Monday, April 4, 2022

By The Dozen

   NBC-TV News headline today: "Trump targets 'Big 12' GOP incumbents," a report about the former president's endorsement of political candidates.
   A popular expression is to say, "That's a douzy." Is that a borrowing of "douze," the French word for twelve?
   American schools typically have 12 grades before graduation from high school. (Not counting kindergarten, which is borrowed from the German "children's garden.")
   The school year is divided into what educators call "trimesters," derived from the Latin term "three months." That equates to 12 weeks for each grading period.
   When television sets first became available to the American public, they were built with 12 broadcast channels -- Channel 2 through Channel 13. The broadcast frequency that might have been used for Channel 1 was reserved for other users. The most popular TV set available for consumers had a 12-inch screen.
   Not all metropolitan areas used all 12 channels, however, because of the potential for broadcast signals interfering with each other. New York City stations, for example, used Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. (Technically, Channel 13 was assigned to Newark, NJ.) Philadelphia broadcasters used Channels 3, 6, 10, and 12. Channel 8 was given to Lancaster, PA.
   Other metro areas were assigned channels according to distance from each other to avoid interference.
   I was recently reading about Beowulf, the early warrior who led a squad of 12 to defeat Grendel, who had been harassing people for 12 years. There were 12 phases of the journey the warriors took to complete their mission, and their king awarded the groups 12 treasures for their victory.
   A literature course offered by The Teaching Company lists 12 major Irish authors in that nation's literary tradition. They are Jonathan Swift, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, Oscar Wilde, Seamus Heaney, Sean O'Casey, Edna O'Brien, Padraig Colum, Patrick Kavanaugh, and Lady Augusta Gregory.
   Many astronomers have added four planets to the solar system and deleted Pluto, which leaves a net of 12 planets.
   And finally, when a man and a woman get together for procreation, she gives birth to a third human after 36 weeks of pregnancy. Three times twelve equals 36.

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