I trust you can settle a matter that threatens to create a vast rift between my love and I. What is the absolute, unequivocal straight dope on astrology? My girl maintains that while horoscopes in newspapers may be rubbish, astrology as a whole is not. She believes that a person’s traits are dictated by their astrological chart (i.e., time of birth, position of planets, etc.) and that a person’s zodiac sign may be guessed by simply observing them. In fact, she has done this on occasion. I say astrology is completely illogical, and that her predictions are the result of a 12-to-1 shot paying off. Cece, set my lady straight. –B. Hayes, Chicago
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Couple problems you got here, B. Number one, it’s “between my love and me,” not I. (For that matter, it’s “couple problems you’ve got,” not you got, but when I do it it’s art.) Number two, don’t count on me to get your girlfriend turned around. My powers of persuasion are awesome, but experience shows these people are immune to rational argument.
But to say astrology can be helpful doesn’t mean it has any objective validity. Studies have shown that (1) astrologers trying to deduce someone’s personality from his chart do no better than chance; (2) astrologers studying the same chart come to opposite conclusions as often as not; (3) the birth dates of people with occupations linked to certain signs (e.g., politicians, scientists, soldiers) are in fact randomly distributed throughout the zodiac; and (4) couples with “incompatible” signs get married and divorced at the same rate as compatible couples.
Printing also gave us another expression. Individual letters were called “sorts,” and if you used up all you had of a given letter, you’d be upset, naturally, because you were “out of sorts.”
