A good holiday is one spent among people whos notions of time are vaguer than yours. ~ John B. Priestly.In just 4 more days our Irish friends will be returning whence they came. Where did all that time go?
Time is funny. The older I get the faster it flies yet I remember as a child, 6 weeks of summer seemed like forever & ever.
So here are some oddities about time & distance & that sort of thing because it's not just me, you know. Time really is odd.
Out here we say, "In a jiffy," all the time as in, "I'll be with you in just a jiffy", or "Hold on a jiffy". Jiffy is an actual measurement of time. It equals 1/100th of a second. We all needed to know that didn't we.
Do you count the time lapse between thunder & lightening to work out how close a storm is? Well the typical lightening bolt is 2"~4" wide & 4 miles long. I'm sure somewhere out there, there is a physicist with too much time on his hands & too little to do who has worked out the math for this information ~ but it's not me!
And here's a doozy. America & England adopted the Gregorian calendar on September 14th 1752 ~ & lost 11 days! What happened to them? I'd've been peeved, growing so much older so fast! Still if you fly from London to N.Y by concord it is possible to arrive 2 hours before you leave. Who said time travel wasn't possible?!
Then there's Armageddon. You know, when the stars fall from the sky. The sun is a star. When it goes it will be 8 minutes before anyone will even be aware of the fact we don't have a sun any more. Boggles the mind, doesn't it.
Most of us are time deprived ~ so we purchase self help books to help us manage our time better. 95% of self help books purchased are never used.
21 comments:
Oh and all this time I thought a jiffy was a little girls' slipper :-)
I have missed your tuesday trivia! I so enjoy reading those little snippets, most of them I could probably go on living without knowing, but knowing them is so much more fun! Thank you for sharing your snippets of knowledge, and now I'm going to go make some jiffy pop!
Ruby: I *know*! All these words that do double duty...☺
Birbitt: Why, hello! ☺ I like trivia, but sometimes checking my facts takes more time than I have at my disposal. Sure I can live without it, but as you say, so much more fun! ☺
I liked the last one but don't like the thought of the sun disappearing! eek!
You know, it always amuses me that a year for me, short as it is, is exactly the same length as it is for Jemimah, who always thinks that the time between one birthday and the next is a lifetime, practically. Relativity.
Very interesting trivia - I have never bought a self-help book to help me manage my time - my mum use to say I was born with that skill!!
Amanda: I know me well enough I don't bother with the books. lol
Jeanne: A mind scientifically inclined. ☺ I wasn't touching relativity with a barge pole. But then my brother is the only person I know, who on arriving in England, promptly went into the bathroom to see if the water really goes down the pipe the other way!!! As if there aren't better things to do in London! [what did I do? I walked on Hampton Heath & looked at real live deer. Can't say it ever occured to me to check the water but then I couldn't tell you which way it went down the pipe out here anyway. ☺]
Jo: That is a blessing. I don't manage anything well much. Distractable, that's me ~ especially if somepne's left a book lying round...
I love your quote at the start of this post!
I love having holidays with my parents in law as they are so much older and time goes really slow with them:)
and oh, I thought a jiffy was a bbq lighter or something, lol! thanks for educating me with this trivia:)
Just to add, that I don't buy self-help books... I just liked the fact that 95% of the books are never used lol.
I the only self-help book is the Bible... it is the best help we ever could read!
LOL! I ended up inheriting a batch of those self-help books that never got read from my parents not too long ago.
Jiffy ... I'm going to put that definition on the fridge. Actually, that could be dangerous as my son delights in taking me literally enough when I say I'll just be a second! ☺
So many tidbits on which to comment and so little...time!
Well, someone had to say it, and that someone just had to be me, of course. ;)
Adding one, since you mentioned lightning: "Jiffy" is also said to be originally thieves' slang for "lightning."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
I always thought time likes to play tricks, it really is a funny thing when you think about it. I enjoyed reading your trivia, thank you.
joyfulmum: You're welcome. ☺
Amanda: So true. ☺
alecat: I had a brother like that ~ yes the one who went to London & watched water go down the sink...
Seeking: Not fair! That is better trivia than mine...;P
Foxglove Spires: I appreciate Joan Lindsay's sentiments. She removed all the clocks from her house in the Blue Mountains...
Just trying to share the love.
Not sure if it is "better trivia", but I had this sneaky suspicion that it was just the kind of thing you would enjoy.
Seeking: You have good instincts. :D
My mom used to say "in a jiffy" too... or sometimes "in a jiff" if she was especially rushed;-)
Diane: & here I was thinking it was a particularly Aussie thing to say...☺
I did not know about a jiffy being an actual measurement of time. I used to know how to figure how close a storm is, but it got lost in the cobwebs that fill the cavern which once was my mind.
Time must have moved faster this year, as this seems to be the year I got old.
Sandra: Hello. Has your heat broken? I have had to start my TT up again ~ just for you & Birbitt. ☺ You missed my one on horses...:( lol Now I am off to visit you on your own blog as I see you are posting again. So nice to have you back in cyber world. ☺
OK, Jiffy here is a brand of peanut butter and people will say 'pass me the Jiffy.' Though as kids I DO recall my grandmother using it to refer to time. Love all your trivia. I guess all those time management/self help books are sitting on shelves gathering dust..lol. I gave up on those in my late twenties. Us women just have to resolve to multi-task. :)
A fun post, Ganeida.
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