Bill W

The word "assemblage" originates from the Old French verb "assembler," which means "to come together, join, or unite," ultimately tracing back to the Latin "assimulare," meaning "to copy, to make like," and later "to gather together". According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word "assemblage" first appeared in English in the late 1600s. The OED's earliest evidence for its use is from 1690, in the writings of philosopher John Locke. However, Merriam-Webster claims the term "assemblage" was first used in English in 1657, without listing a source for that claim. While the term itself is relatively old, its application in the context of art, particularly as art assemblage, is more recent, with Jean Dubuffet being credited with popularizing it in the 1950s. Examples of "assemblage" used in a sentence: "A large statue or an assemblage of stones also can be used as a substitute." "It's a rare assemblage and collection of paintings." "A diverse assemblage of mainly wetland plant species resulted from sampling." "The assemblage of people was eclectic, and the only common thread seemed to be the open bar. "But this work, like Waters's, seemed to still be in its assemblage phase." "But it is not so much the calibre of individual pieces as the atmosphere of the whole assemblage that is striking." "These alteration assemblages are consistent with those observed on the edges of quartz veins and within small shears through the granodiorite."

That's the question that Mac and Devin had with each other. They boys haven't given up their detective work, though, so maybe will find out some answers in the upcoming chapters. Who knows, there may be some surprises along the way.

Actually, I fogot until a show came on TV that I knew was only on Tuesday.

Chapter 17 – A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma Now that I’d solved the mystery about the baseball caps, I was ready to pull out the plastic container and find out what was inside. After doing a little research, we discovered the plastic container was made by Tupperware before 1980, so now we focused on the contents of the container. The first thing we pulled out was an old baseball glove that was much smaller than a modern baseball glove and much more crudely made. The leather was al

The word "mnemonic" originates from the Ancient Greek word μνημονικός (mnēmonikos) (adjective), meaning "of or relating to memory". This, in turn, is derived from μνήμη (mnēmē), meaning "remembrance" or "memory". The Greek word is also connected to Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. The core of the word traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root *men-, meaning "to think". Also from modern Latin from modern Latin mnemonica (in the same sense), Latin mneimonicum ''mnemonic device’. The first known use of the word "mnemonic" in English, as an adjective, dates back to 1661, in a letter by Samuel Hartlib, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The noun form, referring to a mnemonic device, appeared later, in 1842. Examples of "mnemonic" in a sentence: "As the CORE mnemonic device shows, it's all up to you." "S.T.O.P. refers to the survival mnemonic for Stop, Think, Observe and Plan." "The DREAMS mnemonic can help make the diagnosis when it is being considered." "In fact, we can improve memory with mnemonic devices." "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos is a mnemonic used to remember the order of the planets." "Roy G. Biv is a mnemonic used to remember the colors of the visible light spectrum (in order of increasing frequency): Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Closed the poll? I just finished reading the last two stories today. And all the best wishes for your husbands speedy recovery and for you to retain your sanity during this trying time visiting the husband in the hospital and taking care of the kids. That can be a lot to juggle, so I wish all the best for both of you.

Maybe not of me directly, but in how the definition of decimate has drifted from its original meaning. I thought I'd appease him, nonetheless.

Another icon from the past has passed away. Rest in peace, Loni, and may our memories of you never fade.

Where all getting old and the icons from our youth are getting even older and we're losing them one at a time. Rest in peace, Ozzy, and I know Sharon is heartbroken, so I hope she's able to survive without you.

Life is full of disappointments, some are minor and others more severe. The minor disappointments are when an acquaintance disappoints you, and it's harder to deal with when a friend, especially a close friend disappoints you, but it can be totally devastating when your parents disappoint you. How do you handle it when the ones that gave you life disappoint you? Those can be the most severe blows of all. It doesn't have to totally devastating or completely ruin your life, though. It's how you deal with those disappointments that determines if you're a survivor or a loser. This is exactly the situation that the main character of this story, Timothy Chowder, has to deal with, so read this emotionally filled short story to discover which category he fits into. Is Timothy Chowder a survivor or a just another loser?

The world is full of secrets and the author delineates the different types of secrets in vivid detail. However, the author is also keeping a secret, one that they don't totally detail. Will you read this short story to see if you can discern what that secret is?

Am I the only one thinking of Walter Mitty? I might be wrong, but that's what came to mind for me.

There, I corrected by entry in response to your complaint.

Kyle and Oliver are dormmates and Kyle has a crush on Oliver. The problem is that Kyle is gay and Oliver is straight. They are friends, though, and Oliver doesn't know about the crush, even though Kyle seems to be devoted to him. Oliver invites Kyle to go to a party with him, mainly because he has to bring someone, rules of the party, and what happens there isn't what anyone could possibly expect. If you want to find out what that is, then get comfortable, open this short story in your browser, and prepare for a surprise. Even with all of these clues, I still doubt you'll be able to figure out what's coming.

Did anyone else have the TV series Dexter come to mind? Revenge not for himself, but for everyone else, and then he goes and frames her current boyfriend by slipping the syringe into his pocket. I hope Oliver never pisses him off. Oh, and using his dad's nine iron on the neighbor? I wonder what his father thought when his nine iron came up missing or severely damaged?

Decimate is from Latin decimat- ‘taken as a tenth’, from the verb decimare, from decimus, which meant the "the removal or destruction of one-tenth". What offences could lead to the Romans use of decimation, or the killing of every tenth man or one tenth of a unit? Decimation was an extreme punishment for the most serious transgressions, such as cowardice, insubordination, desertion and mutiny. The mere threat of decimation was designed to ensure that soldiers adhered to military discipline. In Middle English the term decimation denoted the levying of a tithe, and later the tax imposed by Cromwell on the Royalists (1655). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the verb "decimate" was first used in English in the late 1500s, specifically in 1591. It was borrowed from the Latin word decimatus, which is the perfect passive participle of decimō (meaning "to kill one tenth" or "to tithe"). In modern English, "decimate" is most commonly used to mean "to severely damage or destroy" or "to greatly reduce in number," reflecting the broader sense that has developed over time. Examples of using "decimate" in a sentence: "Yet both dam projects would decimate the very scrubland the lynx depends on." "This kind of moth is responsible for decimating thousands of trees in our town." "Budget cuts have decimated public services in small towns." "Bouts of large-scale logging decimated close to a third of their forest in the 1980s." "If something is drastically reduced or killed, especially in number, you can say it was decimated." "The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico decimated the wildlife along the coast." "Silber says the tax rollback would decimate basic services to the needy by ten percent."

The word "heliotropism" has roots in ancient Greek, combining "helios," (ἥλιος) meaning "sun," and "tropism" (τροπή), meaning "a turn" or "a turning." Therefore, heliotropism literally translates to "sun-turn" or "turning towards the sun". This accurately describes the phenomenon where plant parts, particularly leaves and flowers, orient themselves in the direction of the sun's movement across the sky. The term itself origninated in French as "héliotropisme" and was most likely introduced by the Swiss naturalist Jean Senebier around 1800, before being adopted by the English. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the noun "heliotropism" was first used in English in 1854, in the writings of Robert Mayne. Examples of "heliotropism" used in a sentence: "Heliotropism can be seen in sunflower fields as the plants track the sun's movement across the sky." | "The researchers have not yet identified the genes involved in heliotropism." "It's heliotropism, and sunflowers are not the only plants that track the sun." "But light sensitivity—or heliotropism—plays a role too." "All legume plants do this, so be sure to watch your peas and beans for signs of heliotropism." "His very geographical situation was sufficient to turn the mind towards him, but the particular reason for that heliotropism on the part of his feminine neighbors was that he was an easy man for a woman to ask."

If you're looking for a story that will make your spine tingle and the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, then look no further. This short story will do that for you. Don't let the SA's story description mislead you, because this story has nothing to do with a Secret Santa. It's more like an evil and deadly Grinch before Halloween. Just don't read this prior to bedtime, because if you do, you'll probably have trouble falling asleep. Kudos, SA, for a creepy and haunting tale.

Secret Santa meets the Haunted Mansion with a doorway to the Twilight Zone. What a tense and wild ride the SA took us on. Congrats, SA, mission accomplished. I don't think any of us will sleep well or be opening any doors that we don't know where they lead to for a while. My take, to answer your question Lee, was that one of the doors actually led into the spaceship and onto a holodeck, thus simulating the beach and ocean. The slithering creature was either one of the aliens or one of their pets, and that's what killed those three individuals, and the girl that first greeted them was either a holo-simulation or a robot of somesort based on their first victim.

It's bad enough when acquaintances and friends disappoint you, but when your parents, the people who gave you life disappoint you, it hurts even worse. And when they think you're defective, lie to you, and even steal from you, the pain is unbearable. Tim has had a lot to deal with, but thankfully his nanna and Dave are there for him, so I hope that's enough to keep him sane and give him the ability to move on.

Much appreciated.

The word "cryptid" originates from the combination of the Greek word "keypto" meaning "hide" or "hidden" and the English suffix "-id", which often denotes a member of a group or class. The earliest known use of the noun cryptid is in the 1980s. OED's earliest evidence for cryptid is from 1983, in the writing of J. E. Wall. a cryptozoologist, in a letter to the editor of the International Society of Cryptozoology's newsletter. Examples of "cryptid" used in a sentence: "A cryptid is a creature whose existence is rumored or reported but not proven by scientific evidence." "Slick was also devoted to adventure — and the search for cryptids." "Lewis is killed in a car accident, Noah feels that the only person who can understand him is the famed cryptid Mothman." "You can only rule one individual case at a time as not being a cryptid." "The true definition of a cryptid is an animal that has not yet been classified by zoology." "It examines some of the legends and hypotheses surrounding this cryptid and also shows clips from other videos as well as drawings based on descriptions from "eyewitnesses". "Chupacabra, also known as Chupacabras, is a cryptid that is believed to be indigenous to Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America and the United States.

Digging through old family photos can unearth precious memories or family secrets, and this particular photo elicited both positive and negative emotions, but no one was willing to talk about it. Undeterred, the main character in this short story was determined to find the answers about this haunting photo, but you'll have to read this provocative and spellbinding story to find out what he discovered.

Awesome job, SA. A truly captivating and sad story. Family secrets can far too often cause more damage when they aren't spoken about, than if they had been brought into the light and explained. I know, because I once unleashed a family secret by accident. I had been going through a box of photos my grandmother had set aside, and when I neared the bottom of the box, I found a black and white photo in a bi-fold cardboard frame. At the time I didn't pay attention to the gold lettering on the front of the closed cardboard frame, thinking it was probably the manufacturers logo, and opened the photo to see who or what it was. I probably could have read it, if I'd taken the time, since I was probably seven or eight-years-old at the time. Anyway, it was the photo of a baby dressed in light blue, probably only 4-10 weeks old, and he was wearing a bonnet and laying in a casket. Confused, I grabbed the photo and ran downstairs to ask my grandmother about it. Unfortunately, the house was filled with relatives at the time, with the men out on the front porch, just back from the hunt, and my grandmother, mother, and four aunts were all sitting in the living room. I ran up to my grandmother holding the photo in my hand, cover of the cardboard frame folded back and the photo on full display. "Grandma, who is this and why is he in a casket?" I immediately heard several gasps and one aunt screamed before she started crying, which caused my uncles to come rushing into the house to discover what the commotion was about. As my mom and other aunts tried to console the aunt who'd become hysterical, while my grandmother took the photo, grabbed me by the hand, and walked my upstairs to her bedroom. "Honey, you shouldn't be going through things in my bedroom without my permission." "I'm sorry, but who's the baby?" "It's the first child your Aunt Le gave birth to. He would have been several month older than you and the oldest of my grandchildren, but he died suddenly several weeks after he was born and your aunt has never recovered from his loss. I think she had stored his memory in the back of her mind, but seeing the photo again brought it all crashing back again, like it had just happened." "But why did she get so upset?" "The funeral was hard enough on her, but during the calling hours, on of the children there with their parents managed to knock the bonnet off and exposed the fact that part of the baby's skull had been removed during the autopsy and had been sewn back into place and the bonnet was put on him to cover it up. Your aunt didn't know there had been an autopsy, because your uncle gave his permission, but didn't tell her because she was already so upset. Seeing that photo brought all of those memories flooding back to her." I'd sat with my grandmother when she showed me the photos in that box previously, but obviously not all of them. If she and my mom hadn't been trying so hard to keep it all a secret, I would have already seen it and heard the story, so I wouldn't have blundered into that situation like I did. Unfortunately, it affected my relationship with that aunt until the day she died, because she always treated me like an intentional trouble maker for doing that to her when I was seven or eight-years-old. Anyway, great job SA and fortunately this family secret ended a little better and the guardian angel, Phin, not only protected Markus, but it also brought long overdue piece to Uncle Harold. Oh, and I like that Markus resembled his Grandfather Ezra when he was that age. Love family resemblances.