Uncle Garabed's Notebook (Jan. 28, 2012)

Ignorance is Bliss

Love is what happens to men and women who don’t know each other.
… W. Somerset Maugham

Daffy-nition
Ungrateful man: A parson who at least once a week abuses his best benefactor, i.e. the devil.

From the Trivia File
According to Swedish legend, the stork received its name from flying round the cross of the crucified Redeemer, crying Styrka! Styrka! (Strengthen! Strengthen!).
According to Scandinavian tradition, the swallow hovered over the cross of our Lord, crying Svala! Svala! (Console! Console!), whence it was called svalow (the bird of consolation).

A Stand-up Comedian

One day, in a town where he was to lecture, Henry Ward Beecher went into a barber shop to be shaved. The barber, not knowing him, asked whether he was going to hear the Beecher lecture. “I guess so,” was the reply. “Well,” continued the barber, “if you haven’t got a ticket you can’t get one. They’re all sold, and you’ll have to stand.” “That’s just my luck,” said Mr. Beecher. “I always did have to stand when I’ve heard that man talk!”

Italian Proverb
Fear the judge, not the law.

What’s in a Name?
Kavazanjian revisited: Armenian in derivation, identified as a trade, kavazan is defined as staff, and the Turkish suffix ji denotes one who makes or deals in that commodity. However, there is reason to believe that kavazan is a rendering of words borrowed from Persian. Minas Arakelian states that kavazan comes from gavazan, where gav is Persian for cow, and zan, although meaning woman or wife in Persian, when combined with gav as gavzan, means a cow-prod. The other rationale is gav for cow, and ‛asá for rod or staff in Persian, borrowed from Arabic. Together gav ‛asá would translate as cow-rod or cow-staff, again used for prodding cattle.

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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.