Date:  Wed, 4 Oct 1995 22:49:42 -0400

From:  Crissie Trigger <crissiet[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPOF.FLA.NET>

Subject: Re: metric or ...



>That's what the _World Book_ gives. Both my dual system wrench sets say

>'metric and SAE' with no indication of what SAE means. However, I remember

>when I was into fixing bikes, the response to 'gimme a wrench' was

>always "standard or metric?" Both my wife and a neighbor confirm

>'standard' but have never heard the other terms mentioned.

>Fritz Juengling

> > >



SAE is Society of American Engineers and measures in inches and parts of an

inch.

Use those wrenches on Chevys (or is it Chevies? What say people?)



Being a name brand person I always drank Coke or Pepsi, never pop. I was a

former drugstore cowboy who hung out at a soda fountain, where I drank chocolate

cokes and ice cream sodas. When I lived in Newark, I hung out at the candy

store

and drank egg creams. A candy store had a soda fountain and sold candy and

magazines

and comic books. The also had pin ball machines.An egg cream can only be

made in New York or New Jersey, and

although it consists of merely chocolate syrup, milk (or half and half or

sometimes a bit of whip cream), and seltzer, there is a secret way of

combining it all, having to do with putting the seltzer nozzle on a fast

power spray which agilely having it hit

the back, then the front of the spoon, while stirring.

I have a friend from Boston who always said pop or tonic when referring to

sodas,

and would get all over me if I referred to music without words as a song.

He insisted those should be called a tune.



I have never willingly drunk Coke since the New Coke fiasco. I switched to

Pepsi.

I have never eaten green, string or any pods successfully (I'm allergic to

them),

but we do have a local varmint in south Florida they call pole beans, but

somebody

else would have to tell you what they are.



I have a long held theory that NO ONE can pronounce the name of the place

they are

from. It is the ultimate shibboleth. I spent my first eight years 1944-1952 in

Newark, NJ (pronuonced Newrk or Noork). When I moved to Miami, I found the

real

natives pronounce it My-Ammuh, and based on some historical reading I've been

doing lately appears to originate from an extinct Indian tribe.

Also consider New Yawk, New Joisy, Chicahgo, and New Awlins (pronounced by real

natives as N'Olins.) You can tell real natives of New Orleans because the don't

say hello, they say "Where y'at?" Or the more familiar and profane "Where y'at

mother?" They eat Po' boy sandwiches, red beans and rice and beignets instead of

donuts. The blackened redfish recipe popularized by chef Paul Proudhomme (K

Paul)

caused the redfish to become an endanged species, but blackened fish is still

popular in yuppie restaurants where the customers don't realize it's just a

euphemism

for "burned." The backwoods bayou Cajuns I knew simply had gotten too drunk

on too

many bers,let the skillet get red hot, and threw in the fish as an

afterthought. The

tabasco sauce was necessary because their tastbuds were also burnt. By the

way, a

legitimate study found that people who ate raw oysters (as all the Cajuns

do) with

beer and tabasco sauce, never get sick from them. They eat mudbugs there too

(crawfish).



Seth Sklarey

Wittgenstein School of the Unwritten Word

Coconut Grove, FL