SLoW nIGht? Dumb Questions?

[BabyFidgette]

Originally Posted by RingoStarr

Why do we park on a Driveway and drive on a Parkway?

Well in New Jersey, the Parkway really is a "park" way during rush hour...and if we drove on the driveway, we'd probably go through our house!

PS. Your furbaby is very cute!

[AmandaG]

Originally Posted by Sherry Lynn

Now there's a challenge!

I know its probably a little late for a question, but with all the garbage lid talk...

Anybody ever try to throw away a garbage can??

We tried to for months, and finally ended up taking it to a dumpster!!

LOL!!!! This cracks me up!

[alaskayorkie]

Why is Chicago called the Windy City?

[fasteddie]

Only since it's been 21 hours without an answer...
---
[Q] From John Branch: “I’ve heard three explanations for the term Windy City as an epithet for Chicago, Illinois: the common assumption that it refers to the winds gusting through the city (understandable to anyone who’s been there); the boasting of Chicagoans to the rest of America about the glories of their rebuilt city after the Great Fire; and the blustering of Chicago politicians to the city’s inhabitants. My guess is that the first could easily be invention after the fact, while the last is too local to account for the term’s familiarity elsewhere. What do your sources tell you?”

[A] It is indeed often said that the word windy in the name refers to the long-winded and boastful speech of Chicago politicians.

The story you will commonly find is that it dates to shortly before the great World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893. Chicago was putting forward its claim with great verve and bombast. This really got up the nose of people in New York, which was competing with Chicago to host the exhibition. Animosity became so bad that Charles A Dana, editor of the New York Sun, wrote an editorial telling New Yorkers to pay no attention to the “nonsensical claims of that windy city. Its people could not hold a world’s fair even if they won it”. The history books tell us that Chicago did win it and did hold it (and even made a profit from it). Books also tell us that the nickname of Windy City dates from that editorial.

This story is wrong. There are several recorded instances of Chicago being called the Windy City before Mr Dana put his pen to paper. That we now have what looks like the real story is owed, as so often with American expressions, to Barry Popik, part-time parking judge and expert amateur word sleuth.

For example, he found this in the Chicago Tribune for 11 September 1886: “The name of ‘Windy City,’ which is sometimes used by village papers in New York and Michigan to designate Chicago, is intended as a tribute to the refreshing lake breezes of the great summer resort of the West, but is an awkward and rather ill-chosen expression and is doubtless misunderstood”.

It has only recently been discovered that the term appears even earlier, in a headline on the front page of the Cleveland Gazette for 19 September 1885, reporting several items of news from Chicago, particularly a judicial decision: “From the Windy City: Judge Foote’s Civil Right decision”. For the nickname to be well enough known in Cleveland that it appeared in a headline without explanation indicates that it was by 1885 getting to be an established term.

Mr Popik has suggested that the name actually originated in a scheme by the Chicago Tribune about that date to promote the city as a summer resort, using the cool breeze off the lake as the basis of its attraction. Before then, Chicago was usually nicknamed Garden City (its Latin motto was and is Urbs in Horto, “city in a garden”). There seems to have been a shift from the old name to the new in the middle 1880s.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-win1.htm

[alaskayorkie]

Originally Posted by fasteddie

Only since it's been 21 hours without an answer...
---
[Q] From John Branch: “I’ve heard three explanations for the term Windy City as an epithet for Chicago, Illinois: the common assumption that it refers to the winds gusting through the city (understandable to anyone who’s been there); the boasting of Chicagoans to the rest of America about the glories of their rebuilt city after the Great Fire; and the blustering of Chicago politicians to the city’s inhabitants. My guess is that the first could easily be invention after the fact, while the last is too local to account for the term’s familiarity elsewhere. What do your sources tell you?”

[A] It is indeed often said that the word windy in the name refers to the long-winded and boastful speech of Chicago politicians.

The story you will commonly find is that it dates to shortly before the great World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893. Chicago was putting forward its claim with great verve and bombast. This really got up the nose of people in New York, which was competing with Chicago to host the exhibition. Animosity became so bad that Charles A Dana, editor of the New York Sun, wrote an editorial telling New Yorkers to pay no attention to the “nonsensical claims of that windy city. Its people could not hold a world’s fair even if they won it”. The history books tell us that Chicago did win it and did hold it (and even made a profit from it). Books also tell us that the nickname of Windy City dates from that editorial.

This story is wrong. There are several recorded instances of Chicago being called the Windy City before Mr Dana put his pen to paper. That we now have what looks like the real story is owed, as so often with American expressions, to Barry Popik, part-time parking judge and expert amateur word sleuth.

For example, he found this in the Chicago Tribune for 11 September 1886: “The name of ‘Windy City,’ which is sometimes used by village papers in New York and Michigan to designate Chicago, is intended as a tribute to the refreshing lake breezes of the great summer resort of the West, but is an awkward and rather ill-chosen expression and is doubtless misunderstood”.

It has only recently been discovered that the term appears even earlier, in a headline on the front page of the Cleveland Gazette for 19 September 1885, reporting several items of news from Chicago, particularly a judicial decision: “From the Windy City: Judge Foote’s Civil Right decision”. For the nickname to be well enough known in Cleveland that it appeared in a headline without explanation indicates that it was by 1885 getting to be an established term.

Mr Popik has suggested that the name actually originated in a scheme by the Chicago Tribune about that date to promote the city as a summer resort, using the cool breeze off the lake as the basis of its attraction. Before then, Chicago was usually nicknamed Garden City (its Latin motto was and is Urbs in Horto, “city in a garden”). There seems to have been a shift from the old name to the new in the middle 1880s.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-win1.htm

Wow! I know a Chicagoan who will take exception to that! She told me it was most definitely the first definition.

FE, I'm changing your name to FM, Fact Man.

[fasteddie]

Yeah, yeah, if people keep asking, I'm never gonna get any work done!

[BabyFidgette]

Okay FastEddie. Got some funny ones for you. Found these off http://www.jokes2go.com/lists/list139.html

Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio?

Why is it considered necessary to nail down the lid of a coffin?

Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?

[Dan & Corinne]

It's ALIVE! I used a machine and put some letters together and built a thing called a "Thread" (FastEddie - How do you build a thread with letters?)

Now this "Thread" is alive and making more letters on it's own. It also appears to have posessed some of our friends turning them into Joker, Fact Man, Wasteland, Sassy Gal and more!

With all the trash can talk I'm expecting Oscar the Grouch to show up soon!

[BabyFidgette]

Ooh, I like this one!!!!

If you mated a Bulldog with a s**tsu would you get a Bullsh**?



This one too!!
If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

[BabyFidgette]

If a man is walking in a forest and no woman is there to hear him is he still wrong?

Okay, I'm gonna answer this one myself...

YES!!

[BabyFidgette]

And we've all probably heard this one:

Did you ever notice that if you blow in a dog's face it goes mad,
yet when you take him on a car ride he sticks his head straight out the window?

[Dan & Corinne]

Originally Posted by BabyFidgette

Ooh, I like this one!!!!

If you mated a Bulldog with a s**tsu would you get a Bullsh**?



This one too!!
If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

Good one! What about a s**tsu and a Poodle? You get a Sh**Poo!

[BabyFidgette]

Originally Posted by Dan & Corinne

Good one! What about a s**tsu and a Poodle? You get a Sh**Poo!

That's too much poop for me!! I have enough with Baby!! I picked up poop 6 times today!

[Dan & Corinne]

Originally Posted by BabyFidgette

If a man is walking in a forest and no woman is there to hear him is he still wrong?

Okay, I'm gonna answer this one myself...

YES!!

Your answer is CORRECT!
You win a NEW CAR!!!!

[BabyFidgette]

Originally Posted by Dan & Corinne

Your answer is CORRECT!
You win a NEW CAR!!!!

Yeah!!! I'd like the Cadillac Escalade in Pearl White please with leather seats and all the amenities!!!