Way back in 1888 magic lanterns and stereopticons were used to illustrate lectures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Currently PowerPoint is a common visual aid, but before it there were 35mm slides, and before them there were lantern slides. As shown above, an ad on page 12 in the November 28, 1888 issue of the weekly humor magazine Puck (shown above) proclaimed that:

 

“STEREOPTICONS AND MAGIC LANTERNS Afford the best and cheapest means of Object Teaching for Colleges, Schools and Sunday-schools and are equally applicable for POPULAR ILLUSTRATED LECTURES, which, when well-managed, always PAY WELL as the giving of PUBLIC EXHIBITIONS is a very PROFITABLE BUSINESS especially for a person with small capital.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But what is a stereopticon? It is a stacked pair of magic lanterns (slide projectors). Look carefully and you can see that is what is shown in the ad. As shown above, they are able to smoothly dissolve from one image to another by rotating a shutter shaped like a propellor with two blades.

 

Back on November 15, 2012 I had blogged about how Slides were used as visual aids long before PowerPoint. Lantern slides had their heyday from about 1860 to 1960, when 35mm slides took over.

 

In the late 1950s Polaroid introduced their Polaroid Land Projection Film for making lantern slides quicky. It was discussed by David B. Hayt and John A. Evans in the December 1958 issue of Radiology magazine in an article titled A camera using the Polaroid Land Process for the reproduction of Roentgenograms as transparencies for projection. When I was in graduate school from 1973 to 1977 we sometimes used a Polaroid MP4 copy camera and a roll of their lantern slide film for last-minute production of pairs of 35mm slides. In 1983 Polaroid introduced Polachrome, an instant 35mm slide film.

 

The image of a Monarch dissolving stereopticon came from page 24 in the 1915 McIntosh Stereopticon Company Catalog found at the Internet Archive.

  

A zombie statistic that 77% of the general population fears public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Elizabeth Pratt at VeryWellHealth on January 24, 2022 titled What is Glossophobia? The Fear of Public Speaking. Her second sentence says that:

 

“Public speaking causes feelings of anxiety in roughly 77% of the general population, and it can sometimes hinder a person's day-to-day life. (Ref. 2)”

 

That percentage is nonsense but it keeps returning like a zombie. I blogged about it on October 12, 2020 in a post titled Do 77% of Americans fear public speaking? No! That percentage described stage fright in Swedes who also had social anxiety disorder. I had found that nonsense mentioned in an article at VeryWellMind on April 12, 2020 which since had been updated (with the same error) on July 16, 2021.   

 

The zombie image was adapted from this one at OpenClipArt.

 

Playing with words: IN- or OUT-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is fun to play with pairs of words that usually have opposite prefixes, like in- and out-. They could be the subject for a humorous Toastmasters speech.

 

We can easily come up with a half-dozen pairs like income/outcome along with five obvious opposites: infield/outfield, input/output, inset/outset, inside/outside and inward/outward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we also can come up with another half-dozen pairs that are ‘missing out’: incite/outcite, include/outclude, infatuate/outfatuate, influence/outfluence, inhibit/outhibit, and invent/outvent. All of them are shown above in a pair of tables.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, as is shown above, the in- prefix also can be used to negate other words, like active/inactive, capable/incapable, correct/incorrect, credible/incredible, decent/indecent, and definite/indefinite.

 

On January 8, 2022 I blogged about Playing with words that have prefixes of UP- or DOWN- and on January 12, 2022 I blogged about Playing with words that have prefixes of FORE – or AFTER-. And on April 20, 2018 I blogged about Playing with words: PRO or CON? and on February 12, 2021 I blogged about Playing with words: PRE- or POST-.

 

A speech isn’t a poker game, so show some emotion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When playing poker not revealing how you feel is useful, as shown above. But when giving a speech you need to show your emotions in order to connect with the audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Puck magazine cartoon from October 19, 1904 of Charles W. Fairbanks, shown above, makes fun of the total lack of expression sometimes displayed by that candidate for vice president, whose nickname was The Indian Icicle. This was when Theodore Roosevelt ran for president.

 

The March 21, 1908 issue of the Indianapolis Recorder has a character study article by James A. Edgerton about him titled Fairbanks, the man of order. A profile of him also appeared on pages 104 to 109 of Philip Secor’s 2013 book, Vice Presidential Profiles: Our Forgotten Leaders. Mr. Secor described how Fairbanks had a dual personality – an icy businessman and an enthusiastic politician. There is a 1904 book by William Henry Smith titled The Life and Speeches of Hon. Charles Warren Fairbanks. Fairbanks, Alaska was named to honor him.

 

The Puck cartoon of a poker game came from the August 28, 1907 issue.

 

Motorhomes exaggerated for humor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The seventh episode in the first season of The Simpsons (back in 1990) was titled The Call of the Simpsons. It began with their neighbor, Ned Flanders, showing off his new motorhome – a Land Behemoth. That vehicle had a microwave, dishwasher, big screen TV, deep fryer, and satellite dish. 

 

Naturally Homer wanted something even better, so he went to Bob’s RV Round-Up and asked to see their very best one – the two-story tall Ultimate Behemoth (shown above). It had an elevator, a fireplace, and four deep fryers (one for each part of the chicken). Rather than just a satellite dish it came with its very own satellite – the VanStar One. Of course, when Bob checked his credit rating Homer was told he couldn’t afford it in a million years. He got a used motorhome instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

85 years earlier the centerfold in Puck magazine for June 28,1905 was another cartoon titled The Touring Car of the Future. As shown above, it featured a three-story steamer with a dining hall, bar, hair dresser’s studio, nursery, gym on the roof, and a champagne tank.  

 

Chasing the truth by using interviews

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At my friendly, local, public library I just found the 2021 book by Jodi Cantor and Megan Twohey titled Chasing the Truth: A Young Journalist’s Guide to Investigative Reporting. Pages 232 to 241 outline their process, which involves use of interviews as follows:

 

Uncover abuses

Follow the facts

Be specific and precise

Find sources

Prepare for interviews

Research your sources

Establish the ground rules

Be up-front with your sources

Record your conversations

Document your findings

Show up

Double-check

Be fair

Go off topic

Move fast

Never let up

 

You can read the details at Amazon via their Look Inside preview for that book.

 

Before you interview you need to prepare by making a list of questions. Attorneys do this a lot, and prepare checklists for the types of cases they do. One type of legal interview in the discovery process before a civil trial is called a deposition. That is out-of-court testimony made under oath and recorded by an authorized officer for later use in court. For example, on March 11, 2021 Karen Koehler has an article titled Deposition of the Defendant Driver – basic checklist.

 

A cartoon from page 57 in a 1917 book titled F. Fox’s Funny Folk at the Internet Archive was modified and colored in.

 

NSA’s bimonthly Speaker magazine has not posted their November/December 2021 or January/February 2022 issues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The U.S. National Speakers Association (NSA) publishes a bimonthly magazine titled Speaker, which you can find archived at this web page. On January 15, 2021 I blogged about how Toastmasters is also for professional speakers, like NSA members. In that post I discussed an article in the January/February 2021 issue by Dave Bricker titled Toastmasters for professional speakers?

 

But neither the January/February 2022 nor the November/December 2021 issues have been posted yet. There must be some sort of production problem, which hasn’t been discussed on their blog.  

 

Today’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip is on how you should pronounce some words

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rat is angry (as usual) in today’s Pearls Before Swine cartoon. The dialogue is as follows

 

Goat: What’s the matter with you?

Rat: I’m angry.

Goat: Angry over what?

Rat: The fact that there’s an ‘l’ in ‘could’… do you pronounce the ‘l’? I don’t pronounce the ‘l’. No one pronounces the ‘l’.

Goat: Should I have argued?

Pig: I woud not.  

 

But the ‘l’ is NOT silent in mould.

Playing with words that have prefixes of FORE- or AFTER-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s fun to play with pairs of words that have opposite prefixes like FORE- and AFTER-. They could be the subject for a humorous Toastmasters speech. Back on February 12, 2021 I had similarly blogged about Playing with words: PRE- or POST-.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above in a table, we can easily come up with a half-dozen pairs like forebear/afterbear, forelife/afterlife, foremost/aftermost, forenoon/afternoon, forethought/afterthought, and foreword/afterword. Afterbear is obscure; I’ve never heard it used.

 

And we also can come up with another eight pairs that are ‘missing after’: forearm/afterarm, forecast/aftercast, foreclose/afterclose, forefather/afterfather, forefront/afterfront, foreground/afterground, forerunner/afterrunner, forestall/afterstall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The forearm also is called the lower arm, and what is above the elbow is the upper arm rather than the afterarm. We are very interested in a forecast of the weather, but not so much in an aftercast. Real estate can be foreclosed on but not afterclosed. Afterfront sounds silly, and afterground instead is background. Afterrunner is a single word that could describe a chase vehicle usually called a police interceptor. Toyota makes a sport utility vehicle called the 4Runner. All eight words are shown above in a table.

 

A drawing of an arm came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

The opening paragraph of an article on public speaking earns two pinocchios for telling us lies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Forbes on December 27, 2021 there is an otherwise decent article by Johnny Warström with a misleading title of Facing our greatest fear: How senior leaders can handle public speaking in the new normal. It opens with this paragraph:

 

“More of us are affected by glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, than a fear of spiders, heights and even death. Yes, you read that right. Apparently, we are more scared of speaking up in public than we are of dying. It seems some of us would sooner die than deliver a presentation at work. How did it come to this?”

 

First, when you click on the link (to a Washington Post article about the Phobias from the 2014 Chapman Survey of American Fears), you will find that while public speaking is the most common fear it does not ever mention death. Second, Johnny shifted from asking if more of us are scared (how many) to if we were more scared (how much) in his title and third sentence -   quite a different question. 

 

Worse still his superficial research ignored a half-dozen more recent Chapman surveys. Results from the latest 2020/21 survey of ninety-five fears would lead us to both change the article title and rewrite the opening paragraph as follows:

 

“Public speaking isn’t a very big deal for U. S. adults. A recent survey found that it’s their 54th most common fear (out of 95) at 29%; ranked below others like Heights (#46, 31.2%), Sharks (#51, 29.5%), and even Dying (#53, 29.3%). Contrast those with People I Love Dying, ranked at #2 (58.5%) behind the most common fear of Corrupt Government Officials (79.6%).”   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were seven Chapman surveys, and the six more recent ones included the fear of dying. As shown above via a bar chart, public speaking wasn’t anywhere near the most common fear. Also, in the three most recent surveys fear of dying outranked the fear of public speaking. You can find their other fear lists online for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I blogged about that 2014 survey a day before the Washington Post article in a post titled Chapman Survey on American Fears includes both zombies and ghosts. But along with a phobias category that survey also has eight fears about crime, as also are shown above in a bar chart. One of those (identity theft/credit card fraud) was feared by 49.7% of Americans, or almost twice the 25.3% for public speaking.

 

On December 6, 2021 I blogged about how Most Americans are not terrified of public speaking. By using the detailed results from those Chapman surveys we can calculate Fear Scores, and for 2020/21 will find that on a scale where 1 = Not Afraid, 2 = Slightly Afraid, 3 = Afraid, and 4 = Very Afraid the fear of public speaking is scored just barely over Slightly Afraid, at 2.023.  

 

How could we honestly make the fear of public speaking look significant? Forget about that #54 ranking, and convert the percentage to a number. The 2020 U. S. Census found there were 258.3 million adults 18 years and older. Just multiply that huge number by 0.29, and you get that there are 74.9 million people who fear public speaking.  

 

The Pinocchio image was cropped, Photoshopped, and colored from the 1899 book, Le Avventure di Pinocchio at the Internet Archive.

 

Playing with words that have prefixes of UP- or DOWN-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s fun to play with pairs of words that have opposite prefixes like up- and down-. They could be the subject for a humorous Toastmasters speech.

 

We can easily come up with a half dozen pairs: updraft/downdraft, upgrade/downgrade, upload/download, upright/downright, upstairs/downstairs, and upwind/downwind. One, Upstairs, Downstairs even was the title for a British television series starting in 1971 and a BBC remake almost three decades later.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above in a table, one member of a pair may be missing. You can upholster but not downholster. Something can be uplifted but not downlifted. There can be a downpour of rain, but not an uppour. There can be an upstart but not a downstart. You can be downtrodden, but not uptrodden.

 

On April 20, 2018 I blogged about Playing with words: PRO or CON? and on February 12, 2021 I blogged about Playing with words: PRE- or POST-.

 

ARF - the Asshole Rightwing Fringe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is the first anniversary of an attack at the U. S. Capitol. I went looking for an insult with an acronym even nastier than RINO (Republican In Name Only), and came up with ARF (Asshole Rightwing Fringe).

 

ARF previously has been used by both Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation and the Advertising Research Foundation. The barking dog image came from Openclipart.  

 

A great storyteller, Edward O. Wilson, died at age 92

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On December 27, 2021 at NPR there was an article by Scott Neuman titled E. O. Wilson, famed entomologist and pioneer in the field of sociobiology, dies at 92. That article mentioned he won two Pulitzer Prizes. His Wikipedia page says they were for the non-fiction books, On Human Nature (1979), and The Ants (1991).

 

In a video preview on YouTube titled Reflections on a Life in Science he said:

 

“The scientist is much more of a storyteller and a myth maker than I think most scientists realize, or at least care to admit. I’ve always been taken by the formula suggested by the film maker Howard Hawks who said if you’re a storyteller, find a good story and tell it. The scientist is in fact a storyteller looking for a story to tell, not of fiction but certainly a product of the imagination passed through the crucible of testing in the real world.

 

But his whole aim as a social being is to imagine this new thing, maybe stimulated by an observation or an idea of some relationship, a metaphor, an analogy or whatever. To imagine it, to see if it could be true, to explore its implications, to generate a paradigm experiment, an experiment which demonstrates it in some dramatic way.

 

The scientists then use the term elegant as a highly approving expression. That means you can show what you are trying to show, you can tell your story, in a way that is startling, new, and convincing, and easily understood, and transparent. And then your aim is to return to the public at large, preferably your colleagues, who have the ability to appreciate or willingness to appreciate what you’ve done, and you tell that story.”             

 

There is another 7-1/2-minute YouTube video at Big Think titled E. O. Wilson on pheromones and the hidden world of other senses. We and birds are audio/visual communicators; other species are not. A 28-minute BBC Sounds audio at The Life Scientific titled EO Wilson on ants and evolution briefly describes how (starting at 11:00) he discovered, via careful dissection, that fire ants used pheromones for chemical communication. Chapter 11, How we broke the pheromone code, in his 2020 book Tales from the Ant World tells that story in more detail. He used an extremely sharp tip of a Dumont No. 5 tweezers to dissect the Dufour’s gland, and then the tip of a sharpened wooden applicator stick to draw trails for the fire ants to follow from their nest entrance. But then he needed help from chemists to identify the substance using Gas chromatography-massspectrometry (GCMS). That was tedious, since they needed to collect the pheromone from thousands of ants in order to get a large enough sample.

 

There is an article by Wilson in the Spring 2002 issue of American Educator titled The Power of Story. Another article by him in the New York Times on August 21, 2020 is titled The Zombie Ants (When ants are accidentally marked as dead, they find a way to rejoin the living). Back on October 4, 2013 I blogged about Edward O. Wilson on storytelling and the creative process.

 

The 1884 painting by Albert Anker of grandfather telling a story (from Wikimedia Commons) has been flipped, cropped, and Photoshopped. I previously used it on April 25, 2010 for a post titled Glory of a story: Craig Harrison.

 

Trump’s claim that the Misery Index reached its highest level in three decades under Biden is a miserable lie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On December 29, 2021 Donald Trump had a very long article titled Year in Review: Joe Biden’s cascading domestic catastrophes. (It runs over 5,000 words, which would take 25 minutes to read at an average rate of 200 words per minute).  One of his claims caught my eye:

“The MISERY INEX (a combination of the inflation and unemployment rates) has reached its highest level in three decades under Biden.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to fact check just that claim, and found it to be miserably false according to a Misery Index web page. When you look at the Misery Index, as shown above for 2020 (Trump) and 2021(Biden), you find that under Biden it rose from 8 to 11, while under Trump in April 2020 it had peaked at slightly over 15. It had peaked at 12.9 under Obama, at 11.5 under G. W. Bush, at 10.6 under Clinton, at 12.5 under G. H. W. Bush, and 19.3 under Reagen.   

 

Where had Trump gotten that highest level in three decades? It might have been misreading of an article by David N. Bossie at Fox News on November 15, 2021 titled Biden’s misery index makes Carter presidency seem like the good old days, which instead said in the third paragraph that the Consumer Price Index jumped to its highest point in 30 years. Elsewhere in the Trump article it had said correctly: “Unemployment quickly fell to half its pandemic peak.”

 

The image is a colored version of one from page 171 of the 1904 edition of The Adventures of Pinocchio found at the Internet Archive.

 

Have you ever been buked or futed? Roots for transitive verbs left after removing the prefix re-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

There are lots of English verbs beginning with the prefix re-, meaning back or again. Words like rebuke, reconcile, refute, rehabilitate, rejuvenate, or renounce. But when you strip off that prefix (re-), as shown above via a word cloud, the root left for describing the first time often looks rather strange. It may have come from other languages like Latin, French, or Old English. Have you ever been buked, futed, juvenated, or nounced?  

 

I got the 1962 edition of the Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language from my bookshelf, and listed roots for most of the transitive ones I found (over 110) which are:  

 

bate, buke, but, call, cant, ceive,

cite, claim, cline, cognize, collect, commend,

compense, concile, coup, cover, create, dact,

deem, develop, direct, double, duce ,fer,

fine, flect, form, fract, fresh, fund,

fuse, fute, gain, gale, gret, habilitate,

hearse, join, juvenate, late, lax, lease,

linquish, mand, mark, member, mind, mit,

model, monstrate, move, nder, new, nounce 

pair, peal, peat, pel, place, plenish,

port, pose, present, press, prieve, proach,

produce, prove, pudiate, pulse, pute, quire,

quite, route, scind, scue, seat, sect,

semble, sent, serve, sign, sist, solve,

sorb, spect, state, store, strain, strict,

sume, surface, suscitate, tail, tain, tard,

tort, trace, tract, tread, trench, trieve

vamp, veal, venge, vere, vile, vise,

voke, volve, wire, word, write

 

Origins for three of them could be the topic for a humorous five-to-seven minute speech at a Toastmasters club. On February 12, 2021 I blogged about the lack of symmetry in two prefixes with a post titled Playing with words: PRE- or POST-?

 

In 2022 only you can prevent bad presentations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again it’s time for a series of four posters reminding us that we can do a better job of preparing, practicing, and presenting. This is the eighth one of mine to appear on New Year’s Day. There previously were blog posts in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. An article at The Buckley School on December 30, 2021 told us we should Resolve never to be a bore.

 

 

Somehow, I previously had missed the World War I poster, Subscribe Italian Credit, over at the Library of Congress. It was a counterpart to the British  and U.S. fingers pointing at us I used for 2016. The Petrus Staverenus painting of a woman, the blurry man pointing to you, and the cartoon woman all are from Wikimedia Commons.