To A Tee and Ask AJ

This day started out with extreme thunderstorms, all through the night. Some reported having trouble sleeping through the noise of the thunder and heavy rain, but not me. I slept like a log.

Further through the day, I have been in the mood to listen to books on audio. There's just something relaxing about listening to someone read a story or a book. Not that I mind reading myself, as there are times and places that I love to revel in the silence and frolic in that land limited only by my own imagination while reading a great written work.

Therefore, at lunchtime, I listened to a bit of my copy of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road", narrated by Matt Dillon (which I will overlook in the interest of enjoying Kerouac's story). lol

As well, I found a website called Librivox.org, which is a site where users can Volunteer to read volumes and contribute these, and of course all of these are offered for listening free. It's worth a look if you like audio books.

Ok on more to my original idea for today's discussion...

Blogging is a busy business, I guess for some it is a "business", and others just a pastime or more akin to keeping a Journal, or just writing for practice or relaxation.

For me, it's a few of those I guess, of course not "business" since I seem to have the money-making and traffic-drawing potential of a tree stump. I actually started this thing on a lark, just to have a log-in name to comment on a Niece's photo blog, and decided to dabble around with it and have become quite sweet on my "Deep In The Forrest". It is my hope that you have too.

At any rate, along the way I have put up a few photos of interesting places, historic and otherwise, such as "The Castle", "Tater Red's", along with other things that we've discussed that a few of you have expressed further interest in.

I thought I might try to address some of these, and pass along a bit of knowledge.

Most recently, and what gave me this idea, Kcinnova asks in regard to my "Procrastination" post, "Thank you for posting this. I no longer feel so alone, because you just described me to a 'T' ...why do we use the letter 'T' anyway? I suspect you just described me to a 'P' -- a giant 'P' for Procrastinator extraordinaire."

I knew about T-squares, having a background in graphic design as I do, but I further ventured to look it up.

What is the origin of "suits to a T"? "suits to a tee"? (Etymology)

TO A T - "We use this expression very commonly in the sense of minute exactness, perfection; as, the coat fits to a T; the meat was done to a T. It is easy to dismiss the origin of the expression as, I am sorry to say, some of our leading dictionaries do, by attributing it to the draftsman's T-square, which is supposed to be an exact instrument, but the evidence indicates that the expression was in common English use before the T-square got its name. 'To a T' dates back to the seventeenth century in literary use and was undoubtedly common in everyday speech long before any writer dared to or thought to use it in print. But it is likely that the name of the instrument, 'T-square,' would have been in print shortly after its invention, yet the first mention is in the eighteenth century. The sense of the expression corresponds, however, with the older one, 'to a tittle,' which appeared almost a century earlier, and meant 'to a dot,' as in 'jot or tittle.' Beaumont used it in 1607, and it is probably that colloquial use long preceded his employment of the phrase..." From "2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Expressions from White Elephants to a Song and Dance" by Charles Earle Funk (Galahad Books, New York, 1993).

http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/13/messages/669.html

These types of phrases would be considered "Idioms". I have in my possession a book called A Hog On Ice (And Other Curious Expressions), which lists quite a number of such interesting idioms and their origins. I believe this book was originally given to me by my sister, Vickie. It's quite good if you like to look up these expressions.

My next post will give further detail about "Tater Red's" voodoo shop... I'll put that up tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I task you, my readers with this request: Send me other topics, things that you have seen or read about on my blog that you would like to know more about. What interests you??

We'll just call this "Ask AJ" time... where I will answer any questions or give more research into something I have put up on the blog... We could even dedicate a certain day to it. How about Thursdays?? Submit to me what you'd like featured and answered and it will go up in each Thursday's "Ask AJ" segment...

What do you think??