Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 3, 2010)

For Those Who Already Know

Having a baby is like trying to push a grand piano through a transom.
…Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Daffy-nition

Blunt person: One who says what he thinks without thinking.

From the Word Lab

In Armenian ham is taste and pouyr is fragrance. Put them together and hampouyr is kiss. (A tip of the hat to Lucine.)

A Memory

When I was as high as that
I saw a poet in his hat.
I think the poet must have smiled
At such a solemn gazing child.
Now wasn’t it a funny thing
To get a sight of J.M. Synge,
And notice nothing but his hat?
Yet life is often queer like that.
…L.A.G. Strong

From the Trivia File

22 cigarettes are smoked in the movie Casablanca.

From My Persian Dictionary

Karafs: celery.
Bakkál: chandler, grocer.
Arzán: cheap.
Panír: cheese.

What’s in a Name?

Kirjilian: Turkish in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, kirjil, a variant of kurchul, is defined as sprinkled with gray.

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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