www.alphadictionary.com

I must stop watching old westerns. Interesting how this word started as a household allowance of any kind, from the Latin "liberare" and then split into the one sense of provender for horses and another meaning distinctive clothing given to servants. But this Latin word "liberare" is also the origin of liberate and liberal.

Usage is important here along with context. Conservatives favor laissez-faire economics, which is allowing business more freedom, ergo liberality. Liberals favor more regulation, ergo tighter control and less freedom. Both parties once favored positions they now hate.

And what is a liberal arts education? To my mind it conveys a broad exposure to information and ideas from lit, history, philosophy and the like one is given the tools with which to think and encouraged to use them.

In theology liberals buck tradition in varying degrees. They may replace any orthodox doctrine with a looser or symbolic interpretation of the Bible. They may also be called modernists from their willingness to accept modern science and literary approaches to the Bible.

Thus, "liberal" covers a lot!

I thought livery was an illness of the liver that showed itself by a particular cast of the skin. One reads about English people being liverish in many fine novels. Dr. Simmons of St. Louis sold Dr. Simmons' Patent Liver Regulator. He was a quack doctor but he got rich off those bottles of alcohol laced with cocaine and made palatable by a little sugar and vanilla. He used his hard earned cash to buy a large South Texas ranch which he divided into farms of various sizes to sell at lottery, each for the same price. The Sheriff shut him down and the sale went forward on a more legal basis. Sixty years later Simmons City was made famous by a native son named Philip Hudson.

Is that also where they make fine mattresses?

Not so much fine mattresses. During the depression and through WW II mattresses were made by the ladies of Simmons by recycling old mattresses with new ticking. They turned a classroom at the Simmons school into a mattress factory. If you don't know the word "ticking", you probably are not as old as dirt like I am.

The old ticking was replaced by clocks, which in turn, are being replaced by bombs.

A bit of a delayed reaction here, but let's hope no one is ticked off by this topic, eh? I'd prefer all were tickled pink.