July 9, 2009
Are You Older Than Dirt?
1. In the 1940s where were automobile headlight dimmer switches located?
a. On the floor shift knob.
b. On the floor board to the left of the clutch.
c. Next to the horn.
2. The bottle top of a Royal Crown Cola bottle had holes in it. For what was it used?
a. Capture lightning bugs.
b. To sprinkle clothes before ironing.
c. Large salt shaker.
3. Why was having milk delivered a problem in northern winters?
a. Cows got cold and wouldn't produce milk.
b. Ice on highways forced delivery by dog sled..
c. Milkmen left deliveries outside of front doors and milk would freeze expanding and pushing up the cardboard bottle top
4. What was the popular chewing gum named for a game of chance?
a. Blackjack
b. Gin
c. Craps
5. What method did women use to look as if they were wearing stockings when none were available due to rationing during WW II?
a. Suntan
b. Leg painting
c. Wearing slacks
6. What postwar car turned automotive design on its ear when you couldn't tell whether it was coming or going?
a. Studebaker
b. Nash Metro
c. Tucker
7. Which was a popular candy when you were a kid?
a . Strips of dried peanut butter.
b. Chocolate licorice bars.
c. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.
8. How was Butch Wax used?
a. To stiffen a flat-top haircut so it stood up.
b. To make floors shiny and prevent scuffing.
c. On the wheels of roller skates to prevent rust..
9. Before inline skates how did you keep your roller skates attached to your shoes?
a. With clamps tightened by a skate key
b. Woven straps that crossed the foot.
c.. Long pieces of twine.
10. As a kid what was considered the best way to reach a decision?
a. Consider all the facts.
b. Ask Mom.
c. Eeny-meeny-miney-mo.
11. What was the most dreaded disease in the 1940s and 1950s?
a. Smallpox
b. AIDS
c. Polio
12. "I'll be down to get you in a ________, Honey"
a. SUV
b. Taxi
c. Streetcar
13. What was the name of Caroline Kennedy's pony?
a. Old Blue
b. Paint
c. Macaroni
14. What was a Duck-and-Cover Drill?
a. Part of the game of hide and seek.
b. What you did when your Mom called you in to do chores.
c. Hiding under your desk and covering your head with your arms in an A-bomb drill.
15. What was the name of the Indian Princess on the Howdy Doody show?
a. Princess Summerfallwinterspring
b. Princess Sacajawea
c. Princess Moonshadow
16. What did all the really savvy students do when mimeographed tests were handed out in school?
a. Immediately sniffed the purple ink as this was believed to get you high.
b. Made paper airplanes to see who could sail theirs out the window.
c. Wrote another pupil's name on the top to avoid their failure.
17. Why did your Mom shop in stores that gave Green Stamps with purchases?
a. To keep you out of mischief by licking the backs which tasted like bubble gum.
b. They could be put in special books and redeemed for various household items.
c. They were given to the kids to be used as stick-on tattoos.
18. Praise the Lord & pass the _________?
a. Meatballs
b. Dames
c. Ammunition
19. What was the name of the singing group that made the song "Cabdriver" a hit?
a. The Ink Spots
b. The Supremes
c. The Esquires
20. Who left his heart in San Francisco ?
a. Tony Bennett
b. Xavier Cugat
c. George Gershwin
Answers in comments section!
The Man Wall
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* DVD player with 5-CD changer
* iPod docking station
* 2 – Wireless surround sound speakers
* Live 7-foot sports ticker with built-in computer
* 1 year free service for sport’s ticker
* Full-size built-in beer refrigerated beer keg with tap
* 1000 watt microwave oven
* 2 cigar humidors (holds 25 cigars each) complete with gauges
* 32-bottle wine rack
Price:
$14,900 plus shipping
The Man Wall
July 8, 2009
shibboleth
shibboleth\SHIB-uh-lith; -leth\ , noun:
1. A peculiarity of pronunciation, behavior, mode of dress, etc., that distinguishes a particular group of persons.
2. A slogan; a catchword.
3. A common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth.
Origin:
Shibboleth is from Hebrew shibboleth, "stream, flood," from the use of this word in the Bible (Judges 12:4-6) as a test to distinguish Gileadites from Ephraimites, who could not say 'sh' but only 's' as in 'sibboleth'.
I wasn't familiar with this word, but when I read the origin of shibboleth, I immediately thought of something I read in some WWII book or story about how sentries, when wanting to further verify the identity of someone challenged and who knew the password, used American trivia that every US soldier would know but an enemy most likely would not. I also remember reading something very similar in regards to the Pacific theater part of the war and found a source for that at Wiki.
From Wiki:
Shibboleths have been used by different subcultures throughout the world at different times. Regional differences, level of expertise and computer coding techniques are several forms that shibboleths have taken. For example, during the Battle of the Bulge, American soldiers used knowledge of baseball to determine if others were fellow Americans or if they were German infiltrators in American uniform. The Dutch famously used the name of the port town Scheveningen as a shibboleth to tell Germans from the Dutch. Some shibboleths are jokes.
During World War II, some United States soldiers in the Pacific theater used the word "lollapalooza" as a shibboleth to verbally test people who were hiding and unidentified, on the premise that Japanese people often pronounce the letter L as R, and that the word is an American colloquialism that even a foreign person fairly well-versed in American English would probably mispronounce and/or be unfamiliar with. In George Stimpson's A Book about a Thousand Things, the author notes that, in the war, Japanese spies would often approach checkpoints posing as American or Filipino military personnel. A shibboleth such as "lollapalooza" would be used by the sentry, who, if the first two syllables come back as rorra, would "open fire without waiting to hear the remainder".
