Astronomers show way to world peace

Subject: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 08:13 PM

Astronomers, by taking the bold step in de-certifying Pluto as a planet, have shown politicians the way to world peace. De-certify small countries, duchies, principalities and miscellaneous states.

So we could de-certify Israel, Kuwait and nascent Palestine; that ought to alleviate 98.5% of world tension!

Let's see, Andorra, Monaco, Luxembourg and Vatican City would have to go...way to small. Vatican City only has a population of maybe 10, and they don't even reproduce. Yet I see problems here. These 'countries' produce some of the world's most beautiful postage stamps...beware rioting philatelists.

Moving west, Rhode Island and Delaware would have to merge with Connecticut to make one real state.

And in the Pacific all those little dots of land should be compressed into larger litte dots of land to make real countries.

You'll have to carry this on for me as I have a telescope to look through so I can say good-bye to Pluto. Hasta la vista, Pluto.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Peace
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 08:16 PM

Not only that, they also changed Pluto's appearance.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 08:47 PM

Leave those little dots alone. As it is they seem to be the only places that are doing ok. Maybe it's those lager masses that should break into more of the little dots. That way every place would be to little to mess with all the others. Opps, maybe Pluto should continue on like it was.
Barry

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Aug 06 - 09:59 PM

Actually astronomers have reclassified Pluto as a 'dwarf planet'.

Which gives me some ideas about reclassifying some politicians as "dwarf minded politicians", and disallowing them access to weapons...

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Barry Finn
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 12:08 AM

That's insulting to a dwarf. Do they mind politcians? I once heard a dwarf say that the usuall politican's brain is so small the you could take & shove it up an ant's asshole & then shake the ant & it would just like a BB in a box car.

Barry

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Peace
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 12:37 AM

This picture will clarify the rationale.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Peace
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 12:41 AM

Sorry. I mean THIS picture will clarify the butter.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Peace
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 12:47 AM

OK. The astronomers are serious. Notice in this picture NO PLUTO!

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Slag
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 01:12 AM

Pluto, God of the Underworld. Who are mere humans and especially "Scientists" to deny Him his place in the heavenly pantheon? Bad enough the planet is so puny to begin with. Does this mean that plutonic relationships are now a small thing? Will plutonium bombs now just pop and fizz like a wet firecracker (as opposed to fiss[ion] and POP)? Are Plutocrats out of office? How will this bring peace, Peace? Cerberus cometh! There is no peace.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Peace
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 01:38 AM

"There is no peace."

And where there is no peace there is no queues either.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Slag
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 02:06 AM

"are" no queues!

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: John O'L
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 02:15 AM

Are there arse where there are no peace or queues?

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Slag
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 04:06 AM

A pice for a quince.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Azizi
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 06:19 AM

Well, anybody thinkin 'bout dissin Pluto better mind their p's and q's 'cause Pluto is ah bad mother-hush your mouth!

[I bet ya no one here knows where that last part of that sentence comes from.]

But, gettin back to bizness, what in the world does "mind your p's and q's" mean?

Here's some information from http://experts.about.com/q/Etymology-Meaning-Words-1474/Derivation-phrase-1.htm:

"MIND YOUR PS AND QS

A puzzling and quirky idiom

There has recently been a discussion on the Usenet newsgroup alt.usage.english about this somewhat outdated saying. As so often happens, a series of posters have recounted the explanations they've heard about its origins without really advancing the discussion. It would be difficult to reach a conclusion in any case, as the facts to base it on have been lost. All we can do is theorise, which can be fun, but it does tend to generate more heat than light. Here, for what its worth, are the facts so far as I know them.

Its meaning in recent times—and the one I learned as a child in west London nearly 50 years ago—has been "to mind one's manners", "to behave properly". This is a weakened sense to the one it had in the nineteenth century, when it meant, according to Eric Partridge in A Dictionary of Historical Slang: "to be careful, exact, or prudent in behaviour".

These are some of the explanations I've seen advanced in various places:

    * Advice to a child learning its letters to be careful not to mix up the handwritten lower-case letters p and q.
    * Similar advice to a printer's apprentice, for whom the backward-facing metal type letters would be especially confusing.
    * Jocular, or perhaps deadly serious, advice to a barman not to confuse the letters p and q on the tally slate, on which the letters stood for the pints and quarts consumed "on tick" by the patrons.
    * An abbreviation of mind your please's and thank-you's.
    * Instructions from a French dancing master to be sure to perform the dance figures pieds and queues accurately.
    * An admonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with their tarred queues, that is, their pigtails.

It is possible to put forward objections to all of these. Why should p and q be singled out for attention in handwriting, when similar problems occur with b and d? This comment might be thought to apply with even greater force to the poor printer's apprentice. The pints and quarts explanation sounds reasonable, provided that men in bars used to drink beer by the quart, as in fact they did. The French dancing-master explanation sounds just too far-fetched to be credible, as does the one about the seamen. The mind your please's and thank-you's seems just as unlikely as the others, but is seriously advanced by some dictionaries, the current edition of the Collins English Dictionary among them.

There are two similar usages recorded:

    * There was once an expression P and Q, often written pee and kew, which was a seventeenth-century colloquial expression for "prime quality". This later became a dialect expression (the English Dialect Dictionary reports it in Victorian times from Shropshire and Herefordshire). OED2 has a citation from Rowlands' Knave of Harts of 1612:
    * "Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew." Nobody is really sure what either P or Q stood for. To say they're the initials of "Prime Quality" seems to be folk etymology, because surely that would make "PQ" rather than "P and Q". Partridge says that the phrase learn your Ps and Qs, was common about 1820, again being advice to children who may be confused about the two letters.

You may feel the first of these tends to confuse the issue rather than illuminate it, and you may be right. It may just be coincidence. However, the second does tend to support the idea that it relates to children learning their alphabets. If I had to make a choice, I'd plump for the alphabet-learning origin.

What we do know is that mind your Ps and Qs was first recorded in 1779 but that it is slowly dying out. To lose it would be a pity, as it is a link to the past and makes a good subject for some quiet speculation and ingenious attempts at explanation. In common with so many words and phrases in English, its origins must remain a mystery."

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 07:53 AM

If He is God of the Underworld, why the Hell should He be in Heaven?

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: terrier
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 08:46 AM

and I thought PLUTO stood for PipeLine Under The Ocean,the WW2 effort to get fuel across the English Channel, or mebee I'm getting it mixed up with the Channel Tunnel, a modern day effort to get Barry Finn's 'Lager masses' (we call them Lager Louts) across the English Channel. The UK is a plethora of little countries, does this mean that Wales really would in England and Yorkshire and Lancashire would merge....

T

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 09:08 AM

Nope!

Yorkshire and Lancashire are counties, not countries, and neither the Welsh nor the English would look with favour on the idea of a merger.

Much of the time, we don't even speak the same language.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Aug 06 - 08:13 PM

"America and England - two countries divided by a common language."

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Slag
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 12:35 AM

Good question Foolestroupe, but they are almost all represented there along with a few demi-Gods (Heracletus, Perseus, etc.) and even a human or two thrown in for good measure (Andromeda, Cassiopia, others?). I kinda think of it as a marquee. Their names are up in lights but they conduct their business at the shop or studio!!

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Peace
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 03:14 AM

"are" no queues!

OK then: And where there are no peace there are no queues either.

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 04:56 AM

... and 'are queue' to you too! {:P

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Slag
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:55 PM

queue-t, very queue-t

Subject: RE: Astronomers show way to world peace
From: Slag
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 05:59 PM

If Pluto is in line to be a planet but for now its just a ball is it a queue-ball? Since it cuts in line ahead of Neptune it must be sent to the tail of the queue. At this rate it never will become a planet.