Goossun, Qov's list is correct for standard American and British English pronunciation. So "an H" is probably correct. The Irish pronunciation you referred to is probably nonstandard.

It's also correct in American English to spell it "orangutan." The first element, the "ourang" part, is "man" in one if the Indonesian languages, interestingly, so the title could also be read as if it referred to a cyborg, robot, or just an artificially "enhanced" person.

Frankly, Olga, I'm not surprised that you're confused. The sentence you quoted should win some kind of award for gibberish. It is so hopeless in so many ways. :)

That is extremely strange.

The writer evidently meant to allude to a "jigsaw puzzle," the kind in which a picture is pasted to a board and the irregular pieces are cut apart with a jigsaw (a saw used to make fine irregular cuts).

So a better way to write the sentence might be, "Cost-benefit analysis could be a useful tool for examining the evidence and showing how it all fits together."

From www.wordorigins.org :

"This term arose in engineering circles. The earliest known usage is from 1910, in H.H. Suplee's Gas Turbine. There is a use of the term status of the art dating to 1889 in Anthony's Photography Bulletin."

That might help. more later.

The Free Online Dictionary, at www.thefreedictionary.com, has this definition:

"Art that is intended to convey an idea or concept to the perceiver and need not involve the creation or appreciation of a traditional art object such as a painting or sculpture."

I couldn't resist running this through Google Talk (at http://douweosinga.com/projects/googletalk) with the seed string "Conceptual art is". The result began,

"Conceptual art is a way of life is a Dream. deeply rooted in the Land of the Free..."

You guys must go play with Google Talk... it's very interesting and often howlingly funny.

A speck more reasearch would have revealed the official Zorb site, www.zorb.com (how hard was that?), where the following official, Concise Oxford English Dictionary definition can be found:

zorbing [international linguist characters I can't type] n. a sport in which a participant is secured inside an inner capsule in a large, transparent ball which is then rolled along the ground or down hills. --ORIGIN 1990s: invented word from _zorb_ (the name of the ball used in this activity) + *ING^1.*

The site is hilarious and well worth a look.

Debbie, this site describes all of the applicable laws and forms for notaries in the state of Texas: http://www.sos.state.tx.us/statdoc/edinfo.shtml

The "Form for Ordinary Certificate of Acknowledgment," the standard form for most ordinary purposes, is reproduced below. The blanks here correspond to:

1) Texas county under which the notary is registered,
2) The person requesting the notary's services
3) A witness,
4) An ordinal number (first, second, third, etc.) denoting the day of the month, and
5) The year as a four-digit number (2004, 2005, etc.).

The notary's official seal appears below the notary's signature as indicated.
________________________________________

State of Texas
County of _______________

Before me, (insert the name and character of the officer), on this day personally appeared ____________________, known to me (or proved to me on the oath of ______________ or through (description of identity card or other document)) to be the person whose name is subscribed to the foregoing instrument and acknowledged to me that he executed the same for the purposes and consideration therein expressed.

Given under my hand and seal of office this __________ day of __________, (year).

______________________
Notary Public's Signature
(Personalized Seal)

There's a list? Awesome.

I bet it's in the book... I never got around to reading the book, actually. :(

What, is Texas not in America, now?

"Public servant" may be a technically correct phrase, but I was careful to say that I think very few such refer to themselves as such anymore.

Speaking of being careful, I think it's important to choose your words respectfully. It shows class, if nothing else. When we know that "foreigner" is possibly offensive to about half the people we would use it to, and we wish to avoid offense, the best course is to choose your words accordingly.

There are, naturally, times when we wish to be nasty, gauche, and crude--to throw our weight around and say "to Hell with anyone in our way." This is particularly common here in Texas. If this is the case, then we still need to choose our words properly so as to cause the maximum offense. (winks)