Random stuff from vacation.

We saw one of these while on the drive home...

It was rather amusing. We joked about folks just not knowing what was that-a-way. "Gas station is that direction, hotel is the other direction, but that way? No idea."

(Of course, we did fairly quickly realize that it was a directional sign for an information booth/tourist info, but the first reaction is still funnier.)



Also saw a sign advertising used cows for sale. I'm not sure that I want to know about that one. I mean, used as opposed to...what exactly? Calves?

That ranks up there with the question of whether they repo mobile homes the same way they do cars - in the middle of the night. Probably not, but still, the mental image is amusing.

Finally remembered to look up the "Which came first, the hotel or the movie?" in reference to Holiday Inn. It was the movie first.

Then we started thinking about names; specifically, the names Tracy, Kelly, Stacy - all of which have that y ending (or could be done with -ey as well), and all of which have changed from a masculine to a predominantly feminine name. We wondered if they had a common origin. Turns out, from my very limited research (one website, so I wouldn't go basing a thesis on it, LOL), two of them do (Tracy and Stacy; English), and Kelly, as one might suspect, is Irish. I think Stephanie has also had a masculine spelling with the same pronunciation (i.e. not just as Stephen)? I know names have a lot more gender fluidity now, but these seemed to be older examples (as opposed to the much more recent ones like Jordan, for instance).

Or maybe the masculine in all of the above are the -ey spellings, and they're no different than Frances/Francis.

Eh well. Guess I should go catch up on the 1976482 emails that accumulated while I was gone...