Being neither British nor a friend of the Yiddish language [which I consider to be bastardized German], I have never noshed. On the other hand, I could certainly snack on any of a number of cheeses.

Yes.

In Response to damoge's remarks of Fri Jan 15, 2021 1:02 pm "Slava, thank you for the triple adjectives, two of which were unknown to me, and all of them slide so smoothly off the tongue." Some of you know that I have the education and experience to be able to discuss the word "stochastic" with the ...

What if one lined up some cats in a row. Would that be a concatenation of cats!

bbeeton: Here in the hinterlands the utensil under discussion is called a whisk. We reserve the heavy word "whip" for more violent action and action items. We pronounce it as "whup".

The word "Yankee" has many disputed definitions and sources. I go with the majority who attribute it to the Dutch name, Jan Kees. This epithet was first used by the British to designate the Dutch. Of course the British bent toward foreigners at the time made this a pejorative title. Exit the Dutch f...

I was born in the hinterlands. If you don't know about the hinterlands, it is just on the other side of the boondocks. That in turn is just past the riverbank settlement which is somewhere over the river [not the rainbow] in the brush country of Live Oak County Texas. And none of the above are racia...

When thinking about Scotland, I frequently think of a man I much admire, Samuel Johnson. He was constantly deprecating all things Sottish to his friend Boswell who was a native of Scotland. All of this was in a jocular vein. If you haven't read Boswell's "Johnson," I urge you to start immediately. I...

In the Bible, Nazareites were people who, among other aspects of restraint, did not imbibe strong drink. I have and have had close family members who drink to excess. I have never imbibed any alcohol except for that in the communion cup when I visit a church that serves it. My church uses grape juice.

The comments so far are sometimes humorous but also touching and somewhat sad. The USA is badly divided now. I pray for better days. You who know me know I do not engage in political discussions in this venue. Nonetheless, I do have strongly hold to a specific political position. As a devout Christi...

Transilient thinking sounds good Good Doctor.

Slava: Way to go!

Some people want to rewrite history. In some measure, each generation rewrites history. I think it should be kept to a minimum. Condoleezza Rice, a person I much admire, spoke out against destroying statues willy-nilly in an attempt to be politically correct.

Slava, I didn't know about Bolitho. Thanks for the information. I notice that Douglas Reeman, the author, wrote a total of 68 novels, selling 34 million copies in twenty languages. It seems he was Pro England when writing about the American Colonial Revolution. I can handle that since I am against a...

As Christianity spread the church "baptized" many pagan events and used them to its advantage. Being the iconoclast that I am, it does not have much personal, spiritual significance to me, but I usually try to keep a low profile about it.