Amusement: Anecdotes & Pleasantries

A sampling from the hundreds of letters, clippings, articles, and emails sent to us by Almanac readers from all over the United States and Canada during the past year.

 

How to Forecast RAIN with an ONION ... and It Covers the Whole Year!

—courtesy of T.L.B., Dallas, Texas, who credits Tumbleweed Smith in the Midland (Tex.) Reporter-Telegram

 

Butch Sohm, of Hamilton, Texas, uses an onion to prepare a rain forecast for the coming year. Most people in the area agree with him when he says, "It's pretty accurate."

Here's how to do it:

1. On December 31, cut an onion in half about 15 minutes before midnight.
2. Peel off the layers so that you have 12 little onion bowls.
3. Arrange the bowls in two rows of six, with the biggest on the left. The top row represents January through June. The bottom row represents July through December.
4. Carefully remove the fine skin inside each bowl.
5. Put a teaspoon of salt in each bowl and then let the bowls sit for 1 hour.
6. The bowls with water in them will represent rainy months in the coming year; the dry bowls correspond with dry months. If the bowl has just a little water in it, expect just a little rain for that month.

Two more things: You must use a white onion, and the process must take place in an unheated room.

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Still Another Way to HYPNOTIZE A CHICKEN

-courtesy of A. S., Albany, New York

I've read articles in this Almanac about ways to hypnotize a chicken, and they were all methods with which I was unfamiliar. Here's a method I was taught many years ago: Gently restrain the chicken and place it on its back in your lap. Wave the flattened palm of your hand in a gentle circular motion about an inch or two from the chicken's beak. The chicken should go limp somewhere between five and ten circles.

Editor's note: Then what?

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The Best INSULTS of ALL TIME

 

Years ago, insults meant something. Fortunately, they still do.

—courtesy of P. H., Evanston, Illinois

 

"He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends."

—Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist (1854–1900)

 

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."

—Samuel Johnson, British writer (1709–84)

 

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."

—Forrest Tucker, American actor (1919–86)

 

"He has van Gogh's ear for music."

—Billy Wilder, American film director (1906–2002)

 

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."

—John Bright, British politician (1811–89)

 

"He had delusions of adequacy."

—Walter Kerr, American critic and writer (1913–96)

 

"He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

—Winston Churchill, British prime minister (1874–1965)

 

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

—William Faulkner, American writer (1897–1962)

 

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."

—Paul Keating, Australian prime minister (b. 1944)

(continued)

Amusement: FICTION or FACT?

 

Check your knowledge of the origin of these common expressions. Answers follow.

—courtesy of F. P., West Caldwell, New Jersey

 

1. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes, the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Thus: "good night, sleep tight."
2. There was a time in England when the opening of a coffin that had been buried a long time might reveal scratch marks on the inside indicating that the person had been buried alive. Hence, they began tying a string on the wrist of a person about to be buried. The other end of the string would be tied to a bell located above ground. Thus: "saved by the bell."
3. In the old days, people took baths in a tub, with the men using the water first, followed by the women, the children, and, last of all, the baby. By then, of course, the water had become so dirty that you could lose someone in it. Thus: "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater."
4. In some places, English houses had thatched roofs consisting of thick straw piled high with no wood underneath. In cold weather, cats and dogs (as well as other small animals) went up there to get warm. Sometimes, severe rainstorms caused some to slip through the straw and fall into the house. Thus: "It's raining cats and dogs."

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ANSWERS

1. Fiction. The phrase "sleep tight" means to sleep soundly or well.
2. Fiction. It is boxing slang, dating from the second half of the 19th century and describes a pugilist who was spared defeat by the sound marking the end of the round.
3. Fact.
4. Fiction. The phrase alludes to the unsanitary conditions of 17th- and 18th-century England, where dead animal corpses in the filthy streets would be washed away in a heavy rain.

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The CORNIEST JOKES of the Year

Well, these are among the corniest.

—courtesy of R. D., Barrie, Ontario

 

THE CORNIEST DOG JOKE

A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet and says, "My dog's cross-eyed. Is there anything you can do for him?"

"Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him."

So he picks up the dog and examines his eyes, and then checks his teeth.

Finally, he says, "I'm going to have to put him down."

"What?! Because he's cross-eyed?"

"No," says the vet, "because he's really heavy."

THE CORNIEST COW JOKE

Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning."

"I don't believe you," says Dolly.

"It's true," replied Daisy. "No bull!"

***

FINALLY, THE CORNIEST BAR JOKE

A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, "A beer, please, and one for the road."

Remembering FIVE Best-Forgotten SCIENTIFIC STUDIES

Real? Yes. Important? Well, you decide...

—courtesy of B.J.W., Smithtown, New York, who credits Cynthia Fagen in the New York Post

 

Here are the recipients of five of the most memorable so-called Ig Nobel awards of recent times. These awards, administered by the Annals of Improbable Research, a science humor magazine that covers real experiments and studies, are celebrated annually at a ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Winning is considered by some, if not most, of the recipients to be "a dubious distinction."

1. A study describing a method for collecting whale snot by using a remote-control helicopter. (Won by a team of British and Mexican scientists.)
2. The discovery that roller-coaster riding can be a treatment for symptoms of asthma. (Won by two psychologists from the Netherlands.)
3. A study demonstrating that people slip and fall less often on ice when they wear their socks on the outside of their shoes. (Won by three researchers from New Zealand.)
4. A study showing that cows with names give more milk than nameless bovines. (Won by two British researchers.)
5. The invention of a brassiere that in an emergency can be quickly converted into two protective face masks—one for the wearer and one for a bystander. (Won by three American public health scientists, who were also granted a patent for the device.)

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A FINAL THOUGHT

How is it that we put a man on the Moon before we figured out that it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?

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Send your contribution for The 2013 Old Farmer's Almanac by January 27, 2012, to "A & P," The Old Farmer's Almanac, P.O. Box 520, Dublin, NH 03444, or email it to almanac@ypi.com (subject: A & P).

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