Do you think Cecil Adams is a real person?
Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
It really doesn’t matter what I think. Does Cecil Adams think that he is a real person?
I’d love to see someone at an upcoming U.S. government press briefing ask “Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?” With Edward Snowden still being a well-known name in an area of great interest to the U.S. government, it sounds like it could sort of be a plausible question to a spokesperson who doesn’t get the reference.*
- It’s from Catch-22. Yossarian destroyed a briefing by one of the idiot commanders by asking this question, pretty much exactly in the spirit of the OP. Snowden was the name of an aviator whose death haunted Yossarian.
Cogito ergo sum.
Some countries DO have first names.
There’s Michael Jordan… Kathy Ireland… Anatole France… Josey Wales… Jools Holland…
Should countries have surnames?
Absolutely! It may have not been necessary in the days when there were only a handful of countries. Everyone knew that when someone referred to “John”, they meant John the Baptist. There simply was no other John. There was only one John and all the girls knew exactly who that was.
But, as the world grew and there became too many Johns to fit into a single phone book, there were just too many people to refer to every one of them by a single name. There were just too many Johns and the girls would get confused as to which John was which. It became necessary to find a way to distinguish John the wife beater from John the Sadist from John the Masochist and all the other Johns.
There was simply no way every John could be remembered with a single simple name. And then … there became all the variations of John. Such as … John vs. Jack vs James vs. Jimmy vs. Joseph vs. Jackabukka. It became much too much. too confusing.
Then, one day, one of the girls came up with a simple solution. Instead of calling all these Johns by referring to their professions (such like John the Butcher vs. John the Tailor vs. John the Cleaner), she decided to use two names and pass the “family name” down from father to son. It was simple but effective. It wasn’t perfect since many of the Johns had the same profession (such like a “Tailor”). But in most cases, it worked really swell and everyone seemed to like it.
And so, that is what was done. So, now we have a system where the last name is passed along from father to son and people just seem to be very happy with the way it works. We should do the same thing for country names that we did for all the Johns.
All I can say is, “Nicely done, Suzie”! Of course, I am referring to Suzie the Third Avenue Slut who saved all of her Johns’ bacon. She is a real peach and that’s for sure!
Well, that itself is probably an allusion to the epigram “où sont les neiges d’antan?”
Usually used when musing about lost loves of one’s salad years, it’s archaic French for “where are the snows of yesteryear?”
Apologies if you already knew this.
Why can Daffy Duck fly, but Donald Duck can’t?
Yes?
Is patience still a virtue?
How about now?
Now?
It’s been decades since I read Catch-22, but I remember Yossarian asking “Ou sont les neigedens d’antan?”
What’s the speed of dark?
-186,282 miles per second.
Does it bother you that Goofy, a dog, has a pet dog, Pluto?
I just always assumed Goofy was a slave-owner.
That would explain a lot of the Disney relationships.
And Disney World.
What did the Caspian Sea?
How do I mount Kilimanjaro?
Where can I get a saddle for my clothes-horse?
Well on that topic…
Myanmar is the old Burma,the entire world has to call it Myanmar now.
Because they said so.
Did Hungary agree to Hungary when they call themselves Magyar ?
Can’t we call the land Nippon, given we know who is Nippon is and why its wrong to say Japan ?
China is really more Han than Qin, so why do we call it China . Meanwhile the meaning of their own wording is “The Central Peoples Republic”. Can we call it that ?
Do vegans give blow jobs? If so,do they swallow?