Monday , stars available.

Re: Monday , stars available.

Was his first name Bob? Damn the torpedoes....!!!

T.

I think

His first name was the same as that guy on Green Acres. (character name) Or maybe that of a cartoon cat in an animated movie, or possibly Mr. Holmes. (not Sherlock)

Not Mr. Fulton, or related to Mr. Farrigut

Dan's got the guy, what about the rest?

Re: Dan's got the guy, what about the rest?

Why did he use Latin? I would translate it as a frog that digs holes.

Actually it is Greek and you

need to make the frog the head of its class. As it is, it's pretty close

It's all Greek to me ;-)

(ducking and running)

Monday answer

Dan gets a star for the name of the person, a second for the name of the invention. The inventor was Oliver Evans (not Oliver Wendell Douglas from Green Acres or the Holmes one, or the Disney animated cat one). The device was what he called the Orukter Amphibolos (Amphibious Digger) which was thirty foot long wood boat designed as a dredge for cleaning up the mud and debris along the dock areas for the city of Philadelphia. It�s not unlike the small boat that cleans up the flotsam in Baltimore harbor today. He put wheels on it via pulleys and drove it to the docks, launched it after installing a stern wheel and set it to work. Evans also invented the automatic -- from grain to flour without human hands during the process -- flour mill using his steam engine and continuous ascending and decending cup belts, conveyor belts, Archimedes screws, bins and shakers. (U.S. patent #3). He invented and marketed a machine to make wire hooks by the thousands so that wool could be carded faster. He also applied for patents for a water distiller, ice making machine, road scraper, and a wire drawing machine. When his lab burned down in 1819 he suffered a stroke and soon thereafter died.

Re: Monday answer

Actually, the word Amphibolos means ambiguous in Greek. The word for something that lives or operates on land and in water is Amphibios.

By naming the machine Orukter Amphibolos, either the inventor meant that he did not know what the machine is for ;), or his knowledge of Greek was not particularly good.

I am inclined towards the second option, because his transliteration of the first word is not very correct either. A better version is Oryktos.

Re: Monday answer

Thanks. It is always helpful to have someone that actually knows what is going on. ;-) I may never need it again, but now I know at least two words in Greek, which is more than I knew before.

Interesting. I'm awarding a battlefield

commission. A forehead star goes out to Nikos. I checked four references and all indicate that the item was called "Orukter Amphibolos" by the inventor. That doesn't make it correct Greek but I'm satisfied that the references are correct. I'm with you that in the process of translation or writing that the word somewhere down the line was likely not used correctly. With web reference the Greek word "Amphibolos" however also can mean two sided or one or another. Perhaps that's what Evans meant. Regardless, thanks for the translation I would not have known differently had you not called it to attention.