When Darwin, or indeed any of his contemporaries, wrote of bees, he would have called them humblebees.  But they weren't humble in the sense of lowly beings doing the drudge work of nectar and pollen collecting; rather they would have been celebrated for the powerful evolutionary interaction with the flowers they had visited for millions of years.  Darwin would have called them humblebees because, as they fly, they hum.  Simple.  The etymological change of entomological names occurred gradually and imperceptibly, but some key events can be pin-pointed.  The first great 20th-century book on bees was by Frederick Sladen, and his 1912 opus on their life history was firmly in the "humble" camp.  By then, bumble, which had always been knocking around in the background as a second-rate alternative, had started to gain some ground.  In Beatrix Potter's Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse (1910), the eponymous heroine is troubled by squatters making mossy nests in her back yard.  Chief troublemaker is one Babbitty Bumble.  It is, perhaps, at about this time that the myth of the bumblebee's scientifically impossible flight came into play.  As aeronautics took off between the wars, along with faster and sleeker planes, the clumsy-looking furry bee with its pitifully small wings and tubby body was the perfect match for its new, slightly belittling name, as it bumbled from droopy bloom to droopy bloom.  By the time of the next bee monograph, by John Free and Colin Butler (1959), the humblebee had gone forever.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/01/humblebee-bumblebee-darwin

The Brown Derby was the name of a chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, California.  The first and most famous of these was shaped like a man's derby hat, an iconic image that became synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood.  A chain of Brown Derby restaurants in Ohio are still in business today.  The chain was started by Robert H. Cobb and Herbert Somborn (a former husband of film star Gloria Swanson).  It is often incorrectly thought that the Brown Derby was a single restaurant, and the Wilshire Boulevard and Hollywood branches are frequently confused.  Gus Girves started the Brown Derby chain in Ohio as Girves Brown Derby in 1941.  The Brown Derby began its licensing program in 1987 with an agreement with Walt Disney Company for a replica of the original Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant at the new Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida.  In 1990, Walt Disney Company entered into three additional agreements for Euro-Disney, Tokyo Disney and Disneyland in Anaheim, California.  In 1996, a ten-year agreement was entered into with MGM Grand Las Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada; in 1998, the MGM Grand Detroit, Michigan temporary facility was added.  See pictures at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Derby

Q:  What are some English words without a rhyme?
A:  Bulb, orange, angel, silver, month. -- dictionary.com.
Q:  Is Alicia Keys her stage name?
A:  Yes, the singer was born Alicia Augello Cook.

http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2013/Apr/JU/ar_JU_042913.asp?d=042913,2013,Apr,29
Q:  Are women still behind men in workplace earnings?
A:  Yes.  Women earned 77 percent of what men earned in 2011, the latest year with figures available.  Their median annual earnings were $37,118, compared to $48,202 for men. -- U.S. Census Bureau. 
Q:  How many times can paper be recycled?
A:  Paper can be recycled five or six times, and more if "virgin paper" is added.  About 40 percent of our recycled paper goes abroad, mostly to China, which doesn't have enough trees to feed its demand for paper.  It may be our largest export there.  American recyclers have stayed in business because of China's hunger for paper, and our government's requirement that paper contain recycled content. -- Slate.  http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2013/May/JU/ar_JU_050613.asp?d=050613,2013,May,06&c=c_13

The Colors and Shapes of the White House

Three of the rooms in the White House are so colorful that they are called the Green Room, the Blue Room, and the Red Room.  And it is not just the walls that are colorful.  Look at the carpets, the drapes on the windows, the couches and the chairs.  Why are these rooms so colorful?  Presidents long ago used these colors in the rooms and most presidents after them did, too.  Thomas Jefferson, our third president, had a green carpet in the "Green Room."  President Martin van Buren started using blue to decorate the Blue Room in 1837.  When John Tyler was president in the 1840s, people started calling the Red Room red.  Today, when these rooms are decorated, these colors are still used.  See shapes described and pictured, including rectangle, square, oval, arch, half circle and triangle at:   http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_classroom/classroom_K-3-colors-shapes.html

The Queens' Bedroom is a bedroom on the second floor of the White House, part of a suite of rooms that includes the Queens' Sitting Room and Queens' Bath.  Named for the many royal guests it has hosted (including queens of the Netherlands, Greece, Norway, and Great Britain), this room is sometimes used by presidents to reward friends and political supporters.  Between 1902 and 1963, it was known as the "Rose Room" and was used by Anna Roosevelt (daughter of Theodore Roosevelt) and Emily Carow (Mrs. Roosevelt's sister), among others.  http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/floor2/queens-bedroom.htm

Collar counties” is a term applied to the five counties that surround the centrally located Cook County in the Chicago metropolitan area:  DuPage County, Kane County, Lake County, McHenry County, and Will County.  http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3.html

Philadelphia “Collar Counties” are Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery.

People started referring to workers by the color of their collar in the 1910s and 1920s.  The turned-down collar as we know it today has been around since at least the 1800s, but it wasn’t used to discriminate by occupation and social status until around the early 20th century.  The etymologist Barry Popik suggests that “blue collar workers” were mentioned in contrast to “white collar workers” as early as 1924, when the Alden, Iowa newspaper the Times proposed, “If we may call professions and office positions white collar jobs, we may call the trades blue collar jobs.”  Meanwhile the environmental movement gave rise to “green-collar workers” (who work in conservation and sustainability), and the 1980s yielded a class of “gold-collar workers” (who work in specialized fields like law, engineering, and finance, or, according to a different definition, in the service industry).  As the population ages, we may see more “grey-collar workers” (who work into their 60s).  And the latest entrants are the “no-collar workers”—tech-industry professionals who eschew collars altogether.  http://bluecollarbranding.com/2012/06/11/blue-collar-pink-collar-green-collar-gold-collar-no-collar-marketers-know-your-audience-and-their-origin/ 

Contrary to popular belief, German chocolate cake did not originate in Germany.  Its roots can be traced back to 1852 when American Sam German developed a type of dark baking chocolate for the American Baker's Chocolate Company.  The brand name of the product, Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, was named in honor of him.  On June 3, 1957, a recipe for "German's Chocolate Cake" appeared as the "Recipe of the Day" in the Dallas Morning Star.  It was created by Mrs. George Clay, a homemaker from 3831 Academy Drive, Dallas, Texas.  This recipe used the baking chocolate introduced 105 years prior and became quite popular.  General Foods, which owned the Baker's brand at the time, took notice and distributed the cake recipe to other newspapers in the country.  Sales of Baker's Chocolate are said to have increased by as much as 73% and the cake would become a national staple.  The possessive form (German's) was dropped in subsequent publications, forming the "German Chocolate Cake" identity we know today and giving the false impression of a German origin.  The recipe still remains popular to this day and has been adopted by baking companies. 

June 11 is National German Chocolate Cake Day in America.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_chocolate_cake 

The Baker's German's Sweet chocolate bar was the forerunner of Milk Chocolate.  Samuel German made this a little sweeter and was popular for eating and baking pastries.  It was so popular that they named the bar after him.  http://www.kitchenproject.com/german/recipes/Desserts/GermanChocolateCake/index.htm

Original Recipe for German Chocolate Cake  

http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/GermanChocolateCake/OriginalRecipe.htm