Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Oct. 24, 2015)

From Greek Mythology

Talos was a man of brass made by Hephaistos (Vulcan). This wonderful automaton was given to Minos to patrol the island of Crete. It traversed the island thrice every day, and if a stranger came near, made itself red hot, and squeezed him to death.

Daffy-nition

College: A fountain of knowledge where all go to drink.

Pitt and the Volunteers

The following anecdote is recorded in Lord Stanhope’s Life of Pitt: A pleasantry of Pitt has been preserved by tradition. It seems that one battalion of volunteers that he was forming, or in the formation of which he was consulted, did not show the same readiness as distinguished the rest. Their draft rules, which they sent to Pitt, were full of cautions and reserves. The words “except in the case of actual invasion” were constantly occurring. At length came a clause that at no time, and on no account whatever, were they to be sent out of the country. Pitt here lost patience, and, taking up his pen, he wrote opposite to that clause in the draft the same words as he had read in the preceding, “except in the case of actual invasion.”

Acute Observation

Everybody praises the Golden Mean, except when it comes to school grades.

From the Word Lab

Emir or ameer was a title given to lieutenants of provinces and other officers of the sultan, and occasionally assumed by the sultan himself. The sultan was not infrequently called “the Great Ameer,” and the Ottoman Empire was sometimes spoken of as “the country of the Great Ameer.” The difference between shariff and ameer is this: the former was given to the blood successors of Muhammed, and the latter to those who maintained his religious faith.

Armenian Tongue-twister

Verzhinin verchin vrtsinuh (Virginia’s last brush)

What’s in a Name?

Dostoumian: Persian in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, dosti is defined as friend, lover. It can also be found in Turkish as dostu.

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CK Garabed

Weekly Columnist

C.K. Garabed (a.k.a. Charles Kasbarian) has been active in the Armenian Church and Armenian community organizations all his life. As a writer and editor, he has been a keen observer of, and outspoken commentator on, political and social matters affecting Armenian Americans. He has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Reporter and the AGBU Literary Quarterly, “ARARAT.” For the last 30 years, Garabed has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Weekly. He produces a weekly column called “Uncle Garabed's Notebook,” in which he presents an assortment of tales, anecdotes, poems, riddles, and trivia; for the past 10 years, each column has contained a deconstruction of an Armenian surname. He believes his greatest accomplishment in life, and his contribution to the Armenian nation, has been the espousing of Aghavni, and the begetting of Antranig and Lucine.

Latest posts by CK Garabed (see all)

• A Reminiscence: John Najarian - February 19, 2020
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Aug. 5, 2017) - August 7, 2017
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 22, 2017) - July 22, 2017