There have been some interesting comments on Spanish language pronunciations in this thread. I took Spanish for 4 years when I was in high school. I graduated, by the way in 1964. Over those years in school I had two different Spanish teachers and both of them said the the Castillian dialect got the lisped ess from some member of past royalty in Spain who lisped his esses. In an effort to be 'proper' much of the citizenry imitated that manner of speech.
That seemed weird, but in American history class we learned that President Warren G. Harding coined the word
'normalcy' in a speech he gave. Technically there is no English word 'normalcy'. The word is 'normality', but since someone as important as the president of the United States said it that way, then normalcy must be the right way to say it and it became an 'official' part of the English lexicon.
Now back to Spanish. Most of the Spanish speaking people south of the U.S/Mexican border never heard of a member of the Spanish royalty who lisped, and probably wouldn't care. They usually pronounce the 's' as 'ess'. We were also taught that in Castillian Spanish the vee was pronounced as the second bee in the word baby. In other words, you sort of elided over it in what would be called a 'soft bee'. The folks from the South American and Mexican communities usually pronounce the vee as a hard bee. If they use the English word very, it is pronounced 'bery' with a very hard bee.
These language variations are very common, even in our beloved English. Think of the word jaguar. A jungle cat and also the name of an automobile. We here in the USA say jag.war. The Brits say jag.your.
People have a tendency to imitate prominent folks that are 'educated'. We have a popular news anchor here who once reported a helicopter 'hoovering' over a scene. I had visions of a giant vacuum sweeper cruising across the land. Since this person is a college graduate, others thought that must be the proper way to say the word hovering. My thought is that those 'educated' people have a responsibility to get it right.
I agree with Longshadow. I have used Firefox for many years and have never had an issue with it. My opinion is that Microsoft has become the computer Nazis of the modern age.
Madder than a wet heron, would you say?
No dog licking face for me. Among other reasons, I can't get past what he may have just finished licking before he starts on someone's face.
Is that in Piedmont, MO? If so, I have been there. Very unique setup for a spillway.
I won't drag this on any. It is a manure spreader. There is a sort of a conveyor on the bottom of the bed of the wagon that carried the manure to the back where the blades you see scattered it as the spreader was pulled across the field.
You have to be my age(77) or older, or an avid afficiianado to know what that old piece of farm equipment is. I know, does anyone else?
I know they posted an 'explanation' of why they changed things around, but I think of the old expression, "I it ain't broke, don't fix it". I can't think of anything that was broke that needed fixing. Another expression, "the squeaky wheel, gets the grease." Fellow hoggers, keep squeaking, maybe we'll get some grease.
Is this a colorized b&w? The only viable color film that far back was Kodachrome and it didn't come along until 1935.
Great series of photos. I was only 11 yrs old but I remember 1957. Thanks for posting.
It looks like a variety of cicada killer wasp. A rather benign creature that does in fact sting and paralyze cicadas to lay their eggs on. They are ground dwelling solitary wasps. In spite of their fearsome appearance, they have seldom been known to sting. Check reference in Wikipedia.
The one with the long narrow waist would be some sort of mud dauber. The major physical difference between the wasps and the mud daubers is that long spindly waist between the abdomen and the thorax. Mud daubers are pretty benign, although I have been stung by one. It takes a lot of provocation to bring that about and the sting isn't nearly as painful as a wasp. The mud dauber, by the way, is a variety of wasp. The main diet of both is spiders. If you find a mud dauber's nest that has been finished and sealed up and break it open you will find cells, each filled with a spider in a coma and with an egg attached to it.
The plural for gladiolus is gladioli.