palladium (puh-LAY-dee-uhm) noun
1. A safeguard.
After Athena (also known as Pallas Athena), a goddess in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Zeus and was born fully-grown from his forehead. Palladium was a statue of Athena that was believed to protect Troy. Earliest documented use: before 1393.
2. A rare, silvery-white metal.
Palladium was discovered by chemist and physicist William Hyde Wollaston in 1803. He named it after the asteroid Pallas which had been discovered the year before. The asteroid was named after Pallas Athena. Earliest documented use: 1803.
cruciverbalist (kroo-si-VUHR-buh-list) noun A crossword designer or enthusiast.
[From Latin cruci-, stem of crux (cross), + verbalist (one skilled in use of words), from verbum (word).]
Cadmean victory (kad-MEE-uhn VIK-tuh-ree) noun
A victory won at as great a cost to the victor as to the vanquished.
After Cadmus, a Phoenician prince in Greek mythology who introduced writing to the Greeks and founded the city of Thebes. Near the site where Cadmus was to build Thebes he encountered a dragon. Even though he managed to kill the dragon, only five of his comrades survived, with whom he founded the city. Other words coined after him are calamine (a pink powder used in skin lotions), from Latin calamina, from Greek kadmeia ge (Cadmean earth) and the name of the chemical element cadmium. A similar eponym is Pyrrhic victory.
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

The first example of a crossword puzzle appeared on September 14, 1890, in the Italian magazine Il Secolo Illustrato della Domenica. It was designed by Giuseppe Airoldi and titled "Per passare il tempo" ("To pass the time"). Airoldi's puzzle was a four-by-four grid with no shaded squares; it included horizontal and vertical clues. On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne, a journalist from Liverpool, England, published a "word-cross" puzzle in the New York World that embodied most of the features of the genre as we know it. This puzzle is frequently cited as the first crossword puzzle, and Wynne as the inventor. Later, the name of the puzzle was changed to "crossword". Learn about grids, clues and variants at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword

Toledo Botanical Garden Seed Swap February 25 noon-3 p.m. Erie Street Market downtown
Join us for our 7th annual Seed Swap! This FREE event offers a myriad of seeds for you to browse. Bring your own seeds and exchange them for different ones! We’ll also have informative workshops on gardening and other activities.
Workshops:
Cindy Bench - Bensell's Greenhouse 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Intro to Gardening
Anna Miller 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. All About Gourds!
Matt Ross - Landscape Turf Management Instructor at Owens Community College
12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Gettin' Dirty in the Garden
Mary Machon - Bensell's Greenhouse 12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Seed Saving 101
Greg & Olivia Willerer 2:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Market Gardening
Lindsay Graham 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Raising Chickens
http://toledogarden.org/content/events/

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Feb. 16 announced the first-ever federally proposed guidelines to encourage automobile manufacturers to limit the distraction risk for in-vehicle electronic devices. The proposed voluntary guidelines would apply to communications, entertainment, information gathering and navigation devices or functions that are not required to safely operate the vehicle. Issued by the Department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the guidelines would establish specific recommended criteria for electronic devices installed in vehicles at the time they are manufactured that require visual or manual operation by drivers. Geared toward light vehicles (cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, minivans, and other vehicles rated at not more than 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight), the guidelines proposed are the first in a series of guidance documents NHTSA plans to issue to address sources of distraction that require use of the hands and/or diversion of the eyes from the primary task of driving. The Phase I guidelines were published in the Feb. 16 Federal Register and members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on the proposal for 60 days. Final guidelines will be issued after the agency reviews and analyzes and responds to public input. NHTSA will also hold public hearings on the proposed guidelines to solicit public comment. The hearings will take place in March and will be held in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C.
See Doc. NHTSA 01-12 at: http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2012/U.S.+Department+of+Transportation+Proposes+'Distraction'+Guidelines+for+Automakers

The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and National Geographic's Enduring Voices project has announced eight new talking dictionaries, containing 32,000 entries and 24,000 audio files. Listen to a sampler of the new online talking dictionaries and the endangered languages they record at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577227300151734134.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The online talking dictionaries for the first time document the songs, sound, syntax and structure of Matukar Panau and record seven other unusual, vanishing languages, including Tuvan in Mongolia, Chamacoco in Paraguay and Ho, Sora and Remo in India.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577228982976760026.html?mod=googlenews_wsj