[extropy-chat] Happy New Year Toast

[natashavita at earthlink.net]

Before you all step out the door for the Evening's Jolly-making - I wanted
to say, "Happy New Year!"  In case any of you are going to be making a
toast this evening:

"We can't promise you'll be as suave as Humphrey Bogart, but with these
tips you should be able to make a successful toast to the occasion.
Try for Cary Grant's sophistication and Tom Hank's warmth—but not Steve
Martin's cleverness. Too much wit and you'll seem a nitwit, says Paul
Dickson, author of Toasts (Crown Publishers, 1991). Silence would have been
preferable to a toast in the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral," in which
a friend congratulated the groom on lassoing his bride, since "all his
other girlfriends had been such complete dogs. Let me say how delighted we
are to have so many of them here this evening." 

Be brief. As Mark Twain said, no toast except his own should last longer
than 60 seconds. The more you meander, the deeper in trouble you get.
Think before you quip. The toast "Bottoms up!" at the launching of a boat
race is sure to sink. And don't introduce the governor of the Virgin
Islands as the "Virgin of Governor's Island," as a Washington dignitary
once did. President Reagan once toasted the people of Bolivia while in
Brazil, and President Ford nodded his glass to Israel while visiting Egypt."

Historic toasts:

Throughout history, whenever wine flowed, words were sure to follow. Though
Ulysses drank to Achilles in Homer's Odyssey nearly 3,000 years ago, the
first known toast in English was recorded in 450 A.D. Said the beautiful
Rowena of the Saxons to Vortigern of the Britons: "Louerd King, Waes Hael!"
(Lord King, be of good health!).

The term "toast" itself comes from the 17th-century custom of placing a
crouton in the drinking vessel to absorb impurities.

Thankfully, some traditions are extinct, such as Scandinavians drinking
from the skulls of their fallen enemies—thus the toast "Skoal!" Also quaint
today is "Here's mud in your eye," which originally expressed the wish that
farmers would find soft earth easily turned by a plow.

But some toasts never lose their flavor, such as Humphrey Bogart's to
Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca: "Here's looking at you, kid."

Brief, heartfelt, and to the point, Colonel Sherman Potter of M*A*S*H made
a toast that was everything a toast should be: "To long lives and short
wars!" And who could forget Tiny Tim's magnanimous toast in Charles
Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol: "God bless us everyone!"

Ulysses drank to Achilles in Homer's Odyssey nearly 3,000 years ago, the
first known toast in English was recorded in 450 A.D. Said the beautiful
Rowena of the Saxons to Vortigern of the Britons: "Louerd King, Waes Hael!"
(Lord King, be of good health!).

The term "toast" itself comes from the 17th-century custom of placing a
crouton in the drinking vessel to absorb impurities.

Thankfully, some traditions are extinct, such as Scandinavians drinking
from the skulls of their fallen enemies—thus the toast "Skoal!" Also quaint
today is "Here's mud in your eye," which originally expressed the wish that
farmers would find soft earth easily turned by a plow.

But some toasts never lose their flavor, such as Humphrey Bogart's to
Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca: "Here's looking at you, kid."

Brief, heartfelt, and to the point, Colonel Sherman Potter of M*A*S*H made
a toast that was everything a toast should be: "To long lives and short
wars!" And who could forget Tiny Tim's magnanimous toast in Charles
Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol: "God bless us everyone!"

Cheers!

Natasha Vita-More

http://www.natasha.cc


--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .