What’s not to love?

“Abhor” is composed of two word parts, ab meaning away or from, and horrere, meaning to shudder. The word means “to shrink away from in disgust, hatred, etc.” according to Webster’s. It’s a Middle English word that entered our language in the 1400s.

The idiom “nature abhors a vacuum” comes from ancient Greek philosophers/scientists, according to the online Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics, Human Chemistry and Human Physics. Researchers for the encyclopedia write that the Greek physicist Parmenides first stated this postulate and he set off a 2,000-year debate on its veracity. For further details, go to http://www.eoht.info/page/nature+abhors+a+vacuum.

By the way, Mrs. Duncan’s suggestion of Zumba is spiffy. Now a worldwide craze, Zumba is a workout that involves dancing and exercising to Latin and other international music. (Bombay Rockers, anyone?) It’s an enlivening way to “shrink away” some extra pounds.

Zumba (ZOOM bah) isn’t just for females. A man named Beto Perez created it, after all. Perez forgot his regular tapes for an aerobics class in Colombia in the 1990s and had to improvise with tapes of his favorite Latin music, according to an article in the online version of The Daily Telegraph,

It’d be great if Mrs. Duncan could talk Jeremy and her husband into going to a class someday. Even if they try it just once or twice, real men do Zumba.

Maria Moline, instructor, coaches her Zumba class through the dance choreography in the Patch Fitness Center in U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart.
Photo and caption courtesy of Wikipedia