Re: Why do people still get married?

On Tue, 13 May 2008 14:25:20 -0700 (PDT), Dana <dcarpend@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
<631ee72c-e507-41f8-b33c-bdf26c974c73@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>:

>I was just thinking the word "tontine!"  Good to know I'm not the only
>one who knows it.  It's so hard having a big vocabulary.  One knows so
>many words that are hellishly hard to work into a conversation.

BBC Radio 4's "Feedback", a listeners' letters show, has just had an item
on
the word 'Tontine': it appears a number of listeners didn't believe the
word
really exists and thought it had been invented by the Beeb as an April
Fool's Day joke. 

They explained that the word derives from the name Lorenzo Tonti, the
Neapolitan banker who initiated the first tontine in 1653. [Note to Les:
along with various references in English fiction, they also mentioned 'The
Wrong Box'.]

-- 
Regards,  Peter Boulding
pjb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (to e-mail, remove "UNSPAM")
Fractal music & images: http://www.pboulding.co.uk/
and 
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=794240&content=music