had to share this
I spend a lot of time in the universal library (i.e. Google Books) while doing etymological research. Sometimes I find the strangest things: like this (ick warning)
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Ambiance 
chickelit said,
September 8, 2010 at 10:44 pm
I spend a lot of time in the universal library (i.e. Google Books) while doing etymological research.
Holy entomological etymology!
reader_iam said,
September 9, 2010 at 11:57 am
What We Did Before Electronic Mass Media
reader_iam said,
September 9, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Miles, this really was a beaut. And son is absolutely fascinated (as opposed to “ick”), which makes perfect sense, given that he’s 10. I’m not sure whether he was more impressed by how many flies the winning 13-year-old killed and how many flies were killed overall, OR by the sheer effort involved in doing the precise counting. (“You’d have to verify the number a couple of times, wouldn’t you? So you’d have to keep the bodies, right?” And so forth… ). Obviously, I pointed him to the part of the article about how the “catches” were measured, but it was fun to see where his mind went.
Now husband has stopped by, and he is equally fascinated (though he DID add an “ugh!” when he saw the picture and contemplated the number of flies–he, after all, is a few decades past 10.
The implications are fascinating, really, when one thinks about it–implications having to do with culture, physical environment, the lack of many things we take for granted, etc. etc. etc. I told son he can read the whole article and write a little piece about it … AFTER he finishes reviewing his Latin, which is what he was doing when I saw this post, followed the link and started cracking up. I figure I can put this little diversion into the following homeschooling categories: science, history, culture, nature study, reading comprehension and “This Is Now, That Was Then.” Etc.
LOL.