Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 13:18:22 PDT

From: barbara GRADMA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UVVM.UVIC.CA

Subject: Re: Ask your help



I have a horrible feeling that "puppy pie" is the same as Johanna's "cow pie,"

just from a different source, and that the bargee was upset to be called the

equivalent of a "shit eater," as well he might be!



And while I'm at it, doesn't saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes go back to

the Black Death and sneezing as a symptom of plague? Remember that lovely bit

of dialogue from _The Lady's Not for Burning_, said by the priest (abbot, friar

whoever) just as he exits, "God bless you in case you sneeze." "Thank you. I

may." Talk about preventive medicine! (Actually, this relationship just

dawned on me after I'd been talking to a class about the nursery rhyme "Ring

Around a-Rosy" and its imitation of the plague-stricken.)