TIDBITS 03/20/05

If any of you want Tidbits emailed directly, let me know and
I'll take care of it. Tidbits may be reprinted without charge --
with attribution. Additionally, if you know of anyone who you think
would enjoy Tidbits, please make them aware of us. URL
(http://www.tyler-adam.com). We encourage you to forward
this email to friends and colleagues.
======================================

Raindrops on a Cloud.

I have a rather eclectic little library ... but of all the books there
the one I most like over all the others is entitled: The American
Thesaurus of Slang. This little baby was first copyrighted in 1942
and published by Thomas Y. Crowell Company. It's out of print and
I tend to doubt that there's anything around comparable to it today.
I will now give you some synonyms which I gleaned from this little
tome:

Blah, icky, pretty as mud, homely enough to fade a carpet, meeya,
pewy, pretty as last year's corpse, picklepussed, and so forth. All
this, of course, is another way to say: Ugly.

I wrote an article some time back that had to do with what I thought
was the ugliest piece of jewelry I had ever seen. And that piece still
stands as the number one leader of the pack. However ladies and
gennulmen ... we have a runner-up ... yes indeedy. We have the second
ugliest piece of jewelry I have ever seen. Sapphire raindrops dripping
on a golden blob of a cloud. A meaningless vagary of creation.

The value of this doo-dad is 6,000. Don't know if it's in French
Francs, or US Dollars, or Swiss Francs ... or what. The blurb on this
thing is written in French. The publication is from Monte-Carlo. The
organization that produces the pages have offices in Paris, New York,
Monaco, and Lausanne. More vagary.

I try to spice up this Tidbits article about this piece of jewelry. I
can not. I search for some mythological connection. Zero. A
superstition perhaps. Zippo. An isolated legend ... anything. Nada.
Rien. Nothing. Nichts. Ahh ... but I have an ace-in-the-hole. I have
my trusty American Thesaurus of Slang. I shall entertain you with some
ancient out-of-print synonyms gleaned from a time long past. And then
I will show you the cloud. Ready?

Cocktail, coal sacks, devil's tablecloth, God's sheep, kittens, goat's
hair, sea grass, ox-bends, rain seeds, mare's-tail, and so forth. All
these--of course--are synonyms for clouds. Not much about jewelry
perhaps ... except for the item you are all about to see. But
hopefully a cute little peek into the past ... and into what I once
read was the richest language in the world ... having more words to
describe a single item than any other language ... mainly ... English.

And to stay within the Tidbits theme ... I offer you these.

Gold: Red, ridge, sunshine, African dust, and insect powder.

Jewelry: Glitters, hardware, junk, shim, and slum.

Diamonds: Glitter, shiner, spark, bum rock (?), blazer, dazzler,
headlight, and rock candy.

Watch: Block, canister, tin skillet, turnip, indicator, and thimble.

Pearls: Oyster fruit, poils, and tears.

Ah ... them old timers sure did know how to speak.

For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits...may I
direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com where
you will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that
says Tidbits Graphics ... and then click on the link that says: Cloud
.... in order to view the number two runner-up in the ugly jewelry
contest ... run and judged by one guy named Benjamin.

And there ya have it.
That's it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark

All issues of Tidbits are copyrighted and available from our
home page. All rights reserved.