GrafSchweik

@Jennifer It's an old slang term for money. I recalled it from way back when. Had to sift through a whole bunch of neurons and synapses to find it though!

@Jannicut In 1954 as a three-year-old with an ENT grandfather, I had to endure that operation. I can still smell the ether and that sore throat is still the worst of my life. One of his colleagues did the surgery. The money would have been more wisely spent on psychotherapy & marriage counseling for his daughter and my dad. Of course, number was the only one I didn't figure out!

@Charlotte I'm with you. This is a not uncommon trait in the US as a whole; more common in some regions, less so in others. In my thirties, I spent 4 years in Germany as part of 21 years in the EU. With the help of several friends, taught myself German and eventually did a 21k mile road trip around the States in the late Eighties with a German woman friend who brought along Watzlawick's 'A User's Guide to the United States'. As I recall, we confirmed all of his often wry observations including the one about the common tendency for Americans (even academics) to get upset when confronted by their ignorance instead of just learning something new and moving on. In my EU/German work and travels I invariably experienced the opposite. There are times when I long for those days!

@Danny , I'm in my 6th year here and still learning. The behavior you describe is why I rarely visit the comments anymore.

@Bill in Yokohama 2001 Nissan Sentras have them. I drove mine for 18 years.