focused on children finding their long-lost parents or vice-versa, so that got a little formulaic after a while – well of course this lady is going to be his daughter he thought died years ago.

But for the most part the stories were engaging enough that they were interesting to read even though you know how they’ll turn out.