Calendar

PostCALL
Saturday, June 3, 4:00-7:00 pm
ACAC Adventure Central WaterPark

ACAC Fitness & Wellness Centers have graciously opened up their WaterPark exclusively to Martha Jefferson and our invited guests for our summer PostCALL. Physicians, healthcare providers and office staff are welcome to attend and bring their families. RSVP by May 24th to (434) 971-5227

Reception & Private Tours of the Reproductive Technology Laboratory
Monday, August 21, 5:00-7:00 pm
Martha Jefferson Outpatient Care Center

The Martha Jefferson Reproductive Technology Laboratory is a state-of-the-art facility offering regional services in andrology, embryology, and cryobiology. The recently opened lab is one of only 12 in the US with environmental systems designed to isolate the space & remove airborne contaminants that may inhibit embryo growth & development.
"ough"

In the English language "ough" can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully." Given that computer voice recognition is striving to master the English language here are a few more items that involve our language.

  • Rhythms is the longest English word without the normal vowels a,e,i,o,u.
  • The idiom "pillar of salt" means to have a stroke, or become paralyzed or dead.
  • The zip in zip-code stands for "zoning improvement plant"
  • Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest appropriate sentences in the French language - 823 words without a period.
  • In 1945 a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and Grace Hopper, who was working on the computer, investigated, found a moth in one of the circuits and removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with the computer, it is said to have a bug in it.
  • No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver and purple.
  • In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your "heart on your sleeve" now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
  • Of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions (192).
  • The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
  • The plastic things on the end of a shoelace are called aglets.
  • The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded in the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards".