a is for.......A-Z Saturdays
My friend Toni, over at Chick Chat, has come up with a new meme idea. She has decided to do a weekly posting featuring a letter of the alphabet, A-Z, over the next 26 weeks. A is for...... I've decided to join her. I've chosen Saturdays to do this. So here is my beginning, the letter A. A is for.......Abacus. My very old dictionary defines Abacus as "A square slab forming the crowning of a column" There is absolutely no mention of abacus as a mathematical calculation device. So I went to see my good friend Google and found a Wikipedia entry about the Abacus . I've copied a part of it here for you. A Chinese abacus The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of wood, stone...