Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Spaceopoly Kill This Thread XI: The Seventh 24-Hour Thread

The secretary bird is the only extant species in the genus Sagittarius.

A Secretary Bird was the lion king's secretary on Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is based on two children's novels by Mary Norton: 1943's The Magic Bed Knob and 1945's Bonfires and Broomsticks.

I'm hoping to visit the UK during Guy Fawkes Day one year. Bonfires and fireworks!

I was researching my English ancestry recently. My great-grandfather was born in Barnstaple in North Devon.

One of my more prominent ancestors was Richard Cox, a fairly important English clergyman during the reformation. Apparently he was not particularly politically astute, as he managed to massively offend Queen Elizabeth by preaching a sermon on the frailty of women during her coronation!

A lot of foreigners I meet seem surprised that many Filipinos are quite fluent in English. I mean, it's only one of our national languages.

A lot of people don't realise that the British offloaded the people they didn't really like to the colonies generations ago.

"Sure, have some land." "Sure, that speech is great." "Sure, Dakota is just like Devon. And there are penguins there too." were just some of the many pretexts used to get shot of them.

As the ships sailed into the completely well charted, but later pretended not to be, waters those on the docks wished them a fond "I thought they'd never leave" farewell.

And thothkins knows this because he is much, much older than he looks!

"I've been alive forever,
And I wrote the very first song."

--the opening lines of Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs," written by sometimes Beach Boy Bruce Johnston.

Some of Barry Manilow's detractors call him "Barely Any Nose", because he allegedly had bad plastic surgery on his nose.

Thank you, ever so much for the earworm, He Who.

Rocky's reply just reminded me of the Bloom County Bill-the-Cat-centered parody of said earworm:

Bill wrote the songs that made the whole world sing
Bill wrote the songs and said stupid things
Yes, Bill is gross-buckets
And he howls the songs

Sounds hilarious, Fanfie. Sounds like it wouldn't be a bad earworm.

"Gross-buckets" was a classic Bloom County-ism. When Opus the Penguin was buying Lola Granola's engagement ring, the sign on the jewelry counter said "A woman without diamonds is gross-buckets."

I used to pronounce "gross" with a short "o" sound.

I used to think "awry" was pronounced "orry".

When very small, I pronounced "Italian" like "Italy" with an "an" on the end.

I once embarrassed myself in a college class by pronouncing the word "rapport' as "rap-port."

(And you're welcome for the earworm, Rocky. )

The one oddly-pronounced word I never had trouble with was "rendezvous".

But "renege", I kept pronouncing as "renedge".

Hors d'oeuvre was an interesting one for me, as though I'd heard the word quite a bit, and would see it in print, it took me quite awhile to figure out that they were the same word.

I once played a game of Password with my family and gave away the word "negligee" because I didn't know that's how it was spelled.

Pariah was another one I had trouble with. I'd first encountered it in COIE but couldn't quite pronounce it in my head.

I remember thinking that "Submariner" was pronounced "SubmaREENer."

Me too! Although even now that I know the correct pronunciation, I still think it's a terribly silly superhero name. I'm glad he just goes by Namor now.