Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (June 10, 2017)

Armenian Proverb

The friend who doesn’t regularly come and go becomes a stranger; the stranger who regularly comes and goes becomes a friend.

On Deviation from Orthodoxy

Leave no turn unstoned.

Daffy-nition

Breeding: the quality that enables a person to wait in well-mannered silence while the loudmouth gets the service.

A Crack at the Liberty Bell

America: the only nation in history that has gone from barbarism to decadence without passing through the intervening stage of civilization.
…George Clemenceau

From the Word Lab

The word “curfew” comes from the French couvre feu, or “cover the fire.” A curfew was originally the time when you had to extinguish fires, candles and lamps.

Taken at His Word

Edo: The college I went to turned out some great men.
When did you graduate?
Bedo: I didn’t exactly graduate. I was turned out.

What’s in a Name?

Tepikian: Diminutive of Stepan, derived from Greek Stephanos, identified as a descriptive term, and defined as crown.

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.