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It just sounded better
On October 26, 1945, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9646, redesigning the presidential seal. Among other changes, he proposed that the eagle should face away from the arrows, signifying armed conflict, in its left talon, to demonstrate a desire to avoid war. The first President to have a seal was Woodrow Wilson. Prior to…
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Eavesdropping
Right now, everyone who sits at my table in the dining room is sick. There’s a bug going around. I had it last week. So, sitting at a table that seats four alone, I found myself eavesdropping on the conversation at the table next to me which, believe it or not, in an LGBTQ+ assisted…
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Mondegreens
The American writer Sylvia Wright, writing about how she misheard the words “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen” when her mother read her the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray as a child, created the neologism “mondegreen.” In a 1954 essay in Harper’s Magazine entitled “The Death of Lady Mondegreen,” she wrote:…
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