In our recent travels, we passed by some state parks. Just outside one of the state parks, some enterprising homeowner was selling wood. The sign on his front yard looked like this:
CAMP
FIRE
WOOD
I think they took the easy way out.
If you were to write the word(s) to indicate wood for a fire for a camp, how would you arrange those words?
Campfire wood ? Sounds like the name of a forest…
Camp firewood ? Sounds like a happy place for children…
Such a dilemma – how to make a compound word out of three words. Which word draws the short straw?
Here’s my answer:
Wood for a fire is firewood.
Fire for a camp is a campfire.
Wood for a fire for a camp is campfirewood.
Why limit a compound word to only two words?
They will not take wood from the field or gather firewood from the forests, for they will make fires with the weapons; and they will take the spoil of those who despoiled them and seize the plunder of those who plundered them,” declares the Lord God.
Ezekiel 39:10
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The movie 8 Mile, starring Eminem, is a bit outdated now. It played well in the US, putting some part of Detroit on the map, so to speak, for Americans who might not be familiar with the area otherwise.
It has taken 10 years, but there is now an international version of the movie. Most people outside the USA know Detroit only for the auto show, or maybe gunshots. But now Eminem’s movie has been released in an international format:
It is available in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Japanese. And, to make all those viewers feel more included, all the measurements have been converted to metric (kilometers and such).
For example, instead of “Everybody from the 313”, now it is “Everybody from the 503.6”. I’m sure that makes it much easier for Europeans to understand.
For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with influences from the east,
And they are soothsayers like the Philistines,
And they strike bargains with the children of foreigners.
Isaiah 2:6
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You may have a habitually picky eater – the child who does not like most of what is presented to him for consumption.
Or you may have a child who is going through a phase and refuses anything but mac and cheese.
If you ever find yourself in that situation, I have a solution for you. This should not be your primary plan, but it is guaranteed to work.
You are going to need three main items:
- A few women over retirement age, to be helpers. They don’t have to be actual grandmothers, but it wouldn’t hurt.
- Some cafetria trays – one per helper
- A bunch of small paper cups
When mealtime comes, station the helpers around the dining room, each with a cafeteria tray full of paper cups containing samples of each item from the meal.
The kids will walk around the room, helping themselves to the cups and eating.
If that does not work, your only hope is to obtain some shopping carts and push the kids around the room (while they are sitting in the carts).
No matter what the states of the kids’ stomachs before we enter Costco, our children are always interested in the food samples. I figure that in order to entice them to eat at home, all you need to do is recreate the experience of the food-sample carts in the store.
Or just let them not eat much, and they should be hungry at the next meal.
So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 34:28
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Now consider this, you who forget God, Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.
Psalm 50:22
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Another Warrior Dash has come and gone. I was a little slower in this one, but I’ll blame most of that on the swimming. Last year there was some water but no swimming. This year we had to swim somewhere around 70 yards. And I mean really swim, in that you could not touch the bottom of the lake. That was in running clothes, with running shoes, and after having run for a mile. Even in a swimsuit and not having run, I am not that great of a swimmer.
On the bright side, the swim was a nice cooling-off break from running.
The mud this year seemed thinner. Last year it was more like a milkshake. This year it was more like dirty water. Now I sound like a snob: “The mud was not to my liking.” Don’t get the wrong idea – the race was still fun.
Now on to some pictures:
(more…)
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As I set here recovering from the Warrior Dash, I have to to reflect on what made the WD a good event (I was going to use the word enjoyable, but that does not seem appropriate). Several things came to mind, but one that did not was grammar.
To show you why, I am providing the following image, which is what WD tells you to bring to the race.
And here’s a close-up of the section for what not to bring.
Any guesses as to the grammar problem?
They left out a hyphen.
I have extra hyphens here. I could donate them to any promotional or informational materials that can’t afford them.
They said that you should not have a “clean shaved chin”. Since clean and shaved are separate words, not joined by a hyphen, we can consider them separately.
So one could bring a shaved chin that is dirty.
And one could bring a bearded chin that is clean.
But one cannot bring a shaved chin that is clean.
The hyphen helps you to avoid ambiguity – do not be afraid to use it.
It should be “clean-shaved chin”. You want clean to modify shaved and clean-shaved to modify chin. You do not want both clean and shaved to modify chin.
But maybe they did want to say what it said. Maybe a clean bearded chin is acceptable.
that eighty men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria with their beards shaved off and their clothes torn and their bodies gashed, having grain offerings and incense in their hands to bring to the house of the LORD.
Jeremiah 41:5
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Disclaimer: I’m not very Southern. I’m not from the South. So all I have to go on for this post are some vague stereotypes.
Definitions:
- y’awl : /yôl/ : noun : a tool for poking holes in Southern things
- pshawl : /(p)SHôl/ : noun : an outer garment that you cannot believe she’s actually wearing
- y’all : /yôl/ : noun : a detergent used for cleaning barbeque stains from fabric
Your southern sector shall extend from the wilderness of Zin along the side of Edom, and your southern border shall extend from the end of the Salt Sea eastward.
Numbers 34:3
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This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
