[Ads-l] Puzzles from today's NYTimes: rapacious & endemically; also, skitching

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jan 15 07:33:38 UTC 2016


On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 8:52 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:

> "Skitching" in reference to a skateboard activity is, presumably, derived
> from the use of the term, in an analogous sense, for being towed by an
> automobile on an icy street--one sliding on the soles of his shoes--often
> without the permission or knowledge of the driver.
>

Once, when my car was stuck in the snow in Boston, some passing white kids
offered to try to push me out. They were successful and, as I was pulling
away, I saw in the rearview mirror that the boys were holding on to the
rear of the car, so that I was pulling them along. Turn-about being fair
play, I stayed under 15 mph, until they got bored and let go.

I was unaware that this was not a spontaneous, nonce activity, but a
"thing" that even had a name.

Youneverknow.
-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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