Mark Twain Quote

"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."

Mark Twain Christmas Wish

In 1890 the editor of the New York World invited Mark Twain to offer a message of holiday goodwill to its readers. Twain sent this, "It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us - the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage - may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss - except the inventor of the telephone."

What's in a Name, TWAIN

TWAIN is a standard for communication between imaging devices (usually scanners) and computers. Because it’s always written in upper case, it’s often assumed that TWAIN is an acronym – with the “AIN” coming from 'acquired image network'.

It doesn’t. According to the twain.org website, the word “twain” was chosen from Kipling’s the Ballad of East and West, which coined the phrase “…and never the twain shall meet…” to symbolize how hard it was to connect a scanner to a computer. It was changed to upper case to make it more distinctive.

The above TWAIN has no relation to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), whose pseudonym was taken from the steamboat practice of calling out the depth of the water to make sure it was deep enough for the boat to safely pass. Mark twain meant the depth of the water to be two fathoms. A fathom is about 6 feet. Twain is an archaic word for two.

Mark Twain

Happy Birthday next week to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who was born on November 30, 1835.

Mark Twain

Happy belated Birthday to Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who was born on November 30, 1835.