The Ballroom Blitz - Sweet

milquetoast

milquetoast noun [milk-tohst]

1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a very timid, unassertive, spineless person, especially one who is easily dominated or intimidated: a milquetoast who's afraid to ask for a raise.

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Caspar Milquetoast

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I've really never fit the definition, but there WAS a time in my life where I often failed to assert myself. For example, I'd go ahead and eat a steak even if it wasn't cooked how I had ordered.  I was once browbeaten by a waitress for objecting to being served stale donuts (that day and for quite a few previously) when I could see they had a new, fresh batch on the counter.  Not now; in situations such as that, the employee waiting on the customer needs to realize that while their boss might sign their checks, the customer pays their salary. I certainly wouldn't allow that old biddy waitress to talk to me that way.  The only comfort I have about the incident is she's probably been dead for 20 yrs., the old "witch".

No, I'm not Caspar (the friendly) Milquetoast these days.

(NOTE:  This was originally from several yrs. back, but I wanted to update it and add a little personal information.  It WAS today's Word of the Day, though)

The Ancient Spoon

Spoons were invented at least a thousand years before forks. It is thought the earliest ones were natural items, such as seashells or conveniently shaped stones.  Later versions were carved from wood, but the wealthy had ones made from bronze or silver.

That said, knives were the earliest utensil used for eating.

clishmaclaver

clishmaclaver noun [klish-muh-kley-ver, kleesh-]

Scot. gossip; idle or foolish talk.

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Certainly sounds like a Scottish word, but it would probably help to read it out loud in Scotty's voice.

You Were On My Mind - We Five

unhearit

I was complaining on Facebook yesterday about hearing The Little Drummer Boy at the grocery store and not being able to get it out of my head - it became an "earworm".  While it eventually went away, I could have used this website.

From the site: We created this site for those of you that have a song stuck in your head and you can't get it out no matter what you do. Using the latest in reverse-auditory-melodic-unstickification technology, we've been able to allow our users to “unhear” songs by hearing equally catchy songs. So really all we're doing is making you forget your old song by replacing it with another one... sorry.

unhearit