5 things Friday #16 - What occupies your mind these days?

It wasn't the best of weeks as I was sick one day and very low energy a couple of others. Since there is so little to report I thought I'd share some of the things we have been chatting about lately to focus on our little piece of the world instead of talking about the state of our country and the worldwide impact.

I know we are not alone in trying to balance being informed and focusing on what is near and dear. So here goes some not deep conversational topics!

1. Why does the contractor redoing the sewer lines in our area park their large dump trucks and other equipment on our narrow cul-de-sac overnight and on weekends rather than one of the wide streets nearby? They block one lane coming into the court. The project has to be at least half over so this won't last forever thank goodness.

2. Does the dog have a game he invented to engage us in play? He takes his favorite little lamb stuffed toy, places it somewhere he could easily reach it, and then barks until we come and "rescue" it. I call it the "Help, help - Timmy is stuck in the well" game. A Lassie TV show reference if you are too young to know!

4. What can we do for an outing or entertainment? Mostly initiated by me. Repeatedly.

5. And lastly, we had a discussion last week that turned out to be a learning experience about why do we all say pots & pans and not pans & pots. After we threw around our theories (mostly that pots were invented first or used the most historically), I asked Google and it came up with this. So every time you say tick tock or pitter patter or hip hop and so on you can reference ablaut reduplication lol.

AI Overview

The phrase "pots and pans" is the standard ordering due to a combination of phonetic convenience (sound) and linguistic tradition (idiom), rather than a strict requirement based on the cookware itself. 

Here is why "pots and pans" is favored over "pans and pots":

• Ablaut Reduplication (Sound): In English, when pairs of words are used together, the one with the lower, back vowel sound (o) often comes before the one with the higher, front vowel sound (a). Similar examples include hip-hop, ding-dong, and chit-chat. "Pots" (o) flows more easily into "pans" (a) than the reverse.
• Idiomatic Tradition: The phrase is deeply rooted in old English nursery rhymes and sayings, such as "If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands" (recorded from the mid-19th century).
• Hierarchical Order: Historically, "pots" (larger, deeper vessels for boiling) were often considered the primary or larger kitchen vessel, while "pans" (shallower vessels for frying) were secondary, leading to a "large-to-small" ordering. 

While the order is interchangeable in context, "pots and pans" is the conventional English idiom.