Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Dec. 26, 2009)

A Spanish Proverb
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
 
Elegy for a Departed Nobleman

The noble Earl of Sandwich is departed,
His lordship is decidedly deceased.
   No man was better bred—
   (Note Sandwich, ergo bread)—
He’d done his duty at the final feast.
 
His relatives, Count Pumpernickel Sandwich,
Duke Matzoth, and the Earl of Eirish S’Teu,
   Regret it, as is meet—
   (Note Sandwich, ergo meat)—
Adieu, departed nobleman, adieu!
…Carveth Wells
 
Anonymous Examination Question

O CUCKOO! Shall I call thee Bird
Or but a wandering Voice?
State the alternative preferred
With reasons for your choice.
 
From My Persian Dictionary

Khiyal: apparition, conjecture.
Dikranagerdtsi mothers of the genocide survivor generation would often use this word in the phrase “khiyalov mnatsi” when referring to or addressing their tardy children, meaning “I had bad visions or conjectures as to what happened to you.”
 
Wise Guy

Edo: See if you can figure this out. Two men were playing checkers. They played five games and each man won the same number of games.
Bedo: That’s impossible!
Edo: No, it isn’t. They were playing different people.
 
What’s in a name?

Yacoubian: Turkish in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, Yacoub is defined as a Jacobite, a Christian sect in Iraq.

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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