What Is a Weed - image Via Wikipedia

Why Are Some Plants Called Weeds?

By: Tom Henricks  

 That plant is a weed.

This may sound like two minutes with Andy Rooney but I just don’t agree with this term. If a plant looks pretty and it has some quality that makes it useful, then why is it a weed?

What is a weed?

The chicory plant has a pretty little flower and some people use it to make tea. Isn’t the bright yellow flower of the dandelion similar to a marigold or some little yellow daisy? You can make wine from dandelions. That’s good isn’t it? What is grass? It just lays all over the place and looks plain old green. I guess cows can eat it. I don’t think it’s a weed but I think it acts like a weed. Grass tries to overpower everything else. If Creeping Charlie tries to do that, we call him a weed.

Do weeds have some exclusive property that we can use to define them from other plants? Are those other plants just “plants” or should we call them “non weeds”?

When my wife “weeds” the flower garden, she will constantly ask “is this a weed?” Does it really matter? My response is always the same. “If you like it – leave it there. If you don’t like it, pull it out.”

Milkweed – wow, poor plant got it right in the name. This plant with the fun little seedpod is home to the much admired Monarch Butterfly. The monarch needs this plant to survive. Children love to open the mature seed pod and blow the little parachutes all over the place. We are intent on eradicating it because it is a “weed”. I don’t know what makes it a weed.

There are some plants that I guess we can safely call a weed. Poison Ivy comes to mind first. I can’t see anything good about this plant. This one can go away forever as far as I am concerned. A couple of good doses of this plant have it on “My weed list”.

There are some very interesting names for weeds. The mouse eared chickweed. Does this really sound like a weed” It sounds like something we should see on the farm. Another similar name is “lamb’s quarters”. It belongs to the “goosefoot family” It just does not sound like a weed. More farm type plants – try “field horsetail” and “wild oats”. Sounds like they should do well together.

Don’t forget the “european frogbit.” Now you really must wonder about that name.

I like the masses of purple loosestrife I see growing in ditch banks but I guess it is a monster in disguise. It gets out of control and chokes out everything. Maybe that makes it a weed.

I guess St John’s Wort and Cypress Spurge don’t sound that good to me. Maybe I will add them to my weed list.

Now this one really makes me wonder. I looked up Common weeds of northern United states and Canada. Where is the thistle.

That mean bristly plant wasn’t to be found in the list of weeds. It must be a good plant I guess but I can’t imagine why.

I want to talk to the guy that made that list of weeds. I just don’t think he has it right!

I think I’m going to call Andy Rooney and see what he thinks of this whole weed deal. I bet he could provide a very interesting response.

$5.37! That’s what the kid behind the counter at Tim Horton’s said to me. I dug into my pocket and pulled out some lint and two dimes and something that used to be a Lifesaver. Having already handed the kid a five-spot, I started to head back out to the truck to grab some change when the kid with the Elmo hairdo said the worst thing anyone has ever said to me. He said, “It’s OK. I’ll just give you the senior citizen discount.”

I turned to see who he was talking to and then heard the sound of change hitting the counter in front of me. “Only $4.68″ he said cheerfully. I stood there stupified. I am 56, not even 60 yet? A mere child! Senior citizen? I took my food and walked out to the truck wondering what was wrong with Elmo. Was he blind? As I sat in the truck, my blood began to boil. Old? Me?

I’ll show him, I thought.. I opened the door and headed back inside. I strode to the counter, and there he was waiting with a smile. Before I could say a word, he held up something and jingled it in front of me, like I could be that easily distracted! What am I now? A toddler? “Dude! Can’t get too far without your car keys, eh?” I stared with utter disdain at the keys. I began to rationalize in my mind. “Leaving keys behind hardly makes a man elderly! It could happen to anyone!”

I turned and headed back to the truck. I slipped the key into the ignition, but it wouldn’t turn. What now? I checked my keys and tried another. Still nothing. That’s when I noticed the purple beads hanging from my rear view mirror. I had no purple beads hanging from my rear view mirror. Then, a few other objects came into focus. The car seat in the back seat. Happy Meal toys spread all over the floorboard. A partially eaten doughnut on the dashboard. Faster than you can say ginkgo biloba, I flew out of the alien vehicle. Moments later I was speeding out of the parking lot, relieved to finally be leaving this nightmarish stop in my life.

That is when I felt it, deep in the bowels of my stomach: hunger! My stomach growled and churned, and I reached to grab my coffee, only it was nowhere to be found. I swung the truck around, gathered my courage, and strode back into the restaurant one final time. There Elmo stood, draped in youth and black nail polish. All I could think was, “What is the world coming to?” All I could say was, “Did I leave my food and drink in here”? At this point I was ready to ask a Boy Scout to help me back to my vehicle, and then go straight home and apply for Social Assistance benefits. Elmo had no clue. I walked back out to the truck, and suddenly a young lad came up and tugged on my jeans to get my attention. He was holding up a drink and a bag. His mother explained, “I think you left this in my truck by mistake.” I took the food and drink from the little boy and sheepishly apologized. She offered these kind words: “It’s OK. My grandfather does stuff like this all the time.”

All of this is to explain how I got a ticket doing 85 in a 40. Yes, I was racing some punk kid in a Toyota Prius. And no, I told the officer, I’m not too old to be driving this fast. As I walked in the front door, my wife met me halfway down the hall. I handed her a bag of cold food and a $300 speeding ticket. I promptly sat in my rocking chair and covered up my legs with a blanky.

The good news was I had successfully found my way home.

Choose the Right Words Please

This is a Hoot! – The Boss Not Happy With Proper English Issues!

Dear Colleagues
We must make sure we stick to the rules on how to describe people, because to stray from consistency causes confusion. The suspect in the Wikileaks case is an American soldier called Private Brad Manning. He is also known as Specialist Brad Manning. We should stick to the familiar, and refer to him at all times (until he is convicted of anything) as Pte Manning. We have started to call him Mr Manning; which, as he is not a civilian, is just plain wrong. The only exception is with officers (usually of the rank of Lt-General or above) who have also been knighted; in which case they should be called (for example) General Sir David Richards at first mention, and then may be either Gen Richards or Sir David. Many of our readers are or have been in the services and have great attention to detail on matters of rank. Since they know at once when we get it wrong, we need to have that attention to detail too.
If you find yourself using a word of whose meaning you are unsure, do look it up in the dictionary. When we get a word wrong it is embarrassing. It demeans us as professional writers and shakes our readers’ confidence in us. In recent weeks we have confused endocrinology – the study of the body’s endocrine system – with dendrochronology, which is the study of dating trees. More embarrassing still, we accused the eminent broadcaster Sir David Attenborough of being a naturist – someone who chooses not to wear clothes – when in fact he is a naturalist; and during a story about a coach crash in Paris the nationality of the driver changed from Austrian to Australian. Homogenous and homogeneous are not interchangeable and their respective meanings should be studied in the dictionary. Like embodied and embedded, which we also confused, effecting and affecting and eligibility and legibility, these pairs of words almost come under the heading of homophones, as do prostate and prostrate. We must take more care and ensure we are using the right word.
Homophones remain abundant and show up the writer and the newspaper or website. We are quality media, and quality media do not make mistakes such as these: “the luck of the drawer”, “through the kitchen sink”, “through up” “dragging their heals” and “slammed on the breaks”, all of which are clichés that might not be worthy of a piece of elegant writing even if spelt correctly. We have also confused Briton and Britain, hanger and hangar, hordes and hoards, peeled and pealed, lightening and lightning, stationery and stationary, principal and principle, peninsula and peninsular, licence and license and, in something of a pile-up, born, borne and bourn. If you are unsure of the meanings of any of these words, look them up before proceeding further.
Many of these mistakes are caused by carelessness and not properly reading back what one has written. We have had an increasing number of literals in recent weeks, both online and in the paper, which suggests the problem is getting worse rather than better. Heads of department have a particular responsibility to ensure that their staff perform to the best professional standards in this respect. We managed to perpetrate one of the worst literals of all recently – pubic for public- which may seem a laughing matter, but is not.
Some Americanisms keep slipping in, usually when we are given agency copy to re-write and do an inadequate job on it. There is no such verb as “impacted”, and other American-style usages of nouns as verbs should be avoided (authored, gifted etc). Maneuver is not spelt that way in Britain. We do not have lawmakers: we might just about have legislators, but better still we have parliament. People do not live in their hometown; they live in their home town, or even better the place where they were born.
Sometimes we do not properly think of the sense of what we are writing. There is a marked difference between the meanings of convince and persuade that is not recognised by some of you. If you are unsure of the distinction, look the words up. We wrote that “too many bomb disposal experts” had died in Afghanistan, which prompted an angry reader to ask what an acceptable number of dead experts would have been. We wrote of “an extraordinary killing spree” and were asked, in similar fashion, what would have constituted an ordinary one. We wrote about someone’s youngest child being her first, which was obviously not the case. Be careful too of the distinction between renting a property and letting it. And readers also asked us how there could, as we reported, be an 18-month long investigation into a crime that was committed only 14 months ago. We need to ensure that our facts, like our arithmetic, add up.
There have also been some grammatical difficulties. The style book (which, in case you have lost your copy, is also online) specifies the distinction between “compared with” and “compared to”, and it may be worth examining. One of our writers began a sentence with the phrase “us single ladies” which suggests we need to brush up on our pronouns. We should always write one in four is, not one in four are, since one is inevitably singular. Bacteria is plural. Put adverbs in a sentence where they make the most logical sense, if you have to use them at all. This will never be by splitting the infinitive, but to write “to go speedily to town” will always be preferable to “to go to town speedily”, or any other such variant. It is different from, not different to. Under age, like under way, should be written as two words.
Finally, may I mention some factual matters? Ottawa is the capital of Canada. Air Chief Marshal is spelt thus; and Mark Antony thus.
With best wishes
Simon Heffer
Associate Editor
The Daily Telegraph

These Questions were Really Asked

Believe it or not these questions about  Canada  were posted on an International Tourism Website. Obviously the answers are a joke; but the questions were really asked!

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow? ( England  )

A. We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (  USA  )

A: Depends on how much you’ve been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from  Vancouver  to   Toronto  - can I follow the Railroad tracks? (  Sweden  )

A: Sure, it’s only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in  Canada  ? (  Sweden  )

A: So it’s true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATM’s (cash machines) in  Canada  ?  Can you send me a list of them in  Toronto , Vancouver  ,   Edmonton  and  Halifax  ? (England  )

A: No, but you’d better bring a few extra furs for trading purposes.

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in  Canada  ? (  USA )

A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of  Europe    Ca-na-da is that big country to your North…oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in  Calgary  Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in  Canada  ? (  USA  )

A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees contact us when you get here and we’ll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into  Canada  ? (  England  )

A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys’ Choir schedule? (  USA  )

A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is…oh forget it.  Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in  Vancouver  and in  Calgary , straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Do you have perfume in  Canada  ? (  Germany  )

A: No, WE don’t stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth.  Where can I sell it in  Canada  ? (  USA  )

A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in  British Columbia  where the female population is smaller than the male population? (  Italy  )

A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in  Canada  ? (  USA  )

A: Only at Thanksgiving.

Q: Are there supermarkets in  Toronto  and is milk available all year round? ( Germany  )

A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Vegan hunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in  Canada  , but I forget its name. It’s a kind of big horse with horns. (  USA  )

A: It’s called a Moose. They are tall and very violent, eating the brains of anyone walking close to them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (  USA  )

A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.

My wife sat down on the couch next to me as I was flipping channels. She
asked, ‘What’s on TV?’
I said, ‘Dust.’

And then the fight started…

******************************************

My wife and I are watching “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” while we were
in bed. I turned to her and said, “Do you want to have sex?”
“No,” she answered..
I then said, “Is that your final answer?”
She didn’t even look at me this time, simply saying, “Yes.”
So I said, “Then I’d like to phone a friend.”

And then the fight started….

******************************************

Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, grabbed
the dog, and slipped quietly into the garage. hooked up the boat up to
the truck, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. The
wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the
radio, and discovered that the weather would be bad all day.

I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into
bed. I cuddled up to my wife’s back, now with a different anticipation,
and whispered, “The weather out there is terrible.”

My loving wife of 10 years replied, “Can you believe my stupid husband
is out fishing in that?”

And that’s how the fight started…

******************************************

I rear-ended a car this morning. So, there we were alongside the road
and slowly the other driver got out of his car. You know how sometimes
you just get soooo stressed and little things just seem funny? Yeah,
well I couldn’t believe it…. He was a DWARF!!!

He stormed over to my car, looked up at me, and shouted, “I AM NOT HAPPY
!!!”

So, I looked down at him and said, “Well, then which one are you? ”

And then the fight started…..

*****************************************

My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary.
She said, ‘I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3
seconds.’

I bought her a scale.

And then the fight started….

******************************************

When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace
expensive…
so, I took her to a gas station.

And then the fight started…

******************************************

After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social
Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver’s license
to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my
wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have
to go home and come back later.

The woman said, ‘Unbutton your shirt’. So I opened my shirt revealing my
curly silver hair. She said, ‘That silver hair on your chest is proof
enough for me’ and she processed my Social Security application

When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the
Social Security office.

She said, ‘You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten
disability, too.’

And then the fight started….

******************************************

My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I
kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a
nearby table.

My wife asked, ‘Do you know her?’
‘Yes,’ I sighed, ‘She’s my old girlfriend. I understand she took to
drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she
hasn’t been sober since.’

‘My God!’ says my wife, ‘who would think a person could go on
celebrating that long?’

And then the fight started…

******************************************

I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took my
order first. “I’ll have the strip steak, medium rare, please.”
He said, “Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?”"
Nah, she can order for herself.”

And then the fight started…

******************************************

A woman is standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror.
She is not happy with what she sees and says to her husband, ‘I feel
horrible; I look old, fat and ugly.
I really need you to pay me a compliment.’

The husband replies, ‘Your eyesight’s damn near perfect.’

And then the fight started…..

Your loving wife.
XXX

P.S Your Girlfriend called!

I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel.

I no longer have lemon slices in my ice water at a restaurant without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel.

I can’t use the remote in a hotel room because I don’t know what the last person was doing while flipping through the adult movie channel
                         
I can’t sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking one’s nose (although cell phone usage may be overtaking the number one spot).   

Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.                            

I can’t touch any woman’s purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom.

I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing.  
                                                             
ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.
                                                       
I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa’s Novena has granted my every wish.
                                                         
I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.
                                               
I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.                                   

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won’t crawl in my back seat when I’m pumping gas.
                           
I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put ‘Under God’ on their cans.
             
I no longer use Saran Wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.                                                               
AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can’t boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face… disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a  number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda , Singapore , and Uzbekistan .

P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it’s me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 when one of my forefathers took up arms against the Americans. I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the yingyang.
I was aide de camp to the lieutenant governor of our province for ten years and I have been doing volunteer work for the RCMP for about five years. However, I have to get someone ‘important’ to verify who I am – you know, someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN COMMUNIST f—ing CHINA !!!

Thank you for shopping @ Wal-Mart