JAN 28 2023 - Leave Well Enough Alone

 

Make things worse...that's the caution of the "Leave Well Enough Alone" expression.  It is a curious set of words in English.   "Do not try to improve matters lest you make them worse. This idea was stated in ancient Greek times. In Aesop’s fable, the fox refused the hedgehog’s offer to remove its ticks, “lest by removing these, which are full, other hungry ones will come.” There is a medieval French version of the saying, Assez est bone, lessez ester (It is good enough, let it be). An English proverb for many centuries, the phrase became the motto of Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister from 1715 to 1717 and again from 1721 to 1742. " "A slangy twentieth-century Americanism meaning the same thing is "if it ain’t broke don’t fix it." Reporting on a meeting between West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President George H.W. Bush concerning the future of NATO in view of German unification, Strobe Talbott wrote, “They both believe in the old adage, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. ’NATO has kept the peace for 40 years, and there’s no reason to believe it can’t do so for another 40.” (Time, July 2, 1990).  I think the American slang expression is different.   This seems to me to have an Americanism at its heart - the saving of money and effort and a confidence in that approach.  It does not seem to have any implication of marking something worse or ruining something.   The Free Dictionary has an entry for "ain't broke".  It is: "this folksy and deliberately ungrammatical expression dates from the mid-1900s.   The Phrase Finder says that there are reports of it existing much earlier, but was unable to find any print record before 1976.   It is Bert Lance, Jimmy Carter's advisor who gave this expression life in a 1977 issue of Nation's Business: Bert Lance believes he can save Uncle Sam billions if he can get the government to adopt a simple motto: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He explains: "That's the trouble with government: Fixing things that aren't broken and not fixing things that are broken." And here's the "ain't broke" joke:  Normal people believe that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Engineers believe that "If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet." Today's picture is a great winter scene from a few years ago.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 10 2022 - Elon Musk Wants Friends

 

The headline says that Elon Musk wants to run twitter so he can have friends.  That's Yahoo News and the National Post.  The story?  Elon Musk tweets ominous message on Mother's Day.  This is the article: "Judging by many of his antics to date, Maye Musk has no doubt been subject to many a disconcerting experience thanks to her son Elon. " "But she did more than roll her eyes at a tweet of his on Sunday, in which he suggested he may not be long for this world. " "In an enigmatic tweet, her entrepreneur son and general disruptor suggested something sinister could happen to him. There’s no suggestion it was directed at his beloved mother or even that he was being serious, but she could not have been impressed with the timing.  His tweet was - "If I die under mysterious circumstances, it's been nice known ya" "Mama Maye, 74 and parent to two other less-provocative offspring, lashed out at her miscreant boy with a couple of angry face emojis." Her reply was "That's not funny" with two frown emojis. The next day he insulted Japan's declining birth rate.  I checked out the news report's link to Twitter and what Twitter 'features' and 'showcases' is shocking to me.  So many rude/stupid/crazed replies on the 'celebrity tweet'.  Are there a lot of Elon Musk jokes?  Yes there are many.   Tesla founder Elon Musk is originally from South Africa, which is strange You’d think he was from mad-at-gas-car. Did you hear that Elon Musk is planning to buy the entire island of Madagascar? He’s planning to rename it Madaelectriccar.   This is Ninth Street in St. Catharines.  I bought a flat of greenhouse-grown Mascara earlier in the spring, and can remember they had a field of them along here.  I was rewarded with a wild patch in the vineyard. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 13 2020 - Weird Christmas Gifts

 

What would be worth giving at Christmas this year to shake things up? Here are this year's ads on Google.  Redbubble prints on socks, so my brother got socks last year printed with his lily hybrid Showtime.  I wouldn't consider them very wearable, though. This year, the optical illusion shirt shows up all the time in ads.  The optical allusion shirt is amazing - here's the link to see the video HERE.   This would work for a Zoom Christmas. I suggest that it be a long-sleeved shirt so that the muscled arms can be included.  There are lots of choices - maybe this will become the 2020 shirt of the year.  Something to represent the crazy year. This is the sky for a normal snow day.  If the sun comes out the wind comes up and the snow flies off the vines.

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Oct 18 2020 - Polly Knows

 

After yesterday's concern over the Crazy Uncle President, I feel much better today.  The CBC covered the predictions of Polly, the Ottawa-based AI pollster, who has successfully predicted the last US and Canadian elections.  It uses Twitter data rather than any live interviews/phone calls.  It samples the same 290,000 Americans (via their Twitter posts).  "She" follows voting intent as well as identifying how opinions are trending on major issues. The CBC said: "Polly is no traditional pollster. Polly is an artificial intelligence system built by Ottawa-based startup Advanced Symbolics Inc. (ASI) that scrapes public data from social media networks to predict election outcomes." And what was the news that was so notable? Here's their latest on the election:  "Trump slowing losing ground" - HERE's the US Forecast via a map.  Here's another version at Pollyvote.com - in all, the prediction is that Biden will win by a landslide. So far, successful predictions exceed 20 - since 2004. For example, they have predicted Brexit in the UK, the 2016 US Federal election of Trump , the Ontario government 2018 election,  and the 2019 Canadian Federal election.  I'd like to list the 20 that are referenced but can't find them easily. What are they working on now?  A model that can be used to predict Covid-19 outbreaks in Canada.  The documentary on the company is titled Margin of Error. So with their prediction that Biden will win by a landslide, there's a little less stress.  I can focus more on the chewing, playing, peeing, eating and sleeping little puppy. We had a glorious sunrise yesterday - too bad I could only catch it on my street.  The next view is from Flat Rock Cellars in Vineland.  The little white blip on the Lake's horizon is the Toronto skyline.  And finally, this week's Millie "cute picture".

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Noel

My knowledge of latin is centred around plant names.  I hadn't remembered that Noel comes from the Latin verb nasci and natus, meaning to be born, or natalist, pertaining to birth or origin.  It travelled through Old French then Old English to become Noel in the late 14th century to represent Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity. In Christmas carols, noel is a lyric that expresses joy. How many carols are there with Noel?  On the lyrics search site, the results for a 'noel' search retrieved 1,476 lyrics, 30 artists and 100 albums. There are more than 30 artists with the name Noel, almost 100 albums listed, and then a seemingly unending list of The First Noel lyrics with every artist imaginable - the second on the list is Annie Lennox. Would you like to prepare for Christmas with a pun list?  Here are a few of the entries for Noel from punpedia.com: Know* → Noël*: As in, “A little noëledge is a dangerous thing” and “Don’t I noël it” and “I don’t noël why” and “Be the first to noël” and “Better the devil you noël than the devil you don’t” and “General noëledge” and “Goodness noëls” and “Takes one to noël one” and “The end of the world as we noël it” and “Noëledge is power” and “Secure in the noëledge that…” Nail → Noël: As in, “Another noël in the coffin” and “Fight tooth and noël” and “Hit the noël on the head” and “On the noël” and “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a noël.” Check out punpedia - it is amazing in its comprehensive coverage of the words around Christmas. There's no 'about', etc to find out who has put together this remarkable information. Given the flexibility of the word, there are a few silly noel jokes to be found: What kind of medal would Santa Claus win? A Noel Prize Why don't we call it Christlmas? Noel. My sister said she didn't need a hymnal because she knew the lyrics to every Christmas song. I told my brother, "Don't mind her, she's just a big noel-it-all." Our snowstorm images show Peninsula Ridge Winery - the wonderful Kitchen House in the background, and then looking from the property towards Grimsby.  There's a wonderful Lake view at the winery.

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Hyphenated-Specialist or Chief Chatter Officer

We are in the age of creativity where convoluted jobs and job titles  are a mark of prestige.  What would you be doing if you were the Chief Chatter?  You'd be the Call Centre Manager.  What about an Animal Colourist - the person who dyes animals for movies and marketing campaigns. A Digital Overlord is a website manager.  A Cheese Sprayer - someone who sprays cheese or butter by hand on popcorn. Here are job titles that the author could not figure out and labelled indecipherable: 43.  Under Secretary to the Sub-Committee – ????? 44.  Hyphenated-specialist – ?????? 45.  Second Tier Totalist – ?????? 46.  Actions and Repercussions Adviser – ?????? 47.  Professionalist International and world-wide optical and vision-focused tenured professorship – ?????? 50.  Chief Biscuit Dunker – ?????? An in-depth article comes from Fortune.  It identified 20 ridiculous job titles in well-known companies held by real people.  Here are a few in the article HERE.    Paranoid In Chief  Company: Yahoo  Description: Let’s be honest — Paranoid in chief sounds much more intriguing than plain old “chief information security officer.” And it makes sense: Yahoo’s entire cybersecurity division is known as “the Paranoids.”  In-House Philosopher Company: Google Description: This title is proof that your philosophy degree could land you a job at Google. Even the search giant needs someone to turn to when it has a question. The company literally employed someone whose job is to solve engineering problems using “a humanistic perspective.” Chief Executive Unicorn Company: PowToon Description: Because there aren’t enough unicorns, there’s one over at PowToon as well. Ilya Spitalnik is CEO (or CEU) of the company that sells software to make animated explainer videos. However, it looks like Spitalnik may have recently changed his title to “Chief Renegade Scientist.” I wonder what Dezi's job title is in the vineyard at Legend's Winery, located on the shore of Lake Ontario.