Posted
on July 8, 2013
“Scud”
usually means to move quickly in a straight line. The word is
generally used for clouds. Sprinters running their races move
quickly, in straight lines—but you rarely hear that the sprinters
scudded down the race track. We much more often hear that clouds are
scudding across the sky.
There
is another “Scud,” and it is an unhappy word: certain missiles
developed by the Soviet Union, back when there was such a nation, and
look-alike missiles, are called scud missiles.
But
today is not about clouds or missiles. In this case, “SCUD” is an
acronym that means “Savor the Comic, Unplug the Drama.”
Today
we are urged to stop being Drama Queens and Kings, to shrug things
off, tone things down, laugh things off. And laugh at ourselves. And
laugh and laugh and laugh.
A
whole lot of laughter...
Laughing
comes naturally to humans. You may have noticed that babies can laugh
and giggle before they can talk, but did you know that other animals
laugh, too? I'm not talking about “laughing hyenas”; when spotted
hyenas “giggle,” they are being serious and saying, “Leave me
alone; this is MY hunk of meat!” (Or something like that.) I'm
talking about the sounds animals make as they play and chase one
another, or when they are tickled. Dogs and chimps make panting
noises that are similar to human laughter, and rats chirp in sounds
similar to young humans' squeals and giggles.
It
is interesting to learn more about laughter. The study of laughter is
called “gelotology” (which looks to me a lot like “Jello-tology,”
which I find very funny!), and some of the questions scientists are
studying include:
Why can't I tickle
myself?
Why is surprise so often
part of humor?
Why do we sometimes laugh
when we are nervous or even scared?
Also
on this date:
Plan ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest pages on July
holidays, historical
anniversaries in July,
and July
birthdays.
And
here are my Pinterest pages on August
holidays, historical
anniversaries in August,
and August
birthdays.
No comments:
Post a Comment