Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Feb. 5, 2011)

Yes and No
Only one man ever understood me, and he didn’t understand me.
… G.W.F. Hegel

From the Word Lab
Eureka! Or rather Heureka! (“I have discovered it!”). The exclamation of Archimedes, the Syracusian philosopher, when he found out how to test the purity of Hiero’s crown.
The tale is that Hiero suspected that the craftsman to whom he had given a certain weight of gold to make into a crown had alloyed the metal, and he asked Archimedes to ascertain if his suspicion was well founded. The philosopher, getting into his bath, observed that the water ran over, and it flashed into his mind that his body displaced its own bulk of water. Now, suppose Hiero gave the goldsmith 1 lb. of gold, and the crown weighed 1 lb., it is manifest that if the crown was pure gold, both ought to displace the same quantity of water; but they did not do so, and therefore the gold had been tampered with. Archimedes next immersed in water 1 lb. of silver, and the difference of water displaced soon gave the clue to the amount of alloy introduced by the artificer.
Vitruvius says, “When the idea occurred to the philosopher, he jumped out of his bath, and without waiting to put on his clothes, he ran home, exclaiming, ‘Heureka! Heureka!’”

A Hot Tip
Headline of an ad in a New York bus: “For a successful affair, it’s the Empire Hotel.”

A Patriotic Toast
Here’s to the memory
Of the
man
Who raised the
corn
That fed the
goose
That bore the
quill
That made the
pen
That wrote the Declaration
of Independence.

What’s in a Name?
Karmirshalyan: Armenian and Turkish in derivation, identified as either a descriptive term or a trade, karmir or garmir is defined as red, and shal is defined as a shawl. Therefore, one who wears or makes and sells red shawls.

• Bio
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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