Visit Your Local Zoo!

With winter bearing down on us, take time to visit your local zoo. Rates are usually cheap compared to many other get-a-ways, and you won't have to travel forever to get there, so you'll save gas, too. Many zoos may have "family rates," or even free admission for children up to a certain age. For Cleveland area residents, make a day of it by visiting, not only the zoo and rain forest, but the new shopping center not all that far from the Cleveland Zoo, called "Steelyard Commons." Now, I'm not going to claim that will save you money, if you or others in your family are shoppers!

http://www.clemetzoo.com/index.asp


http://www.steelyardcommons.com/main.asp

Word History:
ZOO-Hmm, wonder why I picked that woid? I mean word. Zoo comes from "Zoological Gardens" in 1800s London, England, which was used to display and house wild animals (Surprise! Surprise!) . It didn't take the English long to shorten the form to just "zoo." The word comes from Greek "zoion," (first "o" was long) which meant "animal," or even just "living being." Greek is an Indo European language related to English, although a little further down the family tree. It came from the Indo European base "gwei," (I believe the "gw" pronounced almost like "zw") with which meant "life/to live." By the way, it also gave Greek "bios," which means "life," and from that English got "biology," the study of life, and "biography," the story of someone's life. I know that it is difficult to see how people got from "gwei" to "zoo" and "bios," but sounds changed in various dialects as time passed for human beings, and, according to linguists, no two people on Earth speak exactly the same way; that is, we all have our very own dialect. Hey, I gotta get out of this zoo!