Throwback Thursday December 17, 2015 – Swampwater, yum

Oops! Missed Wordplay Wednesday! Let’s have fun with a Throwback Thursday Wordplay!

“Back in the day,” let’s say 1950s – 1970s, A&W Root Beer gave Coke and Pepsi a run for the money. Roy W. Allen – the “A” in A&W – opened his first roadside root beer stand in Lodi, California (1919).

Yep, that’s just down the road from Modesto – which gave us American Graffiti, complements of George Lucas’s memories of 1962.

Let me take you back ♪… to a simpler time of A&W drive-in restaurants, car hops and Swamp rock! 

How did you drink your A&W Root Beer? I mixed mine up ...

SWAMPWATER: Half A&W Root Beer and half Orange Drink [back in the day, only Orange Crush would do as the mixer].  

So where were you in ’62 ... or as this long ago drive-in car hop recalls, 1967...
 

Wordplay Wednesday™ August 26, 2015 – Hiemal cool

Right about now, I’ll bet you could go for a cool winter day with a hint of rain or light, snowy dustup.

Stunning snowflake

Winter will certainly be here before you know it, along with all the holidays. Ugh and yea at the same time, and if the El Niño predictions are right, more “weather” than we might desire.

But today, as you brush the stream of sweat from your brow, you’ll just have daydream of a frosty, hiemal day …

HIEMAL (hīʹi mɘl): – adj. of winter; wintry. [Is your honey in a hiemal mood? Give her / him a warm hug.]

So, Wordsmiths … a question … hiemal is not listed as an archaic word, yet it is rarely seen in common language. Considering this, why in heaven’s name do we have so many words that mean the same thing? Why didn’t we stop at “winter” and “wintry” and leave it at that? (Or whichever came first.) If you’re waiting for an answer …