Vernacular Vocabulary of Vesticulated Variegated Vessels

ABC Wednesday is a word meme with participants from around the world. This fabulous meme was created and hosted by Mrs. Denise Nesbitt who hails from Great Britain. Over time, others have joined in to help host this wonderful and informative meme. We are now in our NINTH round! Some of the participants have been with this from the very first round; others have joined in along the way. Each week we are taken across the globe to see the varied and exciting contributions people have taken the time to discover and capture. We start with the letter, "A" and each week we post something in regards to the next letter of the alphabet. This week's letter is, "V".

VOLLEYBALL

Did you know that when the game of volleyball was conceived it was called Mintonette?


Says Wikipedia:
"On February 9, 1895, in Holyoke, Massachusetts (USA), William G. Morgan, a YMCA physical education director, created a new game called Mintonette as a pastime to be played preferably indoors and by any number of players. The game took some of its characteristics from tennis and handball. Another indoor sport, basketball, was catching on in the area, having been invented just ten miles (sixteen kilometers) away in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, only four years before. Mintonette was designed to be an indoor sport less rough than basketball for older members of the YMCA, while still requiring a bit of athletic effort.
The first rules, written down by William G Morgan, called for a net 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) high, a 25×50 ft (7.6×15.2 m) court, and any number of players. A match was composed of nine innings with three serves for each team in each inning, and no limit to the number of ball contacts for each team before sending the ball to the opponents’ court. In case of a serving error, a second try was allowed. Hitting the ball into the net was considered a foul (with loss of the point or a side-out)—except in the case of the first-try serve.
After an observer, Alfred Halstead, noticed the volleying nature of the game at its first exhibition match in 1896, played at the International YMCA Training School (now called Springfield College), the game quickly became known as volleyball (it was originally spelled as two words: "volley ball"). Volleyball rules were slightly modified by the International YMCA Training School and the game spread around the country to various YMCAs."

When I lived in San Diego (in my 20's) I used to go to the beach nearly every weekend during the warm summer months (South Mission Beach if anyone is interested) and spend all day Saturday and all day Sunday playing volley ball in a sand court. Really hard to do since the sand does not give back. My legs got really strong! It was a lot of fun as most of us were volleyball 'regulars'. Occasionally we would be short a team member and recruit a random stranger from the boardwalk.

Let's not forget the volley ball that kept Tom Hanks company when he was stranded on a desert island for years in the movie, "Cast Away". Great dialogue between Tom and the V-ball!   : )

VACUUM

Ahem.....we will refrain from making jokes about how a vacuum really sucks, OK? This image is from the same series that I did with my cell phone back in Jan. when I took my son to the ER for an arm contusion. Cheap entertainment, you know! It's become quite the habit for me now, whenever I'm in a medical exam room. They just have too many things in those rooms that are too good to pass up!

VARIEGATION

Saw this up at the Plaza in Santa Fe a few months back-pretty how this particular corn is variegated. If someone were to do a painting of that corn being that color, one would think it was totally made up!

Very Visit

 (taken right outside the VLA visitor center in NM)

Yes, I would like to thank you VERY much for your VISIT today!