O is for observations about the ABC W alphabet

This being the last round that I'M running the ABC Wednesday meme before Melody takes over, I've been musing over a bit of history of the participation by youse folks over the years. I've looked through all of the inLinks data, which started with 6Z (82 participants) - before that, Denise was using a different product to allow you to post. I've calculated the average participation for every letter for Rounds 7 through 19.

The highest numbers were always in Round 7 and/or 8 (it was a tie in the Z week), and the lowest in Rounds 18 or 19, with one odd exception. I'm pleased to note that in Round 20, the numbers are higher than in Round 19.

A-88.54 (high 128, low 45) - A is almost always lower than B, except in Round 13
B-96.38 (high 147, low 47)
C-98.23 (high 149, low 50) - as you can see, the highest average
D-91.85 (high 136, low 49)
E-87.54 (high 138, low 43)

F-95.38 (high 151, low 48) - 151, in Round 8, is the highest number we've reached
G-92.54 (high 141, low 53) - for my own posts, I was tempted to always use green, but I chose otherwise
H-91.15 (high 147, low 48)
I-84.69 (high 139, low 45)
J-82.15 (high 141, low 41)

K-80.54 (high 127, low 44) - K is a difficult letter to find a word?
L-86.23 (high 145, low 50)
M-86.46 (high 139, low 41)
N-78.08 (high 126, low 43)
O-80.00 (high 126, low 51) - I thought that the vowels in general did worse than the vowels around them; not so here

P-88.54 (high 143, low 50)
Q-72.00 (high 114, low 46) - for my own posts, I used Queen more than once, including Elizabeth II and Freddie Mercury
R-80.46 (high 117, low 45) - I've written about two dozen of these intros, probably more than anyone except Denise, who wrote them all in the early days
S-83.85 (high 117, low 49)
T-83.38 (high 137, low 50)

U-70.38 (high 109, low 42)
V-72.54 (high 104, low 45)
W-77.38 (high 108, low 51)
X-56.54 (high 88, low 35) - half the time, this lands around the winter holidays in the Northern Hemisphere; many have used Xmas, and/or shapes that LOOK like the letter X
Y-64.46 (high 94, low 45) - we hit 45 in rounds 15, 17, 18 AND 19
Z-60.46 (high 85, low 34) -the lowest number we reached was in Round 18
***

O is for October

I suppose I OUGHT to go with the OBVIOUS, O is for OCTOBER.

There are a lot of holidays, and holy days, this month.

OCTOBER 2 (evening), ending in the evening of OCTOBER 4 - Rosh Hashanah. Happy 5777 on the Jewish calendar

OCTOBER 10 - Thanksgiving (Canada). Columbus Day (US), which has been OFTEN supplanted by Indigenous Peoples Day, for reasons you can read about here

OCTOBER 11 (evening), ends in the evening of OCTOBER 12 - Yom Kippur

OCTOBER 24 - United Nations Day

OCTOBER 31 - Halloween, All Hallows Eve

And there are OTHERS.

I'd reviewed a book called Apocrypha Now, a slightly OFF-kilter book about the religious works that didn't find their way into the King James Version of the Bible, such as the Jewish midrash, the Catholic Douay books of the Apocrypha, and those New Testament gospels that did not make the cut.

ONE story was about God giving Moses the 10 commandments, then getting really annoyed by the golden calf worship thing and temporarily abandoning Israel. But ultimately God came around.

The nation of Israel was so overcome by God's forgiveness that everyone spent the day crying, and that got God crying, and soon everyone was just a big emotional mess.

"That was great," Moses said. "Really cathartic."

"You know what? Let's celebrate this day every year. We can call it 'Apology Day.' Everyone who deserves an apology gets one, and everyone who needs to apologize gets to," God suggested...

"I thought the climax of my relationship with the human race was going to be giving you the law," God said. "But it wasn't. It was forgiving you for breaking it."

Apology Day came to be known as Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar...

On the Ark [of the Covenant] they inscribed two of God's many names - Elohim: God the Powerful, and Adonai: God the Merciful.
***

Introduction of the letter O

Wherever I look I see O's. Every circle is an "O".

To begin with food and the plate you put it on.

Flowers are often round, they are never rectangular.

The sun,the moon ,the planets and all other celestial bodies are round, if we see them from our round planet Earth.

Our eyes are round.

Our coins all over the world are round

 Our crockery: cups, saucers , plates tea-set, they are all round. I have never seen a rectangular cup, however a rectangular plate. is quite common nowadays.

Mushrooms are mostly round.

Manhole-cover in Norway

Street decoration in Tenerife

This milk-can is round

                                                           Its lid forms a perfect letter O.

Remember: if you participate with us, please link to and mention us in your post. And use the appropriate letter, which is O this week.

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An InLinkz Link-up

O stands for Odd Odes,

 

 

 

A great favourite of mine,  entertainer,  actor and writer..  Cyril Fletcher 1913-2005.

 Amongst his many talents he was famed for his writing and performing his... 'ODD ODES' on Sunday evenings, in a popular TV show called 'That's Life' which  was presented by Ester Rantzen.  Ester was the person who created 'Child Line', a phone line set up for abused children.

 Ester is now titled, Dame Ester Rantzen, a much earned reward from the Queen for all her hard work in setting up the child - line..

 An ODD ODE by Cyril Fletcher.

 The Mermaid.

 On Brighton beach some time ago

 A boatman by the name of Joe

 Looked up and in amazement saw

 A mermaid washed up on the shore.

 His eyes bulged as without delay

 She rose, and shaking off some spray

 Proceeded to remove her tail,

 And put same in a pail;

 Joe was astounded, rubbed his eyes

, The mermaid then said to his surprise

 Said in a foreign voice

 "Ah oui! Monsieur,

 I do not like ze sea!"

 From where before the tail had been,

A pair of shapely legs were seen,

And Joe said "cripes this is a case" 

And could not look her in the face.

 

She said to Joe "Let's get away"!

I'm sick of seeing waves and spray 

Like jelly wobbling up and down,

Monsieur, Let's go and see the town?"

 Joe's blushes matched his ginger hair 

For mermaids have no clothes to wear!

He muttered " I shall get it strong

If Watch Committee come along".

Quite a few people stopped to smirk

A newsboy shouted out, "nice work". 

  Some more collected - quite a jam 

Watched them  about to board a tram.

The tram conductor watched them come,

Then said to Joe "Oi, nark it chum!"   

Joe said to him, quiet as can be,

"She's just a mermaid from the sea"!  

 The tram - -man said "Oh yes old bean

And what are you - the fairy queen ?" 

  

A policeman quickly hove into view ,

Took out his book, (or truncheon even)  said, "What's to do?"

The mermaid glanced and said "I guess

 I love your  Engleesch  policemen - yes!" 

 Sad to relate this copper brave

Fell for her charms, became her slave

 And leaving poor Joe in the lurch

 Married the cop in Brighton Church

 All she left Joe was the pail

 Containing her discarded tail

  Joe sore at being  left so flat

Gave it to the lodgers cat. 

My thanks to the  OUTSTANDINGLY lovely Denise for devising ABCW and also to OUR Roger who's most respected OPINIONS are held in the highest  OFFICE...

 Last but not least the team of helpers who each week, visit many of the ABCW sites to help keep us all together ...

Best wishes,

Di.

ABCW team...aka one of the little helpers xx  

***

An InLinkz Link-up

O is for OCEANS

If I asked you how many oceans there are in the world, what would you answer? Five?  And you could name them right? Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, Antarctic (also known as Southern)

Well, if you were in my 4th grade class when I was teaching about oceans, you would learn that all the oceans of the world flow into each other, thereby creating one ocean with five different bodies of water that are named as above.

Did you know that oceans cover about 70% of the Earth's surface and they contain roughly 97% of the Earth's water supply?

I really loved my Oceanography unit! The kids learned that the oceans of Earth serve many functions, especially affecting the weather and temperature. They learned how they moderate the Earth's temperature by absorbing incoming solar radiation (stored as heat energy). They also learned that the always-moving ocean currents distribute this heat energy around the globe by heating the land and air during winter and cooling it during summer.

 

I recall one activity we did whereby we created our own icebergs. We used zip-lock plastic bags and half filled them with blue-coloured water. We also made a mark with black felt at the water line. After a few days in the deep freezer, we brought them out to see if the water line had changed - it had. It seemed as though the water had expanded. Then we each dipped our iceberg in a huge vat of water to see what would happen. Did it sink? Did it float? How much of the iceberg was above the water line of the vat and how much was below? Using rulers, the kids measured and then we figured out the ratio of the visible iceberg to the invisible iceberg. Of course, that continued on to the story about the Titanic.

Another activity we did was when I divided the class into 5 groups, each group representing one of the oceans. Each group had a large tin foil pie plate into which they poured blue-coloured water. Then we added some oil, feathers, string, tooth picks and other small pieces of wood, bread bag tags, bits of clear plastic wrap, and other odds and sods of "garbage."

Then, I said to the groups, "Okay, now clean up your oceans!"

You should have seen those kids work like mad using all sorts of methods to get the oil and garbage out of their oceans.

It certainly proved a point.

And it was lots of fun, too.

I presented several videos about the oceans to the class and we also learned about the history of ocean exploration. It was one of my favourite Science units for many reasons, but one particular reason was that I took the class on a field trip to the Stanley Park Aquarium where they were treated to private viewings of the Beluga Whales, which were adorable, by the way.

Now, here's my question: Do you believe that Belugas should be in aquariums or should they be free to live in the oceans?  Why?




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An InLinkz Link-up

O is for Oxymora

Yes !! Oxymora is the plural of Oxymoron in case you didn't know(just came to know very recently)

Life for me is a paradox and what more can be more fun than using Oxymora. An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which words that seem contradictory appear together to form a fun combination. Some  of my favorites are Military Intelligence, Original Copies, Exact Estimate, Old News,Living Dead, Deafening Silence and my personal best is Microsoft Works, :D

Here is a link to some really good oxymora......

http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/100-Awfully-Good-Examples-Of-Oxymorons.htm


Whats urs?

Another O I like is a bollywood song called Ooh La la la (you dont have to understand the lyrics, just enjoy the music).

Come ON and post ur links and first thing on our Order is to visit yours.......

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An InLinkz Link-up

O is for Okay

If you look up the derivation of the word okay (or O.K.), you'll find a number of examples from whence it did NOT arise:

It is NOT from:
the Haitian port "Aux Cayes," Louisiana French au quai, a Puerto Rican rum labeled "Aux Quais," German alles korrekt or Ober-Kommando, Chocktaw okeh, Scots och aye, Wolof waw kay, Greek olla kalla, Latin omnes korrecta, bakers stamping their initials on biscuits, shipbuilders marking wood for "outer keel," or Civil War soldiers carrying signs for "zero killed."

It was based on an 1839 joke:

The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train-band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.

It wasn't as strange as it might seem for the author to coin OK as an abbreviation for "all correct." There was a fashion then for playful abbreviations like i.s.b.d (it shall be done), r.t.b.s (remains to be seen), and s.p. (small potatoes). They were the early ancestors of OMG, LOL, and tl;dr. A twist on the trend was to base the abbreviations on alternate spellings or misspellings, so "no go" was k.g. (know go) and "all right" was o.w. (oll write). So it wasn't so surprising for someone come up with o.k. for oll korrect. What is surprising is that it ended up sticking around for so long while the other abbreviations faded away.

OK got lucky by hitting the contentious presidential election jackpot. During the 1840 election the "oll korrect" OK merged with Martin van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook, when some van Buren supporters formed the O.K. Club. After the club got into a few tussles with Harrison supporters, OK got mixed up with slandering and sloganeering. It meant out of kash, out of karacter, orful katastrophe, orfully confused, all kwarrelling or any other apt phrase a pundit could come up with. It also got mixed up with the popular pastime of making fun of van Buren's predecessor, Andrew Jackson, for his poor spelling. One paper published a half-serious claim that OK originated with Jackson using it as a mark for "all correct" (ole kurrek) on papers he had inspected.

So, I hope you're OK participating in yet another week of our game. Once the Linky goes live, you will be OK to post your musings with us, and our more than OK team will visit you. OK, so you know how this works.

An InLinkz Link-up

O Oh

"Eyes open little lambkins"  said Mrs Sheep - "and stop looking in the other direction Otilie" she added officiously.
"What's occurring" queried the ever alert Oona" 
"OK I'll be concise" replied Mrs Sheep, "I want you to be at optimum alert for observing no ordinary occurrence"
"What?"  the lambkins chorused, overcome with curiosity.
"Oh I'm overjoyed, look -  here it comes now..."

The letter O...

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Time to add your O word and see other unique and original entries for the 15th letter of the alphabet:
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O is for OPERATIONS

Here I am again, Roger OWEN Green, with an OPENING for this week's OPINING.

So what does it mean to be the current ORGANIZER for ABC Wednesday, a position so ably OCCUPIED by ONE Denise Nesbitt for five years?

1. Seek OUT people who would like to OPERATE as part of the team, writing OCCASIONAL introductions and visiting OUR participants. (Did it OCCUR to you that you'd like an OPPORTUNITY to write an intro? Please let me know.)

2. Assign the ORDER of the visits - which OCCUPANTS registered on Linky will be visited by whom? I am OPTIMALLY keeping track of who on the team will be OUT of town or OTHERWISE unavailable that week. Based on Mrs. Nesbitt's OPERATIONAL handbook, I try to mix it up.

3. ONCE the intro is OFFERED, put the Linky into the post, and make sure post will OPERATE at the OPPORTUNE time, so that we'll be OPEN for business.

4. Deal with any OBSTACLES: trouble with posting or OPENING a link; a post that OBVIOUSLY doesn't mention this meme and/or is not following the OBJECT of the project (e.g., this week, O is for...)

Well, I could go ON and ON (and ON), but I'd rather OBSERVE what ORGANICALLY-derived OPUSES (OPI?) you have ORIGINATED. But if you would like to OPT into OUR little ORBIT of the Internet, there is an OPENING for you. Again, please contact me - rogerogreen(at)gmail(dot)com.

O is for...

Map of Canada, ONTARIO is yellow.

ONTARIO!

OKIE dokie, This week we are celebrating O, which is perfectly OKAY with me as this is the perfect OCCASION to tell you all a little bit about my home province, ONTARIO. (Click on the above map if you want to see it better.)

ONTARIO is a big place, covering more than a million square kilometres (that's 415,000 square miles), which is more than the area of Spain and France combined. Approximately one-third of all Canadians live in the the southern quarter of ONTARIO, which includes Canada's largest city (Toronto) and Canada's capital (Ottawa). ONTARIO'S north is sparsely populated.

Ontario, I live in the grey area north of Toronto

Although ONTARIO is quite a distance away from either the Atlantic or Pacific OCEANS. it's still a watery place. See those five huge lakes, the Great Lakes? They are big enough to be inland, fresh-water seas. Lake ONTARIO is the smallest of the Great Lakes, and it is still very large.

With all that water (and thousands of smaller lakes besides), ONTARIO tends to be a humid place. Most of our weather crosses water before it reaches us, picking up moisture as it comes. From the north it crosses Hudson Bay, and from the west and south, the Great Lakes. That usually means lots of snow in winter,  rain in summer, and many cloudy skies year round. Oh how I enjoy a clear blue sky when we have one! But cloudy skies do create beautiful sunsets, and I do love those too.

Well, there you have it - a mini geography lesson about ONTARIO. I look forward to reading your entries about the letter O.

EG CameraGirl

Opting for O on ABC Wednesday

Just my humble opinion now, but no one should opt out of blogging for O! 

“Oh goodness gracious,” you object, “I have had no opportunity to ogle an osprey.  Nor could I observe a loon or explore the ocean.  I am not too keen on orthology, let alone orthography.  Why am I obligated to contribute?!   Stop being such an ogre!”  

 

“You are simply obfuscating the issue with those outré excuses,” I openly opine, “and, moreover,  you are being obdurate in overlooking all the O’s surrounding you!

For every obscure reference like ocarina, there is an overcoat in your closet.  Are you wearing an oxford shirt?  Did you enjoy oatmeal for breakfast?  And just who was that oaf who stole your spot in the parking lot?  Perhaps you are old enough to have seen oleo replace that other spread, butter?   Or young enough to have seen the start of HBO or the Oxygen network?  Certainly you know Our President!

You can look at me orey-eyed -- or out your window at the oak tree.   Put your oar in the water for ABC Wednesday -- outlandish and common choices abound! 

 

 I’d be much obliged.

And overcome with joy!”

O is for "OH"

Oh, it's my turn can't miss that !

Anyway "OH" is a nice word you can use it in all situations :

Oh, sorry I stepped on your foot
Oh, what a beautiful bouquet
Oh, this is really disgusting
Oh, you make me so happy
etc etc

and to facilitate your choice with letters starting with an "O" here a some examples :

overgloom, overgo, overgoing, overgone, overgorge, overgrace, overgrassed, overgraze, overgrazed, overgrazes, overgrazing, overgreat, overgreatness, overgreedy, overgrew, overgross, overground, overgrow, overgrowing, overgrown, overgrows, overgrowth, overhale, overhall, overhand, overhanded, overhandle, overhands, overhang, overhanging, overhangs, overhappy, overharden, overhardy, overhaste, overhastily, overhastiness, overhasty, overhaul, overhauled, overhauling, overhauls, overhead, overheads, overheaped, overheaps, overhear, overheard, overhearing, overhears, overheat, overheated, overheating, overheats, overheavy, overhele, overhent, overhigh, overhighly, overhip, overhipped, overhipping, overhold

Have fun !