Good morning, all! Thanks for the good wishes.
I loved SOUVENIR; both Donald Corren and Judy were quite wonderful, and I found the play to be very funny and, ultimately, quiye moving. I'm sorry it's closing. Kritzerland should record it.
The second act was over by 10:15, and by the time Charlotte and I were settled into a taxi, my teeth coldn't stop chattering, and I told her I thought I'd picked up a chill. I dropped her off, and by the time I was home, I was shaking so much I could hardly type my brief note last night. I was in bed by 11:15, and by 12:15 I was relocated to the bathroom where I spent a couple of hours battling nausea. I fell asleep at some point because the alarm said 4:37 when I next moved out of bed, and I slept until 9:35 or so this morning. I feel achey, and my body hurts. I have survived the worst now, but I'm not leaving the house today.
I found the question on "chock full" fascinating to do some Googling, and here's what I learned from the Maven's Word of the Day:
I can only offer suggestions; the origin of chock-full , which means 'full to the limit; crammed', is uncertain, though much ink has been spilled on the question.
The earliest forms of the word, from the same early fifteenth century text, are chokkefulle and chekefull ; after that the word doesn't appear until the seventeenth century, so it's difficult to judge how much weight to give to either of these forms. Also, the later tradition has choke-full as a frequent variant in British English; chuck-full was also found from the seventeenth century onwards.
The full part, which is not disputed, is the familiar word full ; it's the first element that's problematic. Some possibilities raised by these forms are that the word represents "cheek-full," that is, 'with the cheeks stuffed full' (the Old English word for cheek could give rise to either the "chokke" or "cheke" forms in Middle English); that the first element is the same as our modern chock 'wedge for holding an object in place'; that the first element represents Middle English chokken 'to cram', from an Old French word for 'to thrust', with the compound thus meaning 'crammed full'; and that the first element represents the ancestor of choke , with the compound meaning 'full to the point of choking'. This last has been very pervasive, and is the reason choke-full has been common, but choke-full is chiefly literary; spoken English doesn't suggest a link to choke .
Though many forms have been recorded for this compound, chalk-full isn't one of them. Despite the appearance of the other variants--nineteenth-century lexicographers had difficulty deciding which form should be used for the headword--the only current recommended form is chock-full , hyphenated.
