Posted by Robert Hill on January 08, 2001 at 16:55:44 from 129.11.159.106:
In Reply to: COOT CLUB - observations part THREE posted by Ed Kiser on January 05, 2001 at 06:41:30:
"Go" as a noun should not be so unfamiliar to Ed. Has he never listened
to NASA mission control, "You are go for lift-off"?
Then (nearer the sense he quotes) there is an old joke at the expense of
Canadians:
Canada could have had French cuisine, British government, and American
get-up-and-go. Instead, it has American cuisine, French government,
and British get-up-and-go.
[Apologies to Canadian Tarboarders]
Shirts with separate collars:
I think these may have been to reduce washing in days before washing
machines were widespread. A man might be able to wear a shirt two days
running if he used two separate collars.
Underwear:
Not true that AR never mentions it. In S&A, on the day of the expedition
to cut out the Amazon, Susan tells Roger to put on, inter alia, two pairs
of "drawers".
Small telephone numbers:
In one of C.P. Snow's novels, widely believed to be autobiographically
influenced, the hero (from a humble background) makes friends with
someone from a rich banking family. In describing the history of this
family it is mentioned that at one time their telephone number was
London 2.
This prompted two thoughts in my mind:
1) This is such an implausible detail for Snow to have invented that
I'd guess that in real life, he met somebody who came from a family
which had once had the telephone number London 2.
2) If you were around at the time and interested in keeping up with
the latest fashions, 2 was the best possible phone number you could
conceivably have.
For if your number was anything higher than 2, it was a sign that you
were not keeping up with the Joneses.
And if your number was 1, you would have been so early in getting a
phone that you had nobody to talk to.