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WORDS & MORE WORDS
by Kathy Wolfe It’s time to sharpen up your word skills as Tidbits imparts some unusual facts about some unusual words! • You might expect a dentiloquist to be an employee of your local dentist, but the term actually refers to someone who speaks through clenched teeth. • Presidents have been vetoing legislation passed by Congress since George Washington, who issued the first veto in April of 1792. Article 1, section 7 of the U.S. Constitution provides for the President’s authority to use a veto to prevent the passage of legislation. The word “veto” has its origins in the Latin language, translating “I forbid.” By the end of 2018, vetoes had been used 2,574 times, with 111 of them overridden. • Most of us know that a clairvoyant seems to have psychic or telepathic abilities, but what about a clairvoyee? This unusual word refers to a window-like hole cut in a hedge. And speaking of psychics, there’s a fancy name for a palm reader … it’s chiromancer! • How about a few unusual phobias? Those with a fear of trains suffer from siderodromophobia, while those with stenophobia are afraid of narrow places. There are those who fear men wearing beards … they are called pogonophobics. (turn the page for more!)
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Vol 2 Issue 10
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Tidbits of The Pass Area
Vol. 2 Issue 10
WORDS & MORE WORDS (continued) • Circus lovers might refer to that person who walks along a thin wire high above the crowd as a tightrope walker. The official name of this performer is funambulist. The most famous funambulist was Charles Blondin, a French acrobat who crossed Niagara Falls on a rope for the first time on June 30, 1859. A rope less than an inch thick was attached to an oak tree on the American side of the falls and to a rock on the Canadian side. His walk from bank to bank took 23 minutes. Four days later, Blondin repeated the feat, with another one on July 15, during which he walked backwards to Canada and forward to the U.S. while pushing a wheelbarrow. His next achievement was to somersault and backflip the distance, followed by a trip carrying his manager on his back. The daredevil even carried a stove on one trip, started a fire, and cooked an omelet on the rope. His final Niagara Falls crossing took place in 1896 at age 62. By then, he had made the crossing 300 times. During his career, he logged more than 10,000 miles on his tightrope. His death in 1897 came not from a fall, as had been expected for decades, but from complications of diabetes. • Did you know that there’s a special word for that cloudlike streak left behind by jets? It’s known as a contrail, and it comes from the combination of two words – condensation and trail. And speaking of airplanes, you may not know that empennage refers to the craft’s entire tail assembly. It comes from a French word meaning “the feathers at the end of an arrow.” • You might call this person a shopaholic, but the official term for a person with an uncontrollable urge to buy things is oniomaniac. Some specialists call it Compulsive Buying Disorder, or CBD. (continued next page)
Healthy Fried Chicken
The crunchy coating is what seals in the juices, giving this Southern standard its finger-licking flavor. Too bad it also absorbs so much fat. By stripping the bird of its skin, baking instead of frying, and ditching the batter for panko crumbs, our crispy cheat carves off 240 calories and 22 grams of fat per serving. 1 1/2 cup buttermilk 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne) 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 cut-up chicken 1 1/2 up panko (Japanese-style) breadcrumbs 1 teaspoon grated fresh lemon peel 1. In large self-sealing plastic bag, place buttermilk, ground red pepper and 3/4 teaspoon salt; add chicken pieces, turning to coat. Seal bag, pressing out excess air. Refrigerate chicken at least 1 hour or preferably overnight, turning bag over once. 2. Heat oven to 425 F. Spray 15 1/2-by-10 1/2-inch jelly-roll pan with nonstick spray. In large bowl, combine panko and lemon peel. 3. Remove chicken from marinade, shaking off excess. Discard marinade. Add chicken pieces, a few at a time, to panko mixture, turning to coat. Place chicken in prepared pan. 4. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until coating is crisp and juices run clear when thickest part of chicken is pierced with tip of knife. TIP: For browner coating, after chicken is cooked, turn oven to broil. Broil chicken 5 to 6 inches from source of heat 1 to 2 minutes or until golden. For thousands of triple-tested recipes, visit our Web site at www. goodhousekeeping.com/recipes/. (c) 2019 Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Tidbits of The Pass Area
Week of March 31, 2019
WORDS & MORE WORDS (continued) • Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz suffered from nostomania, a fancy word for overwhelming homesickness. After all, “there’s no place like home!” • If the mythical unicorn has one large pointed horn projecting from its forehead, what kind of creature is a bicorn? It’s not a creature at all, but rather a two-cornered hat that became popular in the late 1700s as the headgear of military officers. You’ll recognize a bicorn in portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte. • Many of us are changing out our regular light bulbs for LED bulbs since they are energy efficient, produce a brighter light, and have a long lifespan, sometimes more than 100,000 hours. In case you’re interested, LED stands for “Light-Emitting Diode.” • There’s a difference between a bibliophile and a bibliopole. The –phile is a collector of rare books, but the –pole is a seller of rare books. • The words bovine, lupine, ovine, and porcine are all animal terms. Bovine refers to something that resembles a cow or an ox, while lupine indicates being wolf-like. Ovine represents sheep-like characteristics, and porcine refers to a pig or swine. • How about these strange words for those who are dimwits? Dizzard, gomeril, gudgeon, gump, and sumph are all relatively unknown terms for numbskulls and ninnies. • A horse’s height is measured in “hands,” but just how much is a “hand”? One hand is equal to four inches (101.6 mm). It’s sometimes called a “handsbreadth,” and was originally based on the breadth or span of the average man’s hand. A horse is considered a “pony” if it’s 14.2 hands or less. The animal is measured from ground up to the top of its withers, that ridge between its shoulder blades. (continued next column)
• And speaking of “breadths,” if something is “just a hairbreadth away,” how far away is it? That would be 1/48th of an inch. • Criminals hauled into the police station have their mug shot taken, then their dactylograms are processed. These are the impressions left by the friction ridges of a human appendage. In other words, fingerprints! • The ZIP Code system was introduced in 1963 to speed up mail delivery. The first digit in the five-digit code represents one of the ten large geographic areas in the U.S. The second and third indicate metropolitan areas and sectional centers, while the fourth and fifth digits are local post offices. To the Post Office, ZIP means Zone Improvement Plan, but to a psychologist, those letters stand for Zero Intelligence Potential, and to a banker, it means Zero Interest Payment. • Australian Aborigines named the koala bear as such from their word meaning “no drink.” That’s because this pouched marsupial (which isn’t a bear at all) gets all of liquid intake from eating eucalyptus leaves. • You might not be familiar with the word trinitrotoluene, but surely you’ve heard its abbreviation, TNT. A German chemist first recognized the chemical compound’s explosive properties in 1891, and by 1902, the German military was using TNT as a filling for artillery shells. TNT is yellow in color and the skin of munition workers who handled it during World War I turned bright yellow, earning them the nickname “canaries.” In order for TNT to explode, it must be triggered from an explosive booster, unlike the much more volatile nitroglycerine, which can explode from mere physical shock, making it quite difficult to transport
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Purple Heart Vets Will Get New Benefits Purple Heart recipients will start receiving one additional benefit in April -- priority processing for initial disability claims. Department of Veteran Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie announced at a Senate subcommittee meeting that beginning next month, Purple Heart recipients will get priority processing when it comes to getting their disability benefits on claims received on or after April 1.
This is in addition to existing medical benefits: No co-pays for medical care and priority treatment at VA hospitals, meaning that the veteran will go into at least Group 3 when it comes to medical care.
Outside the medical arena, Purple Heart recipients don't need to serve a certain length of time to get full education benefits. They'll be able to shop on base and use the recreation areas starting next year. In some states, their children will be eligible for free tuition at in-state colleges. When it comes to work, Purple Heart recipients are given a 10-point preference in hiring for government jobs. Under certain circumstances a Purple Heart veteran can receive extra money (over the standard disability benefits). Call to inquire at 1-800-321-1080. These benefits have been earned, and there's no big dispute about that. If you're wounded in combat, you get a medal. But when it comes to going to the head of the line for initial claims ... that's where opinions are running hot. It's possible to get a Purple Heart medal for a relatively minor combat wound that healed long ago, while some with much more serious non-combat injuries are still awaiting claims.
Some things to think about: If a serious injury happens in a non-combat area, does it deserve a Purple Heart? If a combat injury happens but it's mild enough that the service member can be patched up and go back into combat, does it deserve a Purple Heart?
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To Your Good Health By Keith Roach, M.D.
Persistent Cough Can be Tricky to Treat DEAR DR. ROACH: I went through many tests for a cough that lasted for 30 years. No treatments worked. The only sign my doctor could find was that my throat had scars from coughing that long. My allergy specialist had tried for years with all kinds of prescriptions, to no avail. I am now living a normal life since a doctor prescribed tramadol (50 mg) twice a day. What a relief. My wife, grown children, friends and clients are happy. -- L.G. ANSWER: I found only a single case report of tramadol being used for chronic cough, and it was effective in that patient. The authors advised further study on its use. Tramadol is a pain medication distantly related to codeine. Its abuse potential is low, but there have been overdoses and deaths due to this drug, so I don't recommend its indiscriminate use. However, I have seen personally and received many letters from people with intractable coughing for years, so much so that I wanted to call attention to this as a possible treatment worth discussing with one's doctor for people with longstanding cough that has resisted diagnosis or treatment. I previously mentioned taking gabapentin for laryngeal neuropathy, a condition that is often unrecognized and that may present with a prolonged cough. I received many letters telling me it was effective. Tramadol at the low dose (for an adult) you mention usually is safe.
Tidbits of The Pass Area
Vol. 2 Issue 10
DEAR DR. ROACH: I have a very dear relative who had radiation seed therapy for prostate cancer in 2003 after a biopsy revealed a Gleason score of 7 (3/4). Afterward, his PSA was only 0.1 to 0.3 the first three years, and it rose only .3 more each year until 2015, when it was 2.7 recently. He is 83. He has been told he must have hormone treatment: shots, pills or both, by his VA provider, who is not a urologist and who says he should see one. He has no symptoms, he says, and he leads a very active lifestyle, with daily walking of 3 miles or more, bowling twice a week and extensive gardening and yard work. Could the rising PSA be due to normal exercise activity, including production from surviving prostate cells? -- R.A. ANSWER: Rising PSA after cancer treatment typically is due to cancer returning, not an increase in normal prostate. However, that does not mean that your friend "must" have treatment. Goals for cancer treatment in an 83-year-old man may be very different from those of a 20-year-old man. In his case, since it took about 10 years to increase by 10 times, it may be a very long time before the probable cancer would be large enough to bother him, and it requires skill and experience to determine whether treatment, which can make quality of life worse, is worthwhile. Many urologists would recommend deferring treatment until and unless he develops symptoms. I certainly would recommend that he go to see a urologist as his VA provider has recommended. He may be able to learn whether it really is the cancer returning and discuss his options. Shots and pills are options, but so is keeping a careful eye on it and not rushing to treat.Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu. Dr. Roach regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but will incorporate them in the column whenever possible. Readers may email questions to ToYourGoodHealth@med.cornell.edu. (c) 2019 North America Synd., Inc. All Rights Reserved
Filing Your Taxes on a Cellphone
A recent newspaper story told of two senior women who were coaxed into an experiment e-filing their taxes on their cellphone and tablet. E-filing apparently is becoming more and more popular, as 126 million people e-filed for the past tax year, and 85 million of those received faster direct deposit refunds because of it. Would I do this, e-file on a handheld electronic device? No, I would not. In all honesty, I did e-file once years ago, sending my information directly to the Internal Revenue Service with the push of a computer keyboard button. It was the only time in all these years that something went wrong, and the IRS didn't receive all the
numbers. Some months later I received mail from them saying I owed additional taxes. Once I ran the numbers again and called them on the phone, it was clear that one entry never made it across the wires. After I sent the paper version of the tax return, all was well, but it caused grief and took time to sort out. Now I only send paper versions done on a computer where I'm more certain of the security software, hardwired to the wall. The specific reasons I won't use a handheld electronic device to file my taxes are these: 1) Handheld devices usually don't have adequate security software installed on them, and if installed, it's not familiar to the user. 2) If the device is hooked up via a home WiFi, the router connection might not be encrypted. If you don't know the difference between WEP and WPA/WPA2, ask someone for help with your router to make sure you're not on WEP, which can be cracked by someone walking by outside. We seniors are targets in so many instances already. Beware giving identity thieves another way to access your personal information. (c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.
Week of March 31, 2019
Tidbits of The Pass Area
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1 Who holds the major-league record for most All-Star Games pitched? 1. 2. Name the last player before Jose Altuve and Enrique Hernandez in 2017 to hit three home runs in a postseason game. 3. When was the last time the Tampa Bay Buccaneers reached the NFL playoffs? 4. In 2018, Villanova's men's basketball team set a Final Four record with 18 3-pointers made in a game. Which two teams had held the mark?
5 Florida's Roberto Luongo, in 2019, moved into second place on the career games played list for NHL goaltenders. 5. Who is first on the list, and who is now third? 6 Canada's men's hockey team has won nine Olympic gold medals. How many silver and bronze medals 6. has it captured? 7 When was the last time before 2018 that a team won golf's Ryder Cup by at least seven points? 7.
• On April 13, 1360, a hailstorm kills an estimated 1,000 of King Edward's III's English soldiers in France. The heavy losses were seen as a sign from God, convincing King Edward to negotiate peace with the French.
1. Roger Clemens, with 10 games between 1986 and 2005. 2. San Francisco's Pablo Sandoval, in 2012. 3. It was the 2007 season. 4. UNLV (1987) and Duke (2010), with 13 each. 5. Martin Brodeur (1,266) and Patrick Roy (1,029 games). 6. Four silver and three bronze medals. 7. It was 2006, when Europe won 18 1/2 to 9 1/2.
• On April 10, 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York by philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh after he witnessed and later wrote about work horses beaten by their peasant drivers in Russia.
by Jo Ann Derson
• On April 12, 1914, the Mark Strand Theatre opens to the public in New York City, the first of the "dream palaces," known for their impressive size and luxuriously appointed interiors. The Strand seated some 3,000 people. • On April 11, 1945, the American Third Army liberates the Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany. Among those saved by the Americans was Elie Wiesel, who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. • On April 9, 1962, President John F. Kennedy throws out the ceremonial first pitch in Washington D.C.'s new stadium, called simply "D.C. Stadium." He continued a tradition that began in 1910 when President William Taft threw out Major League Baseball's first opening-day pitch in old Griffith Stadium. • On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hits his 715th career home run, breaking Babe Ruth's legendary record of 714 homers. Aaron would hit 40 more home runs for a career total of 755. • On April 14, 1986, the U.S. launches airstrikes against Libya in retaliation for its sponsorship of terrorism against American troops and citizens. The attacks were mounted by Navy attack jets in the Mediterranean and Air Force bombers from bases in England. France refused to allow the bombers to fly over its territory, forcing them to make a 3,000-mile detour. (c) 2019 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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• "I like to make cubed potatoes for breakfast. To keep it simple to cook in the morning, I boil a big batch on Sunday to use throughout the week. I keep them nice and white by adding a quarter cup of vinegar to the cooking water. You can't taste it at all, and there's no browning, even by Friday." -- J.D. in Florida • "Keep a small package of wet wipes in your car so that you can wipe off your hands after you pump gas. I feel like there's always some residue, and the wipes are convenient for other things, too." -- T.A. in Nevada • When painting, use a wet travel-size bar of soap to coat the windows (glass only), smearing the soapy residue all over the glass. Let it dry. When you paint, any splatters will land on the soap, which can be easily wiped away when the paint is dry. • "If you get a new contact via your cellphone, make sure you write it down in a good oldfashioned paper address book. These days, we never dial someone, so we never learn their phone number. If something happened to your phone, you might lose the telephone numbers of people you want to stay in touch with, especially non-digitally inclined friends and relatives who might be older." -- E.U. in Indiana • Sink odor can be real problem, especially if you use a strainer in your sink. Sometimes, we forget to remove it and clean the drain underneath. Make it a point to clean and freshen your kitchen drains weekly by using this quick tip: Microwave several cups of water to boiling. Pour half down your drain, then dump in about 1/2 cup of baking soda. Follow up with a cup of full-strength vinegar (it should bubble and sputter). Wait three minutes, and then add the rest of the hot water. All clean! Send your tips to Now Here's a Tip, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803 (c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.
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Tidbits of The Pass Area
Vol. 2 Issue 10
1. Is the book of 1 Timothy in the Old or New Testament or neither? 2. What did the Lord cast down among the Israelites who complained about their wilderness misfortunes? Fire, Hail, Stones, Winds 3. From Romans 3, who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? Jews, Gentiles, Heathens, All 4. What idol fell and broke after the Ark of the Covenant was placed nearby? Edrei, Dagon, Molech, Golden calf 5. Who built an altar and called it "Jehovahnissi"? Isaiah, Baal, Moses, Malachi 6. What was the name of John the Baptist's mother? Elisabeth, Miriam, Sarah, Ruth 1) New; 2) Fire; 3) All; 4) Dagon; 5) Moses; 6) Elisabeth Visit Wilson Casey’s Trivia Fan Siteat www.patreon.com/triviaguy. Š 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.
Week of March 31, 2019
Tidbits of The Pass Area
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Feral Cat Colony Getting Out of Hand
DEAR PAW'S CORNER: I was glad to dog-sit for my friend and next-door neighbor wheWe have a number of feral cats living in the wooded area behind our house. I know that these cats normally can't be acclimated to indoor living, but watching their colony expand isn't desirable, either. So I'd like to get them to a vet and have them spayed or neutered, and either rehome them somehow or release them again. Any tips on doing this? -- Sharon in Atlanta DEAR SHARON: The most common and probably most effective way to catch feral cats is to trap them one at a time using a live trap. They are available at hardware and homeimprovement stores, at some pet stores or online. Before starting, find out if there is a feral cat rescue organization in your area. In Atlanta, the nonprofit LifeLine Animal Project may be able to loan you traps, as well as provide sterilization services. Otherwise, contact the veterinarian you plan to work with and make sure he or she is OK with treating, spaying and neutering the cats, and find out the prices in advance. Depending on laws in your area and on who owns the woods behind your property, you may only be able to set the traps on your property. If the feral cats don't visit regularly, you'll first need to lure them using food they're attracted to. When they come around looking for this food, set up the live trap. Trap, neuter and release (TNR) programs typically release the treated cats back into their home territory, as relocation often doesn't work. Expect the cats you trap to continue their lives in the woods -- with the realization that the colony likely won't grow over time. Send your questions or pet care tips to ask@pawscorner.com. (c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.
G O E S LO N G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If an over-the-road truck driver tells you he received a "bear bite," he's taliking about a speeding ticket. Another trucker slang, "bumper Sticker," means there's a tailgater following him too closely.
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Tidbits of The Pass Area
Vol. 2 Issue 10