Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (June 18, 2016)

Unequal Results

Praise makes good men better, and bad men worse.

… Thomas Fuller

After-Speech Dinners

Joseph H. Choate and Chauncey Depew were invited to a dinner. Mr. Choate was to speak, and it fell to the lot of Mr. Depew to introduce him, which he did thus: “Gentlemen, permit me to introduce Ambassador Choate, America’s most inveterate after-dinner speaker. All you need to do to get a speech out of Mr. Choate is to open his mouth, drop in a dinner, and up comes your speech.” Mr. Choate thanked the Senator for his compliment, and then said: “Mr. Depew says that if you open my mouth and drop in a dinner up will come a speech, but I warn you that if you open your mouths and drop in one of Senator Depew’s speeches up will come your dinners.”

From the Word Lab

Diaspore: Gemstone, only from Anatolia. Zultanite’s mineral name “Diaspore” comes from the Greek word “diaspora” meaning “to scatter,” which is probably based on the tendency of the stone to change color. While Diaspore was first discovered in 1801 in Mramorskoi, Kossoibrod, Ural Mountains, Russia, Zultanite is so rare that it comes from only one source in the world, a remote mountain area in Anatolia, and was named by Murat Akgun in honor of the 36 sultans who ruled the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia in the late 13th century.

Significant Difference

Edig: How come you go steady with Anahid?

Bedigt: She’s different from other girls.

Edig: How so?

Bedig: She’s the only girl who will go out with me.

What’s in a Name?

Urghatbashian: Turkish in derivation, identified as an occupation, urgat is defined as laborer, workman, and urgatbash as foreman, overseer.

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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