Saturday, February 10, 2018

Switched Buildings (Post Office & Church, New Zealand)




Stuff [New Zealand]
11 February 2018


SKARA BOHNY

"I remember saying, 'That's a funny-looking post office,' and that's when they told me," said Havelock local Pete McCaffrey.

"What happened is, they were going to build a church in Havelock North, and a post office here in Havelock, but they sent the plans to the wrong places, so we ended up with a church that was meant to be a post office and they ended up with a post office that was meant to be a church." […]

Despite no clear evidence, and some experts refuting the story, the myth seems tantalisingly plausible. […]

Uncommon Words in Clever Student’s Newspaper Ad




The Advocate [Baton Rouge, LA]
6 February 2018


Smiley Anders

An easy A

"The discussions by your readers of big words," says Loren Scott, "reminds me of an ad that appeared in the Kansas City Star back in the early '70s.

"It was in the classified section under 'Personals,' and it read: 'insidious, innocuous, annihilate, extrapolate, fratricide, audacious, euphemism, ludicrous, euthanasia, and fastidious.'

"It was signed Mark Johnson. When the editor of the paper saw that ad, he called in his crack cub reporter and said, 'I want to know who Mark Johnson is and why he put those 10 words in my newspaper.'

"The cub reporter did his job well. As it turns out, Mark was a sophomore at Shawnee Mission High School in Shawnee, Kansas, and his English teacher had told the class if anyone could find those 10 words in the newspaper that semester she would give them an A in the class."

~~~~~~~
La Crosse [Wisconsin] Tribune, 14 March 1958, p. 1.

“KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP)--The classified ad in the Morning Kansas City Times read simply: ‘Infallible, intrinsic, amity,  minimize, blazon, scrutinize, emulate, compunction, deride.’ Puzzled newsmen discovered it had been inserted by Mrs. Mildred Beal. She explained that her 17-year-old son Terry received as an English assignment two weeks ago the task of finding 10 specific words in a newspaper. He found only one – contemporary. The deadline was at hand so she inserted the ad – in the personals column. Mrs. Beal said she did not know whether her son’s teacher would accept the idea, but even at an outlay of $1.36 for the ad she thought it was worth trying.”


Anyone Not Wearing an Orange (or Yellow) Shirt on Halloween Will Be Shot




Syracuse.com
29 January 2018


By Elizabeth Doran

WHITESBORO, NY - A cruel prank that morphed and spread through social media resulted in a living nightmare for an Oneida County parent Beth Pappalardo and her son Leo Tesmer.

Some students at Whitesboro High School this fall spread a rumor that the 16-year-old boy was going to shoot everyone on Halloween who wasn't wearing an orange shirt, according to his family and state police. […]

Just before Halloween, a parent contacted Pappalardo to tell her a rumor was being shared on social media saying her son would shoot anyone not wearing yellow on Halloween. That soon changed to anyone who wasn't wearing orange, she said. […]