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We’re all familiar with today’s title but when I tried to track down its actual roots, I became confused. According to multiple websites, it relates to a farmer in Maine trying to give a traveler directions to town.

Kenny Rogers made Don Schlitz’ song The Gambler famous back in the late 1970’s. If you recall the lyrics, the old gambler tells the young one that you have to know when to hold your cards and also when to fold them.

This morning I’m thinking of the delightful 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love. It involves a poor, unknown playwright named Will who falls in love with the far-out-of reach daughter of a wealthy merchant.

Imagine a brainstorming session in Detroit going something like this:

Cars have gotten so expensive, why don’t we add an alarm to provide increased protection against theft?

As Robert Heinlein famously shared: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. At the time he was writing, some bars sold lunch to patrons, others provided a ‘free’ lunch to theirs.

Care to guess the name of the newspaper I’ve read virtually every day for the past 45 years? Since I live in the world of business, you might not be surprised that it’s the Wall Street Journal.

Sometimes in the past I’ve suggested that a current or historical figure might have made a good financial planner but today I’m looking at a different theme – people who get excited for no real reason.

Do any of these phrases sound familiar?

• Stock market rout

• Beaten-up stocks

Turning once again to William Shakespeare for the title of an article, I’d like to consider some ways that commonly understood words might be used for uncommon purposes.

Members of “The Greatest Generation” knew Packard Bell as a well respected manufacturer of radios and other consumer electronic devices.

A recently widowed woman visited our office not long ago asking for help understanding her investment portfolio. Fortunately, she was in good financial shape but I was struck by some of her questions. While I strive for clarity both in person and in print, at one point she asked me what an index fund was.

If an investor decides that stock ownership seems like a workable strategy for making money over time, how does she or he decide which company to become an owner of, i.e. which stock to purchase? Choices abound. There are shares of around 8,000 companies currently available on US exchanges and at least that many more on foreign exchanges.