[Nfbmt] Who uses what?

[Breslauers]

According to The Phrase Finder:
Put on your thinking cap - meaning and origin.
Meaning: Take time for consideration of some question.

Origin
A 'thinking cap' was previously known by the appealing name a 'considering
cap'. That term has gone entirely out of use now but was known since at least
the early 17th century, as in this example from Robert Armin in Foole upon
foole, 1605:

"The Cobler puts off his considering cap, why sir, sayes he, I sent them home
but now."

"It seems odd but people did actually use thinking caps when considering
difficult problems."

The earliest record I can find for the term 'thinking cap' is from the USA,
in the Wisconsin newspaper The Kenosha Times, July 1857:

"This tendency is a very good thing as the safeguard of our independence from
the control of foreign power, and it obliges every man to keep his thinking
cap on."


That citation uses the term figuratively - there's no suggestion that it
refers to a real cap. The figure who comes to mind when wondering who might
wear such a cap is Sherlock Holmes. In the stories he was portrayed as
settling down in a smoking jacket to consider difficult 'three-pipe'
problems. There's no record of his wearing a cap to accompany the jacket
though.

considering cap
Nevertheless, such caps possibly did exist. The 'considering cap' is
explained at great length, in fiction at least, in The History of Little
Goody Two-Shoes, 1765, which usefully includes an etching:

...a considering Cap, almost as large as a Grenadier's, but of three equal
Sides; on the first of which was written, I MAY BE WRONG; on the second, IT
IS FIFTY TO ONE BUT YOU ARE; and on the third, I'LL CONSIDER OF IT.


Such a device might be useful to us today, as the text went on:

..."it strictly enjoined the Possessor to put on the Cap, whenever he found
his Passions begin to grow turbulent, and not to deliver a Word whilst it was
on."

I can't find any record of actual considering or thinking caps. Nevertheless,
the metaphor must have arisen for a reason and the use of real thinking caps
is as good a reason as any. Citations which include lines like "I must put on
my thinking cap" are ambiguous as it is difficult to determine whether they
refer to actual headgear. I'll pass this one over to the archeologists.

Copyright C
Gary Martin,
1996 - 2016

-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbmt [mailto:nfbmt-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Rik James via
Nfbmt
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 2:41 PM
To: NFB of Montana Discussion List
Cc: Rik James
Subject: [Nfbmt] Who uses what?

How many members are using which device?

Who feels like they need help with which device?

Who would like to devote a part of a chapter meeting discussing this?

But not only devices.
How about other non-device aspects to day to day life as a blind person?
List some of those as well.

I keep spending time looking for things.
I am working on my scanning technique.
Seems that too often, I say well I can't find it.
Then to find out the lost item was right in the area where I had been
looking.
What is wrong with this picture?
Frustration.

What should I do?
I have an old thinking cap.
I used to wear it, until I got too big headed.
So I put it in a drawer
Of course my life was rather dull, not wearing my thinking cap.
But when living off of my wits proved too great a challenge, I chose to
reconsider my situation.
Then, when my ego had shrunk a bit, I could not remember which drawer I had
put it in.

What?
Look again in that drawer.
Why yes. There it is.

That's just silly.
Isn't it?
Who needs to wear a hat just to think?

Ah well.
Complications.

Looking for the cell phone.
Call myself up on the land line.
That works.
Should I have put the phone where the hat was?
Silly again. Oh well.

Let us hear your thoughts, folks.
Rik James


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