Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Unwound

How many times have you heard someone say, "I don't have a clue..."?

How many times have you known someone who didn't have a clue, but still went on blithely as if they did?

Enough questions for now, so let me share an interesting fact I learned.

Do you have any clues as to where we got the word "clue"? It goes back to the Greeks. They had the myth about Theseus, who went to the labyrinth to slay the minotaur, the creature from mythology who looked just like some Raiders fans when they still played in Oakland.

Minotaur

Oakland fan


Anyhow...old Theseus was pretty clever. He took a clew into the maze to look for the beast, a clew being a ball of string. Theseus unwound the string as he entered the labyrinth so he would be able to find his way back out...

So he made sure to have a clew so as to have a clue about how to get home. We turned a clew into a clue so that people would have a clue what we were talking about. 

Language is fun when you get all the...clues.

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