In the old days, cars had to be started by a crank, instead of a starter. The term ‘cranky’ came about from having a bad day trying to crank starting your car.
Author: admin
The late 19th-century pairing of ‘crack’ and ‘jack’ to form ‘crackerjack’ topped off a long history for those words. ‘Cracker’ is an elongation of ‘crack,’ an adjective meaning ‘expert’ or ‘superior’ that dates from 1793. Prior to that, ‘crack’ was a noun meaning ‘something superior’ and a verb meaning ‘to boast.’ (That verb use evolved from ‘to crack a boast,’ which came from the sense of ‘crack’ meaning ‘to make a loud sharp sound.’) ‘Jack’ has been used for ‘man’ since the mid-1500s, as in ‘jack-of-all-trades.’ ‘Crackerjack’ entered English first as a noun (‘someone or something of excellence’), then as an adjective. You may also know ‘Cracker Jack’ as a snack of candied popcorn and peanuts. The copyrighted product name dates from the 1890s.
17th century, Samuel Sewall wrote: ‘Meeting with the Sachem (Indian chiefs), they came to an agreement and buried two axes in the ground, which ceremony to them is more significant and binding than all the Articles of Peace, the hatchet being the principal weapon.’
Categories
Bug
ENIAC 1 (first computer)
An engineer trying to power the mainframe could not get enough power to run. there were about 25 technicians trying to figure out the problem, and could not.
Chuck decided to check all the vacuum tubes, and found a moth.
Looked at the supervisor, and said, ‘Hey, there’s a bug in here.’
In mid-18th century England a group of ladies decided to replace evenings of card playing and idle chatter with ‘conversation parties,’ inviting illustrious men of letters to discuss literary and intellectual topics with them. One regular guest was scholar- botanist Benjamin Stillingfleet. His hostesses willingly overlooked his cheap blue worsted stockings (a type disdained by the elite) in order to have the benefit of his lively conversation. Those who considered it inappropriate for women to aspire to learning derisively called the group the ‘Blue Stocking Society.’ The women who were the original bluestockings rose above the attempted put-down and adopted the epithet as a name for members of their society.