Back in the day, it was common for people to walk around carrying modesty armadilloes.
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Bill, in true “That Is Priceless” tradition, you should let us know where that piece is located (not to mention who was responsible for it). That will permit us all to take corresponding detours (either to see or avoid it, depending on the artistic sensibility of the affected person).
You are correct, Kilby. It’s a bit tricky doing this all on a cell phone, but not impossible. The painting is in the Dallas Museum of Art, and the rest of the information has been added to the post (in two languages).
As an Art History major, I’m now afraid to visit any art museum because I KNOW I’ll be making up ‘alternate titles’. I see you have the same problem (if, indeed, it can be considered to be a problem).
And as a not-so-fun fact, don’t handle armadillos . . . they can carry the bacteria that causes leprosy. I’ve actually seen several (live) ones here in FL, and observe them from a distance.
The use of modesty armadillos declined sharply after the invention of the automobile for safety reasons. Those little critters are magnets for cars.
Andréa, when you do, please send them here!
Andréa. yes, next time you see a live armadillo in FL, mail it to Bill!
@ Andréa – There’s a similar consideration with snakes: I’m sure that the zookeeper wasn’t worried specifically about leprosy, but after all the kids in our herpetology tour group had a turn petting the snakes, she made sure that they all washed their hands.
P.S. @ WW – I think Bill was talking about having them sent them to Dallas, not New Jersey.
Why?? They tear up lawns at night (and during the day sometimes, too) . . . they ARE funny to watch, tho. I’ve only encountered ONE dead one in three years here – maybe the FL ones are smarter/faster than the TX ones??
I’m sold on “Modesty Armadillo”. Snakes can give you salmonella. But nothing’ll hurt you like a human. ;-)
In case anybody actually got sidetracked here, I was referring to Andréa sending me her alternate titles, not armadilloes.
Good thing I didn’t know this several years ago, in Roatan, Honduras:
BILL: No alternate titles, ’cause I don’t go to art museums (or any museums) anymore; which is why I like ‘That is Priceless’ so much, even buying his book.
BTW. a la Daniel Quayle . . . armadillos is spelled without the ‘e’ (or is that a geezer alert??)
I can be forgiven for assuming a noun ending in ‘o’ pluraluzes with “oes,” because that’s fairly standard. Quayle went an illogical step further and insisted that the SINGULAR spelling was “potatoe.”
OOPS – I guess that shows I’m not a geezer. Yet.
I dunno, that guy was generally an idiot, but I can kind of understand that if you’re provided a card from the school that has the “answer” on it, you might just trust that they’ve given you the right answer.
I would have been okay with that, WW, but he was being condescending about it. If you’re going to be condescending, you better be DAMN sure you’re right.
ESPECIALLY if the public already doesn’t think of you as the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Speaking of which, sort of, if I had a dime for every time somebody’s said to somebody on Facebok or Twitter “Your an idiot”…
He didn’t seem condescending to me. More just trying to be helpful.
I’m guessing ‘armadillo’ pluralizes to ‘-os’ because that’s the standard Spanish pluralization. (Same with ‘pianos’ and Italian.)
“I’m guessing ‘armadillo’ pluralizes to ‘-os’ because that’s the standard Spanish pluralization. (Same with ‘pianos’ and Italian.)”
Italianos?
My dad had a weird habit of tape recording TV and radio programs back in the mid-80s. I’ve got about a dozen cassette tapes, and the only cassette player is in an old vehicle I recently started driving. I’m working my way through them, mostly to see if I can hear my dad’s voice – he passed away in 1989. Anyway, the tape I was listening to today, was a debate about whether Mr. Quayle had sufficient experience to be a VP candidate. Little did the commentators know, at the time, that experience would not be a consideration for a lot of voters after the turn of the century.
Whether a person has or does not have sufficient experience to be a VP or President depends on whether he or she is a member of your party or of the other party. Likewise for moral rectitude.
Actually, there’s rarely any real pretense, for either party, that a VP candidate is qualified, as illustrated by the slipshod way Truman was chosen and the fact that even once he was office, nobody thought to brief him about the atomic bomb. Even though we were at war and the president was clearly at death’s door.
The primary — sometimes only — qualification is balancing the ticket.
“if you’re provided a card from the school that has the ‘answer’ on it, you might just trust that they’ve given you the right answer.”
Appeal to authority fallacy.
There are people who reflexively defer to authority figures. There’s a bit of cliche as to which political party they prefer (accuracy may vary).
“Trust, buy verify.”
Winter Wallaby – At my high school graduation I took the card with my name and wrote it out phonetically as the Assistant principal always pronounced it Merle instead of Meh rill. He still pronounced it Merle.
I sort of figured if my parents were going to force me to go to graduation, I should at least have my name pronounced correctly.
Meryl A: For my graduate school graduation, they asked us write our names phonetically. There were lots of “foreign” names in the graduation list (mine included), and the woman reading them not only mangled them, but kept giggling self-consciously as she read them. I felt bad for her, since she was (I assume) giggling because she was embarrassed for herself, and at the weird names. Still, if they were going to ask us to write our names phonetically, I don’t know why the reader didn’t take some to look at the phonetic writing beforehand.
Back in the day, it was common for people to walk around carrying modesty armadilloes.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Bill, in true “That Is Priceless” tradition, you should let us know where that piece is located (not to mention who was responsible for it). That will permit us all to take corresponding detours (either to see or avoid it, depending on the artistic sensibility of the affected person).
You are correct, Kilby. It’s a bit tricky doing this all on a cell phone, but not impossible. The painting is in the Dallas Museum of Art, and the rest of the information has been added to the post (in two languages).
As an Art History major, I’m now afraid to visit any art museum because I KNOW I’ll be making up ‘alternate titles’. I see you have the same problem (if, indeed, it can be considered to be a problem).
And as a not-so-fun fact, don’t handle armadillos . . . they can carry the bacteria that causes leprosy. I’ve actually seen several (live) ones here in FL, and observe them from a distance.
The use of modesty armadillos declined sharply after the invention of the automobile for safety reasons. Those little critters are magnets for cars.
Andréa, when you do, please send them here!
Andréa. yes, next time you see a live armadillo in FL, mail it to Bill!
@ Andréa – There’s a similar consideration with snakes: I’m sure that the zookeeper wasn’t worried specifically about leprosy, but after all the kids in our herpetology tour group had a turn petting the snakes, she made sure that they all washed their hands.
P.S. @ WW – I think Bill was talking about having them sent them to Dallas, not New Jersey.
Why?? They tear up lawns at night (and during the day sometimes, too) . . . they ARE funny to watch, tho. I’ve only encountered ONE dead one in three years here – maybe the FL ones are smarter/faster than the TX ones??
I’m sold on “Modesty Armadillo”. Snakes can give you salmonella. But nothing’ll hurt you like a human. ;-)
In case anybody actually got sidetracked here, I was referring to Andréa sending me her alternate titles, not armadilloes.
Good thing I didn’t know this several years ago, in Roatan, Honduras:
BILL: No alternate titles, ’cause I don’t go to art museums (or any museums) anymore; which is why I like ‘That is Priceless’ so much, even buying his book.
BTW. a la Daniel Quayle . . . armadillos is spelled without the ‘e’ (or is that a geezer alert??)
I can be forgiven for assuming a noun ending in ‘o’ pluraluzes with “oes,” because that’s fairly standard. Quayle went an illogical step further and insisted that the SINGULAR spelling was “potatoe.”
OOPS – I guess that shows I’m not a geezer. Yet.
I dunno, that guy was generally an idiot, but I can kind of understand that if you’re provided a card from the school that has the “answer” on it, you might just trust that they’ve given you the right answer.
I would have been okay with that, WW, but he was being condescending about it. If you’re going to be condescending, you better be DAMN sure you’re right.
ESPECIALLY if the public already doesn’t think of you as the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Speaking of which, sort of, if I had a dime for every time somebody’s said to somebody on Facebok or Twitter “Your an idiot”…
He didn’t seem condescending to me. More just trying to be helpful.
I’m guessing ‘armadillo’ pluralizes to ‘-os’ because that’s the standard Spanish pluralization. (Same with ‘pianos’ and Italian.)
“I’m guessing ‘armadillo’ pluralizes to ‘-os’ because that’s the standard Spanish pluralization. (Same with ‘pianos’ and Italian.)”
Italianos?
My dad had a weird habit of tape recording TV and radio programs back in the mid-80s. I’ve got about a dozen cassette tapes, and the only cassette player is in an old vehicle I recently started driving. I’m working my way through them, mostly to see if I can hear my dad’s voice – he passed away in 1989. Anyway, the tape I was listening to today, was a debate about whether Mr. Quayle had sufficient experience to be a VP candidate. Little did the commentators know, at the time, that experience would not be a consideration for a lot of voters after the turn of the century.
Pianos? Italian? Two pianos = due pianoforti.
Speaking of armadillos – https://www.gocomics.com/speedbump/2018/08/19 and snakes – https://joshreads.com/images/18/08/i180819marktrail.jpg (A friend back in WI told me that ‘Florida has too much nature’ . . . alligators, bufo toads, pythons, etc., etc. I guess I like living dangerously.)
Whether a person has or does not have sufficient experience to be a VP or President depends on whether he or she is a member of your party or of the other party. Likewise for moral rectitude.
Actually, there’s rarely any real pretense, for either party, that a VP candidate is qualified, as illustrated by the slipshod way Truman was chosen and the fact that even once he was office, nobody thought to brief him about the atomic bomb. Even though we were at war and the president was clearly at death’s door.
The primary — sometimes only — qualification is balancing the ticket.
“if you’re provided a card from the school that has the ‘answer’ on it, you might just trust that they’ve given you the right answer.”
Appeal to authority fallacy.
There are people who reflexively defer to authority figures. There’s a bit of cliche as to which political party they prefer (accuracy may vary).
“Trust, buy verify.”
Winter Wallaby – At my high school graduation I took the card with my name and wrote it out phonetically as the Assistant principal always pronounced it Merle instead of Meh rill. He still pronounced it Merle.
I sort of figured if my parents were going to force me to go to graduation, I should at least have my name pronounced correctly.
Meryl A: For my graduate school graduation, they asked us write our names phonetically. There were lots of “foreign” names in the graduation list (mine included), and the woman reading them not only mangled them, but kept giggling self-consciously as she read them. I felt bad for her, since she was (I assume) giggling because she was embarrassed for herself, and at the weird names. Still, if they were going to ask us to write our names phonetically, I don’t know why the reader didn’t take some to look at the phonetic writing beforehand.