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1. lesson38

Roast Beef on Rye A little digging will unearth the roots of our language and habits. For instance, our word "sandwich" is derived from the Earl of Sandwich, who lived in the time of George Ill. This gentleman would not depart from the gambling table for hours on end. If his play happened to coincide with dinner, he would cancel his regular meal and order a slice of meat to be served to him between two pieces of bread. The biography of the Earl claims that we are his debtors for his discovery of the sandwich. Charles Dickens later used the phrase "sandwich man" to describe someone who walks about with a clearly legible message on placards hung on his chest and back. An example of a superstition is the fear of walking under a ladder. This must have been a contagious fear for it seems to have started with the ancient belief that spirits lived in trees or wood. "Knocking on wood" was a way of calling up the friendly spirit to protect one from harm. Today a member of the clergy might sneer at this custom, expecting that by this time such superstitions would have receded into the past with witches and ghosts. Another expression, "giving someone the cold shoulder," has been traced to the Middle Ages, when a host would serve his guests a cold shoulder of mutton or beef instead of the customary hot food. This was a transparent attempt to show the guest he was no longer welcome. The host had thus found a more charitable yet effective way of expressing his feelings without using a scalding remark.
Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift tried to show the smallness of people by writing the biography of Dr. Lemuel Gulliver. In one of his strangest adventures, Gulliver was shipwrecked. Drenched and weary, he fell asleep on the shore. In the morning, he found himself tied to pegs in the ground, and swarming over him were hundreds of little people six inches high. After a time he was allowed to stand, though he began to wobble from being bound so long. He was then marched through the streets, naturally causing a tumult wherever he went. Even the palace was not big enough for him to enter, nor could he kneel before the king and queen. But he did show his respect for them in another way. The king was dejected because he feared an invasion of Lilli put by Blefuscu, the enemy across the ocean. The reason for the war between the two tiny peoples would seem small and foolish to us. The rebels of Blefuscu were originally Lilliputians who would not abide by the royal decision to crack their eggs on the small end instead of on the larger end. Gulliver, obedient to the king's command, waded out into the water when the tide receded, and sticking a little iron hook into each of fifty warships, he pulled the entire enemy fleet to Lilliput. Gulliver later escaped from Lilliput when he realized the tiny king was really a tyrant with no charity in his heart. Oddly enough, the verdict of generations of readers has taken no heed of the author's intention in Gulliver)s Travels. Instead, while Lilliputians are still the symbol of small, narrow-minded people, Swift's savage attack upon humankind has become one of the best-loved children's classics.
A New Way to Treat Prisoners The warden of a prison today will readily acknowledge the new trend in prison reform. In an attempt to provide a different brand of justice for society's delinquents, officials now reject the idea that prison should completely deprive the convict of freedom. Thus, in some prisons inmates are allowed to leave the prison grounds to visit their spouses or to pursue their vocation. Even the more unstable convict who may have committed homicide is not penalized as harshly as before. The hope is that if persons emerge from prison less defiant than they do now, society will be the beneficiary.
A Cup of Coffee? The drink with the most appeal for Americans is still coffee, but coffee addicts had better be wary of the instant forms. Greedy for customers and confident* they won't lose them, companies will put their product in any instant form-liquid, powder, chips-and the coffee drinker, aware of his misfortune, finds it hard to avoid some of the more wretched instant products. The harsh fact is that an enormous* quantity of instant coffee is being sold, no doubt,* to nourish the popular demand for convenience. A keg of real coffee may become a museum piece as more and more people opt for instant coffee.

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