Back in my college days at URI, vanity plates were a pretty new thing, especially for Rhode Island. Being a stick-in-the-mud about most new things, I was ranting to RPM, my new roommate, about how stupid vanity plates were: "I'm gonna get the vanity plate MY BAD Z just so some Camaro-driving twerp can't have it . . . And you know what I really hate? When people use misspelled words because they couldn't get what they wanted, but they were determined to have it anyway . . ."
I go on like this for another hour or so, whereupon my roommate says, "Oh."
Sure enough, when I see his car for the first time, the plate says HYE RPM.
And "hye," I find out later, is like the Armenian word for "armenian." Which he was.
4 comments:
Those Armenians are so cool. The book I?m currently working takes place in an Armenian-American community. [Look for link to Amazon buying page here ? someday.]
Word has it that Armenia was founded by a great-grandson of Noah, whose Ark landed on Mt. Ararat, which was once located in Armenia. [Note the Bible pun? Pretty good for a lapsed Catholic.]
Most fascinating current event involving Armenia has to do with Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. He dared mention the Armenian genocide -- which happened at the hands of the Young Turks in 1915-1916 -- in a recent interview. Turkey, to this day, has denied that a genocide occurred. (?A lot of Armenians died, that?s all.?) Because Pamuk mentioned the genocide, Turkey has put Pamuk on trial for ?insulting Turkishness.?
Even though the Turks deny the Armenian genocide, it didn?t stop the government back then from going to the biggest life insurance companies of the day, including KK?s own Equitable Life Assurance, and asking that death benefits be paid directly to the government. Their reasoning: All the beneficiaries had died, so the benefits should escheat to the state
Sigh. Okay the Bible pun has to do with the word "Word." As in "the Word," which believers use to mean the Bible. But "Word has it" is a common introductory phrase. The story of the Ark's resting place is in the Bible. So, "Word has it that the Ark landed in Armenia."
What I don't get is all my college students using "Word" in a one-word sentence. I think it means, "Yes, I hear what you're saying and I agree with it."
My first-ever attempt at hypertext links:
If you want to know the meaning of the word escheat click there.
I love the use of "word" to mean "that which you say is so true."
I've gotten flamed for using it during debates on the Yahoo! chess boards, because it is a little long in the tooth. But I say, we still use "cool" and practically no one thinks of "lousy" as slang.
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