Curiosity often gets the blame (or the credit, depending on your point of view) for killing cats, but more often it leads to learning.
Take this morning, for example, when I was fortunate enough to have Presidents’ Day* off and learned that someone named Eamon Loingsigh from New York had started following this blog. I’m not good at all about acknowledging this, but every new follower is a big deal. I look at their profiles and usually read a post or two – out of curiosity, of course.
This time I landed on Petition – Stop Calling it a Famine!
Having some ancestral ties to Ireland, and a photo of my mother visiting a hovel somewhere in County Donegal, I read Eamon’s piece and signed the petition. The words “potato famine” do not do justice to what they are used to describe.
I did not know such a discussion was ongoing. As a writer and editor, I support calling things what they are. (I was impressed by the polite back and forth in the comments on the blog post.)
I also learned a new word, which I hope to be able to use in a sentence someday and force the curious who’ve never seen it before to look it up:
gombeen
Always curious,
B.J.
* It certainly doesn’t mean what it used to, does it?
The Smith Compound 