Wonders will just never cease. Every time I think my brain cannot possibly hold more useless trivia, along comes more information that I deem absolutely necessary to my store of facts-that-no-one-cares-about-but-me.
First case-in-point: The word poiema. I am a lover of words and when I see a word in print that I have never seen or heard before I become curious as to its origin and meaning. To my great surprise, poiema was not in my beloved dictionary so I had to resort to Googling, which, as everyone knows, has the latest, greatest, and most accurate information of any search engine on the planet. (Just ask Google.) I discovered that poiema is an ancient Greek word, meaning a masterpiece, work of art by God, referenced in two books of the Bible - Romans and Ephesians. I'm certain that learning about this new word, poiema, may simmer in my brain and become the topic of a future Ancora imparo posting. For today, it is simply a reference.
Second case-in-point: All the attention given to what the celebrities wore at last night's Golden Globe Awards. I'll confess right now, I watched the entire segment on NBC's Today Show. I was doing kitchen duties such as emptying the dishwasher and other exciting household chores so I was paying minimal attention but occasionally I would find myself actually looking at the television screen. When the segment was done I found myself wondering why? Why, Ancora imparo, did you pay any attention to what so-and-so wore and who designed so-and-so's gown and why Miss So-and-So wore shoes of differing colors?
I have no intelligent answer to my own question.
Last case-in-point: I learned, just this very morning, that black pepper actually possesses nutritional qualities, anti-oxidants for one. My ears perked up when I heard this, although I maintained a fair amount of skepticism because the commercial was paid for my a producer of spices, black pepper being one of them. As usual, my curiosity got the best of me and I, of course, Googled black pepper. The sponsor of the television ad was accurate.....for a change. Where I have trouble is understanding how anyone could possibly ingest enough black pepper, at one setting, to take advantage of its beneficial properties. One-quarter teaspoon on my scrambled eggs? Do these people realize how much ground, black pepper is in one-quarter teaspoon? It has only been in the last fifteen years that I could stand more than three specks of black pepper on any one piece of food, let alone eating scrambled eggs 'peppered' (pun intended) with pepper. I would spend more time sneezing and coughing that I would eating the eggs. Maybe that is where the advertiser can get away with the statement that one-quarter teaspoon of ground black pepper contains a healthy dose of antioxidants. Just because they tell consumers to put that much pepper on the eggs in order to be healthy, doesn't mean that the consumer will actually be able to eat the pepper-peppered eggs. But......in the minds of those brilliant and highly paid Madison Avenue moguls, they didn't tell a untruth. It is not their responsibility to force the consumer to actually EAT the eggs.
I think, perhaps, I should go into hibernation now, lest I learn any more useless trivia. I've peppered the reader with enough shared/useless information for one day.
Ancora imparo
