{"id":1795,"date":"2005-12-23T13:06:35","date_gmt":"2005-12-23T21:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ogre.nu\/wp\/?p=1795"},"modified":"2005-12-23T20:39:44","modified_gmt":"2005-12-24T04:39:44","slug":"of-bicycles-and-water-beds-and-cabbages-and-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/?p=1795","title":{"rendered":"of bicycles and water-beds and cabbages and kings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jerome K. Jerome &ndash; or his fictional counterpart &#8220;J.&#8221; &ndash; says in chapter 5 of <i>Three Men on the Bummel<\/i>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&nbsp; I do not regard the conveyance of useful information as my <i>forte<\/i>.  This belief was not inborn with me; it has been driven home upon me by experience.<br \/>\n&nbsp; .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. <i>[six pages]<\/i> .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.<br \/>\n&nbsp; Therefore it is that I have come to restrain my passion for the giving of information; therefore it is that nothing in the nature of practical instruction will be found, if I can help it, within these pages.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chapter 10 touches on the advertising of bicycles:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. one feels [looking at such posters] that, for perfect bodily rest combined with entire freedom from mental anxiety, slumber upon a water-bed cannot compare with bicycle-riding upon a hilly road.  No fairy travelling on a summer could could take things more easily than does the bicycle girl, according to the poster. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Water-bed? thought I.  <strong>Everyone knows<\/strong>&trade; that Robert Heinlein (1907-88) conceived the water-bed as we know it when he spent some time in a hospital bed, and wrote it into <i>Stranger in a Strange Land<\/i>.  So what did the word mean in 1900?  I turn to the OED (something I do less often than you might imagine).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n <strong>3.<\/strong> A water-tight mattress partly filled with water, designed to serve as a bed for an invalid.\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. with quotations beginning in 1853.<\/p>\n<p>We learn something every day.  Not always something useful, but something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jerome K. Jerome &ndash; or his fictional counterpart &#8220;J.&#8221; &ndash; says in chapter 5 of Three Men on the Bummel: &nbsp; I do not regard the conveyance of useful information as my forte. This belief was not inborn with me; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/?p=1795\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendwavy.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}