Words Mean Things - And Opposite Things

In Charles Dickens' The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (Chapter VI), Mr. Tupman is wounded by a small bore "rook rifle" shotgun, when Mr. Winkle demonstrates what happens when you ignore three or four of the rules of gun safety. Pickwick, Snodgrass, and Winkle then depart to enjoy a local cricket match with their host Mr. Wardle, leaving Tupman "in charge of" the ladies of the household. Dickens is not saying that Tupman has been vested with authority to police the ladies' behavior. Quite the opposite. The ladies are to see to the well-being of Tupman.

When did the change in meaning occur? How is it that words can flip meanings?

Then there's Subject and Object. Some time between the 12th and the 21st centuries, Subject and Object passed each other going in opposite directions on the towpath of language, and as they passed they traded meanings. "Subjective" used to mean, "of or pertaining to the subject," where "subject" meant the thing being "subjected" to scrutiny.  Now, of course, the subject of scrutiny is called the "object", and if you object to that, you will be subjected to the ignominy of being misunderstood.  What you study is the "object", unless you're talking about your school schedule -- in which case you still study the "subjects" on the list. The final lens on a microscope or telescope is the "objective" lens.  But how handy to introverts it could be when attending a social function, to be able to pull out a little lorgnette or pince-nez or opera glasses holding high-quality subjective lenses!  Perhaps then the (unspoken) object of the person talking to you would be magnified, their point revealed. All the feels they subjectively hold, all the bias they subjectively project, would be visible in shifting pleochroic auras under an optical-quality subjective lens!

And if I were to look at myself in a mirror through the subjective lenses of my hypothetical binoculars, would I stumble across the threshold of some kind of Burnsian satori?

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

On second thought, I will pass on the subjective lenses and go on seeing myself as richer, younger, healthier, and handsomer than I may look to "ithers."

MS Edge U Doin It Wrong

Here's a funny thing:

Having installed Windows 10 on the laptop many weeks ago, I decided for some unknown reason to try out Microsoft Edge, the new "I'm-Not-Windows-Exploder" web browser.  Meh.  Then I tried to import bookmarks from Chrome.

The good news I guess is that the bookmarks did, technically, move from Chrome to Edge.  The bad news is that all my bookmarks in Edge are upside down.  Inverted.  Sorted precisely backward from where they were in Chrome.

Careful, Microsoft, or somebody might think you suck and you hate us.

JAPAN SURRENDERS!

Seventy years ago, the formal articles of the unconditional surrender of Japan were signed aboard USS Missouri (BB-63).

"It's V-J Day!  Go kiss a sailor!,"  as my mother used to say.  (Dad, of course, was in the Navy!)

Those compressed garbage trucks... kind trucks!

I get junk email at work.  This one actually makes more sense than many do.  You have to grab all the humor you can wherever you can find it!

Dear manager.
Good morning, glad to meet you. Thanks a lot that you had read my E-mail.
We are a manufacturer. We design and supply different non-standard hydraulic cylinder for compressed garbage trucks, dump trucks, arm-swing trucks and swill collectiong trucks. Hope that we will have a chance to contact more about your cylinders for these kind trucks, thanks.
Please keep in touch.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Have a nice day and best regards,
Lena
Int'l Sales Manager

Hiroshima Day

The atomic bombs made my life possible.  At the time Truman gave the go-ahead, my father was on an LST in the Pacific, preparing for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The use of the atomic bombs saved lives, compared to anticipated casualties from the planned invasion.

The tyranny of the government of Imperial Japan was the cause of so much suffering.

Yes those photos are ghastly.  But every time Hiroshima Day rolls around I thank the One True God® that the bombs were used and the surrender was secured.

Korean War Martyr

U.S. Army 19th Infantry troops had been in action along the Kum River through 16 July 1950. They intended to disengage but their retreat was blocked by Communist forces.

Quotes below are from the wikipedia article:

"U.S. troops from the 19th Infantry, desperate to move around the roadblock to obtain supplies and care for wounded, began moving through the surrounding hills. One tank was able to make it through the roadblock to evacuate the 19th Infantry's wounded commander, but by 19:00 commanders ordered the regiment to move its wounded along the ridges to the east of the roadblock."

"...At 21:00, about 100 men of the 19th Infantry moved into the hills to the east of the town. They carried with them about 30 wounded, including several litter-bound patients too seriously wounded to walk. Some of the group of 100 were ordered to carry these men, but many of them separated from the group in the mountains. By the time they reached the top of the mountain, officers decided some of the seriously wounded could not be carried any further, as their carriers were exhausted.

"The regimental medical officer, Captain Linton J. Buttrey, and Chaplain [Franciscan Roman Catholic priest] Herman G. Felhoelter remained behind with the wounded, intending to move them when another group of troops came through who could carry them."

The chaplain urged the medical officer to escape. Buttrey was wounded but survived.

"...[O]bservers from the 19th Infantry's regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Company watched through binoculars from a distance as a patrol of young-looking and possibly untrained North Korean troops approached the site of the wounded. The troops were armed with Soviet-made rifles and PPSh-41 "burp guns". As Felhoelter knelt to pray over the wounded U.S. soldiers, the North Korean troops shot him in the head and back. They then proceeded to shoot and kill all of the 30 critically wounded soldiers with their automatic weapons before withdrawing into the wilderness."

Father Felhoelter had received the Bronze Star as a chaplain in World War II.  He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.

Dredging sand to build airstrips?

Are any of the environmentalists concerned about communist China raping coral reefs to advance their imperialist goals?

Here's a story from that frontier.

But seriously.  Dredge and dump is a federal offense in USA, isn't it?  EPA regulations, etc.?   I guess Gaia loses if she comes up against the glorious workers' revolutionary progress through history yada yada yada.