Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (April 30, 2016)

Finnish Proverb

The echo knows all languages.

 

Right and Wrong

An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.

… G.K. Chesterton

 

The Path to Q

Theodore Hook, in the supposed character of a Gower Street Undergraduate, says: “One problem was given me to work, which I did in a twinkling. Given CAB to find Q. Answer: Take your CAB through Hammersmith, turn to the left, just before you come to Brentford, and Kew is right before you.”

 

Misnomers

 

Back from his first tour of Europe, a disillusioned college student reports that he couldn’t get hamburgers in Hamburg, English muffins in England, London broil in London, French toast in France, or even eggs Florentine in Florence.

 

Cold Feet

The police officer who headed the night shift in a station house on the outskirts of Paris answered the phone and heard an agitated citizen quiver, “There’s a duel to the death scheduled for 6 a.m. in the Bois tomorrow and it’s up to you police to put a stop to it.” “We know, we know,” the officer assured him. “Your adversary has already called us.”

 

From an Army Manual

Tent pegs, aluminum, 9-inch, NSN 8340-00-2619749, must be painted orange. The bright color provides an easy means of locating the pegs under various light and climatic conditions during field use.

When bright orange pegs are used, they must be driven into the ground completely out of sight.

 

What’s in a Name?

KERBAJIAN: Turkish in derivation, identified as a occupation, kurbajuh is defined as a maker/seller of water skins/bottles.

CK Garabed

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.
CK Garabed

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