Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (August 29, 2009)

From the Trivia File
The finger on which the wedding ring is to be worn is the fourth finger of the left hand, next unto the little finger; because of the received opinion of the learned…in ripping up and anatomising men’s bodies, there is a vein of blood, called vena amoris, which passeth from that finger to the heart.
—Henry Swinburne: Treaties of Spousals (1680)
 
The Viper and the Leech
 “A strangely inconsistent crew!”
Said the Viper to the simple Leech,
“Men fly from me and seek for you;
Although they get a bite from each.”
 
“All very true,”— the Leech replied,
“But the two things are different quite.
I bite the sick, to give them aid;
To kill the sound and well, you bite.”
 
Now, gentle reader, with you take
This counsel as we part:
And always due distinction make,
If from the lash you smart.
Great is the difference between
Correction kind and malice keen.
 —Yriarte’s Fables
 
Right Off the Schedule
Edo and Bedo were trying to board a train from Moscow to Yerevan when Edo and the conductor of the train got into a terrific argument. “What’s the fuss all about?” asked Bedo. Said Edo: “He says that this is yesterday’s train. Our tickets are for today’s train, which isn’t due until tomorrow.”
 
What’s in a Name?
Hazarvartian: Armenian in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, hazarvart is defined as one thousand roses.

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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
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