Love it! Thanks. Kind of like the joke that a camel is a horse  
designed by committee.

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Mar 9, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Jon Kukla wrote:

> A friend once described what he called the 'blue Volkswagon  
> phenomenon,"
> viz.: You can go through life never noticing blue Volkswagons,  
> until say
> you date someone who drives one. Then you notice them everywhere.
>     Seems that way with His/Her/Their Time - While looking for  
> something
> else this morning I noticed that the phrase turns up (below in caps)
> in Jefferson's recounting in 1818 of the story Ben Franklin told him
> to assuage his feelings during the congressional editing of the
> Declaration of Independence. Franklin used the phrase in connection
> with apprenticeship, in a familiar story that always bears another
> circulation.
> -jk
>
> "When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of
> Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave
> offence to some members. The words “Scotch and other foreign  
> auxiliaries.”
> excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country. Severe  
> strictures
> on the conduct of the British King, in negativing our repeated  
> repeals of
> the law which permitted the importation of slaves, were disapproved by
> some Southern gentlemen whose reflections were not yet matured to  
> the full
> abhorrence of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions were
> immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations  
> on other
> parts of the instrument. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin who  
> perceived that
> I was not insensible to these mutilations. “I have made it a rule,”  
> said
> he, “whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draftsman of  
> papers to be
> reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which  
> I will
> relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, one of my  
> companions, an
> apprentice hatter, having served out HIS TIME, was about to open  
> shop for
> himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a  
> proper
> inscription. He composed it in these words: John Thompson, Hatter,  
> makes
> and sells hats for ready money,” with a figure of a hat subjoined.  
> But he
> thought he would submit to his friends for their amendments. The  
> first he
> showed it to thought the word “hatter” tautologous, because  
> followed by
> the words, “makes hats,” which show he was a hatter. It was struck  
> out.
> The next observed that the word “makes” might as well be omitted,  
> because
> his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to  
> their mind,
> they would buy by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he
> thought the words “for ready money,” were useless as it was not the  
> custom
> of the place to sell on credit. Everyone who purchased expected to  
> pay.
> They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, “John  
> Thompson sells
> hats.” “Sells hats,” says his next friend? Why nobody will expect  
> you to
> give them away. What, then, is the use of that word? It was  
> stricken out,
> and “hats” followed it, — the rather as there was one painted on the
> board. So his inscription was reduced ultimately to “John Thompson”  
> with
> the figure of a hat subjoined — "
>
> Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York,
> 1904-05) 10: 119.
>
> Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice-President
> Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial
> 1250 Red Hill Road
> Brookneal, Virginia 24528
> www.redhill.org
> Phone 434-376-2044 or 800-514-7463
>
> Fax 434-376-2647
>
> - M. Lynn Davis, Office Manager
> - Karen Gorham, Associate Curator
> - Edith Poindexter, Curator