Ubiquitous

I ran across one of the earliest reviews on this blog, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, and there was the word ubiquitous, smack-dab in the middle of the review.  I like the way ubiquitous rolls off my tongue.  It's a fun word.  It was 2007, the first year I blogged, and this is what I wrote:

"I was surprised this time by what seemed to be missing, things like cell phones and computers which, of course, were not yet the ubiquitous items they are today."

Cell phones were not what was ubiquitous fifty years before I posted that review.  Can you read what the men are saying in this advertising cartoon from 1957?  That's only five years before A Wrinkle in Time was published in 1962.

Here's what the ad says, first from the cartoon, then the script below it:

"Telephones are ubiquitous?"
"Yes, telephones are ubiquitous."

Robert Day, the well-know cartoonist who drew this picture, was a little afraid there might be some people who wouldn't know what we meant by ubiquitous.  "It's a pretty big word," he said.

"Don't worry," we told him.  "We'll just put in a little reminder that the dictionary says ubiquitous means 'existing or being everywhere at the same time.'"

There's surely no better way to describe telephones!  They're not only in millions of homes and offices but just about everywhere you go.  In stores and at gas stations!  At airports, bus depots and railroad stations!  Out-of-doors!

Throughout the country, there are hundreds of thousands of these public telephones for your convenience.

So the next time something comes up when you're away from home or the office, or there's some news you'd like to share with someone, just stop up to one of those nearby telephones and call.

You can save yourself a lot of running around, be a number of places in a few minutes, and get things settled while they are fresh in your mind.

Working together to bring people together . . . BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM

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There's more to the story:  When I wrote and posted this on my Joyful Noiseletter blog on Monday, I clicked PUBLISH at 7:40 a.m., then got ready to go for the 10:15 appointment for my annual eye exam.  I arrived a few minutes early and had to wait, of course, so I  picked up AARP the Magazine.  Flipping through it, I started reading about gluten on page 18 because one of my grandchildren has to eat gluten-free food.  I almost laughed out loud when I came across this sentence:

"Gluten is ubiquitous."

What are the odds?  Three hours after posting my thoughts on a word, I run across it for the second time in one day, in the book review and in a random magazine in the doctor's waiting room.  Coincidences are the spice of life.

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Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by BermudaOnion, where readers share words they’ve encountered that are new to them.  I'm going to take a chance that Kathy @ BermudaOnion won't mind that I usually post about words I like.  I've been a reading fanatic for nearly seven decades, so I rarely run across words I haven't encountered before.  In the meantime, I love words and have my word blog to prove it.