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.)