Snowy Saturday

It started to snow about 11:00 this morning as we got ready to go down to my parents house for the afternoon. Southern New Hampshire and Northern Massachusetts was supposed to get 5-8" of the white stuff, according to a Boston television station.

After we went to the post office, We got stuck in some traffic on the highway. It was caused by a two car auto accident and very slight slick roads, along with all of the rubber necks driving by. There was a state trooper, two local police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance on the scene. I hope whoever got hurt wasn't hurt too badly.

My family is very cool. My brother volunteered to drive me to the airport on Wednesday and My parents gave me a little cash to take on my trip plus let me borrow a suitcase. They are also going to pick me up at the airport on Saturday night.

Last night we started to play a game of Pokemon Monopoly, which the kids had brought with them. The game strated to decline when M got upset that he had to give V $250 because he landed on one of her properties with a hotel on it. It ended soon after when M's attitude did not improve. V won and I came in second, beating M by a mere $22.

More forgotten words & stuff:

bobance- Pride boasting, presumption.
- Edward Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1895

Adapted from Old French bobance, arrogance, pomp.
-Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary

Impersonal Ad
In 1759, the Boston Evening Post ran the following notice:
"To the ladies: Any young lady between the age of eighteen and twenty-three, of a midling stature , brown hair, regular features and a lively brisk eye; of good morals and not tinctured with anything that may sully so distinguishable a form; possessed of three or four hundred pounds entirely [at] her own disposal and where there will be no necessity of going through the tiresome talk of addressing parents or guardians for their consent. Such a one, by leaving a line directed for A.W. at the British Coffee House in King Street, appointing where an interview may be had, will meet a person who flatters himself he shall not be thought disagreeable by any lady answering the above description. Profound secrecy will be observed. No trifling answers will be regarded."

ruff- The expression of applause by stamping the feet.
-Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905.

The "Glory of the Bank"
On February 21, 1599, the Chamberlain's Men (William Shakespeare's acting troupe) and the Burbage brothers, Richard and Cuthbert, signed a construction contract for the Globe Theatre near the bank of the Thames. Eliezer Edwards's Words, Facts and Phrases: A Dictionary of Curious Matters (1882) described this theater- the first in England to accommodate large numbers of commoners: "The earliest theatrical performances in [post-Roman] Britiain took place in inn yards. The spectators watched the performances from the open galleries which led to the bedchambers of the inn. The Globe Theatre, which was built on the grounds of the Globe Tavern, modeled much on the style of the inn yard, being without a roof. It was afterwards thatched, except in the centre, which was left open to give light. The galleries ran tier-above-tier round three sides of the building
over the rooms, which correspond to our modern boxes. What we call the 'pit' was then the 'ground,' where the common people stood.... Shakespeare speaks of this portion of a theatrical audience as the 'groundlings,' and Ben Jonson mentions 'the understanding gentlemen of the ground.'"