What would people be talking about, WRT the "beforenoon"? What they did at work/school, to somebody who wasn't there? Doesn't sound like too fascinating a subject to me. If I recall correctly, most kids hate talking about what they did at school, and many adults feel the same way about spending their free time on going over what they did at work...

So, discussing what one did "beforenoon" is largely out, and you don't make plans with others for this time because you're at work/school then, this leaves weekends and holidays. There might be a key here somewhere...

But this other stuff has moved on.

Nobody paid much attention to time, apart from the agricultural seasons, until a couple of hundred years ago.

1. "Bleeeegh, it is not day yet! Where does that light come from. Ooooehhhh yummy. Cornflakes. Kill me now."

2. "Right, it is probably too late for still having breakfast. What can I do that is not doing anything useful? Ah, right, lunch."

3. "Oy! Where did the light go! Well, better have supper then."

4. "All the food is gone.. I ate it all, and now I'm sad :( I shall cry myself to sleep."

Notice the importance of eating well.

1. The opening. Stumble through a few ritualized, repetitive motions, much the same from one day to the next. Do not try to engage brain.

2. The middlegame. Try to deal with the intractable complexities arising out of your failure to engage your brain during phase #1.

3. The endgame. Start to congratulate yourself on, somehow, having survived another day. Disengage brain prematurely, and suffer the consequences.

Then get up in the morning and do it all over again.

I read something recently about the replies people get when they innocently ask "what does LOL mean?" (apart from the standard "n00b lol").

One that took my fancy was "Loving Our Loucheness" - a gesture of solidarity between deviant types.

I've never objected to the acronym as such, trite though it may be. I object to people being laughed at by idiots.

I have no sense of humor, of course. That must be it, the old humorectomy gotomy.

If accused, I may fly. Like many wannabe cricketers, I'm a bail risk.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, of course. This, in effect, means that children start out as amoebas and become Neanderthals.

Forgetfulness helps, as well.

"So let's drink a drink a drink
To Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink
The saviour of the human race
For she invented Medicinal Compound
Most efficacious in every case."

A number one hit for The Scaffold, featuring Paul McCartney's brother, Mike.

Oh, for the days when pop songs had words like 'efficacious' in them. And the even more ancient times evoked by the song, when such words could be seen in adverts.

As Mephistopheles said to Faust.

Lyly is another variant. A tad Euphuistic, admittedly.

And (I've heard) that the Dublin nightclub frequented by 'celebrities' (whatever they are) is <Lillie's Bordello>. There's something dodgy about that name, even if an eponymous Lillie exists.

Consider the lilies.

- Where are yer goin' tonight then, Bonio, yer holiness?

I didn't get that one?

I'll be shamed forever in polymath circles. The Omniscient will cancel my subscription. I'll be a laughing stock among hyenas.

Helle's bore. Is that a wave? Or am I drowning.

I'm being pursued across the Hellespont by the world's only hellicat hellcat ...

Had you not noticed that this illiterate comment <His elevator don't go all the way to the top floor ...> was in response to one of your comments?

Specifically, this one:

<John Cale and Brian Eno wrote a song, Cordoba, with lyrics taken entirely from strange phrases in an old Spanish-English phrasebook: "The lift stops between two floors ... I'll leave the parcel on the top deck...">

It's the *Matthew Effect* ... in science, for example, a researcher who is already famous will be credited with a new discovery, rather than some unknown who actually gets to it first. The Matthew Effect was discovered by Merton.

Compare Stigler's Law: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigle...