Hayter for Oct 6, 2024
“Name Calling”
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a man with odd thoughts… and behavior. That sentence alone is cause enough for you to stop reading. But for you tired, you poor, you huddled masses yearning to breathe free, I shall continue. -- I borrowed that from the Statue of Liberty Lady. She is quite the poet.
Now that the sane among us have moved along to the want ads, I shall begin to discuss some weird, but educational facts. Last night I read an article about “Name Calling”. It’s not what you think. This is about the discovery of the first person’s name that was ever located. Some of you are thinking that it was Fred Flintstone. A couple of you feel sure that “Adam” was the first name to be discovered. Well, it may have been, but it was not the first name that’s been located etched in stone.
That name belongs to “Ku-Sim.” I know you’ve never heard of him! Or her. The name was discovered years ago sketched on a slab of stone found in, what used to be, Mesopotamia. Today Mesopotamia belongs to Iraq. For decades Sadam Hussein took credit for the Garden of Eden and the whole Adam and Eve thing. – Let’s try to get past that silliness and find out about the stone.
The stone was at one time a moist clay tablet with weird etchings on the exterior. It took a good while before the weird symbols to be interpreted as words. A really smart person determined the writing were done by an accountant who kept a record of grain and veggies that had been shipped in or out of the Tigris or Euphrates Rivers. The last words on the tablet were “Ku-Sim”?
That was the only time those two words
were discovered on any itching. So, the interpreter took that to mean it
must’ve been the name of the accountant responsible for tabulating all of the
goods that came in or out on that day
Later they put the words together and made
them read “Kushim”. The words on the stone were written over 5000 years ago.
While there have been many etchings and lettering written before 3000 BC,
Ku-Sim was the first time a person’s name was discovered on any kind of
writing. The first word discovered was “oats”. Just a guess.
Once discovered, the name “Kushin” caught on. Today it is 2,168,711th most popular name in the world. I kid you not. Can any of you tell me how that was figured out? – Well, you’re not the only one.
By the way, the second oldest name ever recorded was located in Egypt. It was Kushim or Iry-Hor. Obviously, it was a name used to taunt people. That’s a poor attempt at humor. But the Iry-Hor is no joke.
For something a bit more contemporary, I shall share with you some of the most popular male and female for the past 100 years. Since 1920 “James” has been the most popular name for a guy. The most popular female name is “Mary”. Not as interesting as Kushim or Iry-Hor, but much more pleasant sounding.
The 15th most popular female name since 1920 is “Ashley”. I like the name. The 15th most popular male name has been “Mark.” I would’ve much rather “Mark” have been way down on the list right before the 100th most popular male name which was Lou. – Actually, Lou did not make the top 100 list. Bradley was the 100th choice for a guy.
Mom named each of the Hayter kids. I’m not saying that Dad didn’t care to, but he really didn’t. His mom named him “Faris”. I think there are only two more men with that name. They both lived in Mesopotamia. The children of Faris and Elsie were named Lynda, Larry, Susan, Dennis, Mark, Jill, and Al. I asked Mom if Larry, Dennis, Al, and I were named after her old boyfriends. She said that Faris was her first and only boyfriend. Good answer, Mom.
Now it’s time for some sports tidbits: “In 1963, major league baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, ‘They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run.’ On July 20, 1969, an hour after Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon, Perry hit his first, and only, home run while playing for the San Francisco Giants.” Most baseball fans know that Major League pitchers can’t hit worth beans… unless they’re from Japan. Japanese pitchers have been known to really knock the snot out of the ball.
“The five circles on each Olympic flag are always red, black, blue, green, and yellow on a field of white. This is because at least one of those colors appears on the flag of every nation on the planet.” I have trouble believing that, but I refuse to research it.
“The average lifespan of a major league
baseball is 7 pitches.” I assume that the umpire gives the catcher a new ball
at the start of each inning. And they’ll occasionally check the condition of a
ball during the middle of the inning
“A Costa Rican worker who makes baseballs earns about $2,750 annually. The average American pro baseball player earns $2,377,000 per year.” I can come up with no cute words about that.
“A ‘jiffy’ is 1/100th of a second.” I have
really been misusing that word. Even though I’ve promised many times to be back
in a “jiffy” it’s never happened. The only thing I’ve ever been able to do in a
jiffy is sneeze.
All right, our time is about up, so I’m going to leave you with this last weird fact, in hopes of saving at least one of us. -- Someone did the research to discover that “an average of 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.” What say, we keep anything with the word “pin” in it, out of our mouths? I’ll be proud if only save one of you.
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