Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Sept. 10, 2011)

If You’re Inclined to Be Pretentious

You can pretend to be serious; you can’t pretend to be witty.

…Sacha Guitry

A Riddle from Saudi Arabia

It is a noun of six letters. If you eat all of it, you live. If you eat half of it, you die.

Nomenclature

To call a man a poet, and nothing more, is to make of him a non-poet, as a true poet is more than a mere poet.

Specialty Expressions

Pasha: There are three grades of pashas distinguished by the number of horse-tails on their standard. In war, the horse-tail standard is carried before the pasha, and planted in front of his tent. The highest rank of pashas are those of three tails; the grand vizier is always ex officio such a pasha. Pashas of two tails are governors of provinces; it is one of these officers that we mean when we speak of a pasha in a general way. A pasha of one tail is a sanjak or lowest of provincial governors. (The word pasha is the Persian pa, support of Shah, the ruler.).

How Dare You?

If the Good Lord created the heavens and the earth, the least he could have done was to have the earth revolve around the sun in exactly 365 days instead of an additional fraction, which requires his creature, man, to devise a leap year by way of compensation. Heaven forbid we should question the almighty, but it does seem to smack of sloppy work.

Answer to Riddle: simsim (sesame); sim (poison).

What’s in a Name?

Arousiagian: Armenian in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, Arousiag is defined as Venus.

Arousian: Armenian or Arabic in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, defined in Armenian as the diminutive of Arousiag; in Arabic as bride.

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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