Casualty

This word is interesting in that it has three potential meanings.

First is as a person or thing that is lost injured or destroyed. Which is how you have probably heard it used the most. Someone who is lost or wounded in an event is usually counted as a casualty. It can also broadly mean “victim” with no real violence required. Someone who loses their job due to downsizing can be considered a “casualty” of declining fortunes.

The second, which we still hear from time to time, is defined as a serious or fatal accident. So the event itself. Which you may have seen when shopping for insurance. For example, the company named Bankers Life and Casualty Company or when reading your policy and you see the P&C line: Property and Casualty. if I fall down and break my leg at your house it would be covered under your casualty insurance.

The third one and the one that is the origin for all of them dates to the 15th century and means “chance or fortune”.  This can be traced to Late Middle English and all the way back to the Latin casualtias and casualis that translates to casual. Which kind of make sense.

So yes, when they give a list of casualties they are basically saying that the people were hurt by chance or mere fortune or at least casually. Yikes.

Shebang

Most likely you have heard the phrase “the whole shebang” before. Something like. “Wow, he made a mess of the whole shebang.” That use, meaning “a matter of concern” comes to us around 1869.

The first recorded use of shebang was in 1861. It referred to a small lean-to or shelter in a prisoner of war camp. For the most part during the Civil War prisoners were kept in enclosed spaces where they had to fend for themselves. Often they would dig a trench and use whatever the could to cover it. This became their home for the duration.

Where did shebang come from? There are two possibilities.  It could have come from Louisiana Confederates. Where it derived from the word chabane which means covered hut, lodge or cabin in French. It could have also come from the Irish word shebeen, a cabin where unlicensed liquor is sold and drunk. Either one sounds plausible. Based on the number of Irish that served in both armies during the war I would tend to lean towards the latter.

It would be my best guess that since everything a prisoner owned was kept in his shebang, after the war it became used in the form we know today.  Especially if used to mean the entirety of something. “They took care of the whole shebang.” “They left the entire shebang behind.’ Conjecture? Sure but gosh darn it sure does quack like a duck!

I hope you all had a great holiday season. It was a great break and I feel that 2018 is going to be a breakthrough year.

We are still kind of working on the plans for the blog in the coming year. We may be making some format changes but nothing drastic. I mean after all we have been going for almost three and half years and doing so fairly strong.

One thing that some of you may have noticed towards the end of the year is that we started re-posting some of the stories from our early years. This was done for two reasons.

First reason was the schedule around the office got a little cramped and rather than skip posts, we felt that revisiting some of the classic posts would be a good way to keep the content going. This mean some revisions, some rewriting and just general polishing.

The second reason, and that sort of feeds into the revising has to do with SEO, Search Engine Optimization. Basically how we get found out on the Internet. In the early days our concern was posting content and we figured that the eyes would just naturally find us out in the wild. Hey, quit laughing, it made sense at the time.

With such a philosophy we published a lot of posts that had zero SEO, and as such, we never really took off that much with direct traffic. A few months ago we decided to focus more on that. As such all posts with new content are in fairly good SEO shape, but the old ones not so much. So as we launched revised posts we also updated the SEO on them

The results have been astounding. We are growing on the Internet like never before. It is that kind of growth that we are going to take into 2018.

Thank you all for you support and kind words.

Regular posts will start back up on Wednesday of this week.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

In the spirit of being thankful and spending time with family this week we will be sharing a couple fo the Thanksgiving Proclamations that have been put out by various American Presidents.

Today’s proclamation is from 1900 from the desk of President McKinley. So why chose this one? This was an interesting time for the United States. After defeating Spain in the last war we now had a bit of an overseas empire and was on our way to being a player on the world stage. Even as we prospered there were still issues. In the year before this proclamation a massive hurricane wiped out Galveston, Texas and that is not an exaggeration. We have seen a number of hurricanes this year. The Gulf Coast is still rebuilding and our friends and family in Puerto Rico will be recovering for years. Galveston rebuilt and so will Houston, San Juan, and everywhere else effected. Our thoughts are with all of you.

The Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America A ProclamationIt has pleased Almighty God to bring our nation in safety and honor through another year. The works of religion and charity have everywhere been manifest. Our country through all its extent has been blessed with abundant harvests. Labor and the great industries of the people have prospered beyond all precedent. Our commerce has spread over the world. Our power and influence in the cause of freedom and enlightenment have extended over distant seas and lands. The lives of our official representatives and many of our people in China have been marvelously preserved. We have been generally exempt from pestilence and other great calamities; and even the tragic visitation which overwhelmed the city of Galveston made evident the sentiments of sympathy and Christian charity by virtue of which we are one united people. Now, therefore, I, William McKinley, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart Thursday, the 29th of November next, to be observed by all the people of the United States, at home or abroad, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Him who holds the nations in the hollow of His hand. I recommend that they gather in their several places of worship and devoutly give Him thanks for the prosperity wherewith He has endowed us, for seed-time and harvest, for the valor, devotion and humanity of our armies and navies, and for all His benefits to us as individuals and as a nation; and that they humbly pray for the continuance of His Divine favor, for concord and amity with other nations, and for righteousness and peace in all our ways. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this 29th day of October, A.D. 1900, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-fifth. WILLIAM MCKINLEY By the President: JOHN HAY, Secretary of State.