The Slice L&C; Were Superheroes Of Their Day
Maybe she was thinking of Superman and his squeeze.
A friend’s fourth-grader turned in a school report that was an account of the exploits of the Northwest’s most celebrated explorers. The only problem was the kid spelled their names “Lois and Clark.”
Here’s a pronunciation we hadn’t heard: Hartline’s Stan Yirak was on the phone with an AT&T representative in Atlanta. He had a problem that was going to require visiting an office in person. So the AT&T woman asked how far he was from “Spo-kahnie.”
Where driving really would be lunacy: Ten-year-old Haley Yunger of Sandpoint was asked on a science test to name two surface features of the moon. Her response: a. mountains. b. potholes.
Her mother and home-schooling teacher, Rhonda, explained. “The photographs in her textbook do resemble some Bonner County roads,” she said.
Foreign correspondence, Part 2: Spokane’s Mii Tai praised the Japanese word “enryo,” which can mean “Make yourself at home” and “Speak your mind freely,” among other things.
Velma Smith, whose parents were born in Finland, told us about the Finnish word “sisu.”
It refers to pluck, courage, bravery and such.
Liberty Lake’s JoAnn Hayes, Hayden Lake’s Sigrid Carlson and others endorsed Minnesota’s unofficial motto, the all-purpose Norwegian expression “uff da.”
And a colleague passed along a terrific Italian word, “purtroppo.”
It means “unfortunately,” and is sometimes said in a consoling way. Try it out. Doesn’t it even sound like that’s what it means?
Slice answers: In aggregate terms, how much time would you save this year if you decided to pay zero attention to Major League baseball? “Thirty-seven seconds,” wrote Sondra Curtis. “Which I just spent looking up ‘aggregate.’ “
“Do you want just a ballpark figure?” wrote Ernie Konshuk of Bayview.
Warm-up questions: How junky does Spokane look right after you have returned from visiting a city that has a real sign code? Who do you support in the struggle for control of public tennis courts - tennis players or kids using them for ball hockey?
Today’s Slice question: What does our climate do to your skin and hair?
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing
MEMO: The Slice appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. See if you recognize the city that’s the backdrop for the 1985 movie “Vision Quest,” tonight on TNT.