by david allan van nostrand | Mar 20, 2023 | Point of view, The Wayback Machine, Wordplay
You Bet Your Life was a 1950s TV quiz show with a studio audience. The real draw was the host, Groucho Marx, who turned interviews with contestants into laughs with his wisecracks. Before the contestants were introduced, Groucho and announcer George Fenneman showed...
by david allan van nostrand | Sep 12, 2022 | Language, Social archaelogy, The world around us, Wordplay
In the 1800s, street gangs didn’t have guns. They used cloth bags or socks filled with sand as homemade weapons to conk people over the head with so they could steal their money and their goods. The next technological evolution was the blackjack. Also referred to as a...
by david allan van nostrand | May 31, 2021 | Human Behavior, Language, Misinformation traps, Wordplay
Elegant and fashionable people from high social classes are called posh, which was Victoria Beckham’s choice (when she was one of the Spice Girls). Posh is also the name of a pedigreed cow that sold at auction for a record-setting £262,000. The owner said the name...
