Angle Discernment

Angle Discernment

Since someone typed the above into a search engine somewhere, I now feel obliged to blog on it. Unfortunately, I have no idea as to what is meant by “angle discernment”.

Of course, if I were to type it into Goggle, I’d probably find this blog which wouldn’t be very helpful. Therefore, I have to apply academic methods of investigation – I’m going to  spout BS. (Yes folks, this is the major skill I developed in my many years in the academic can.)

Angle Discernment was invented in 1895 by a certain Stephen R. Richards, son of the late Jason R. Richards. Like many Americans, the “R” simply stands for whatever… word the observer chooses to fill in, rather like the Jody “F” Millennium that got stuck in a certain port a  few years back – it quickly became apparent exactly what word the “F” stood for and the full name of that ship was used frequently by anyone within sight of the vessel. But I digress.

Family history aside, Stephen R. Richards had a very boring life up to the point he entered  Bullside University and studied under a certain Prof. B. Short, well known for his work on the subtleties of blogging in the 18th century, and a major force of blogging himself in the 19th. He in fact revolutionised blogging, being the first to add to his blog the ability to post letters to universities requesting scientific papers – the first crude hyperlink if you will.

Regardless, under the tutorship of B.S., J.R.R. flurished er, slowly. Indeed, it was in his honor that “doing a Richards” became a household phrase – these days we would use the term “professional student”.

Eventually, J.R.R. decided that he required a name change to further his studies. He decided that his papers would be more distinguished if published under the name “Christopher Robin” and henceforth change his name to the same by deed poll. His friends, however, decided that he looked more like an Eisenhower, and started using this name, which became shorten and corrupted to “Ikey”. As was the custom at the time, Stephen (now Christopher) signed all his papers by initials only, but this became confusing after a time and he began to add his nickname after his new initials to reduce the number of mixups. Thus he became C.R. (Ikey). Later this was simplified for grammatical purposes to “Crikey” although authorities dispute the exact timing when this occurred.

(At this point, I would like to point out to critics of a certain recently departed Austrilian that Mr Irwin was in fact far more educated than he seemed to the common man, and his most commonly remembered utterance was in fact an ongoing tribute to the man who founded the Angle Discernment movement. )

Indeed, the history of Crikey is well known in Australia for a good reason. Quite simply BS University became impatient with Crikey’s lack of progress and plotted to get rid of him. Owing to his connections with the local circus (Crikey had a unique talent of being able to kiss his own proverbial and this had won him a great number of influential circus friends)  BS found that the only way to get rid of Crikey was to have him transported as a convict. But this act was both their undoing and their making.

To Be Continued. (If anyone finds this entertaining that is.)