[PW] my traditional New Year's questions

[Nancy Jo Leachman]

Actually, 3 words were used for naming people from a region They were demonym, gentilic, and ethnonym.
 
Nancy Jo Leachman
Head of Reference
Salina Public Library
301 W. Elm
Salina, KS 67401
 
785 825-4624

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Sent: Thu 1/10/2008 4:04 PM
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Subject: [PW] my traditional New Year's questions



Colleagues, 

In keeping with a now-ancient tradition (at least five years  old), I ask the
questions that I always ask early each year:

1.  Some years ago, a Congressman's wife, making a campaign speech for  her
husband, pleaded with the audience to re-elect him, saying "He doesn't know 
how to do anything else!"  Who said this?

2.  During World War II, members of the USAAF sang a song of which the 
refrain goes, "Fly low and slow, said his mother"  Details of the song,  please. 
Addendum, 2008:  I've gone to several WW2 sites, and the line  in question
seems to have been used in many pilot-written songs, not just  one.  But if you
know of any song likely to have been the original, I'd  much appreciate learning
about it.

3.  Many years ago I read somewhere the dictum, "We learn not from 
experience, but from experiment."  Who wrote this?  (There are many  sayings that are
somewhat similar, but I'm looking for the one that explicitly  downgrades
"experience" and champions "experiment")

4.  Some writer on the Anglo-American criminal justice system said  somewhere
that the trouble with it was that it was designed just to keep the  peace in
a sleepy English village.  Who said it, etc.?  Addendum,  2008: I've written
to several of the leading criminologists in the U.S., and all  were kind enough
to respond, but none knew the dictum.

5.  I've read that there is a Spanish proverb that goes, "Take what  you want
-- and pay for it."  Is there really such a proverb? (even John  Dyson hasn't
been able to answer this one, which means it's really tough)

6.  A standard graphic cliche indicates that a person is insane by  depicting
him in Napoleonic costume, with right hand tucked into his  tunic.  What is
the origin of this convention?  Does it have anything  to do with the report
that Henry James, when moribund, talked as if he thought  he was Napoleon?

7.  Shortly after the dissolution of the USSR, a number of American 
academics took out a full-page ad in the New York Review of Books in which they 
lamented that event, and thanked the Russian people "for trying".  Can  anyone cite
the issue of NYRB in which that ad appeared, or, even better, fax me  a copy
of the ad?  (Addendum, 2008: I've asked the NYRB itself, and the  answering
service at the Library of Congress, but gotten nothing useful.)

   Anyone correctly answering any of these gets a (small) box of  Godiva
chocolates.

                   Mark

P.S.  Here is another question, but this is not one of my tough  research
queries, or "stumpers" as we used to call them, and no chocolates are  offered
for an answer, just my thanks:  in the last couple of weeks someone  asked about
names for people based on where they live or came from, as "New  Yorker" is
the name for people who live in New York, and in the answers two  terms were
offered for names so formed.  I meant to save those terms, but  failed -- would
someone be kind enough to remind me of them?  Since this is  just for me,
please reply to _markhalpern at iname.com_ (mailto:markhalpern at iname.com) . 





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