Let’s lighten up a bit today.  Here’s a bit of trivia that you can work into, well, almost no conversation.  It might be useful in a bar…or not.  I found it interesting, though.  Here you are:

Politicians have been with us since the beginning of time, but not phones, TVs, radios, social media, or ways to take polls.  However, they needed to know which way the public wind was blowing so they could form and adjust their campaigns (and policies?  Naw…they wouldn’t do that!).  Their answer was to send supporters to the local bars, taverns, and pubs, telling them to “go sip some ale and find out what people are thinking.”  These supporters were sent out to different locations at different times.  They were instructed to “go sip here” and “go sip there.”  Eventually, the first two words became combined when discussing local opinion.  And now we have the word “gossip.”