Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Aarne–Thompson tale type index is a multivolume listing designed to help folklorists identify recurring plot patterns in the narrative structures of traditional folktales, so that folklorists can organize, classify, and analyze the folktales they research.  First developed by Antti Aarne (1867–1925) and published as Verzeichnis der Märchentypen in 1910, the tale type index was later translated, revised, and enlarged by Stith Thompson (1885–1976) in 1928 and again in 1961.  The Aarne–Thompson tale type index organizes folktales into broad categories like Animal Tales, Fairy Tales, Religious Tales, etc.  Within each category, folktale types are further subdivided by motif patterns until individual types are listed.  Find the ATU taxonomy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson_classification_system

If you meet Rick Garrett, our country's most fastidious chronicler of the Indiana breaded pork tenderloin, one may notice similarities between man and sandwich.  Both are nice in a Midwestern sort of way.  Both are plain in a nonostentatious sort of way.  Both are a bit round in the middle; Garrett — down 80 pounds and counting — still accommodates a few breaded tenderloins a month for journalistic thoroughness.  Garrett is the self-appointed "Tenderloin Connoisseur," with the credentials to back up that title.  Over the last three years, he has traveled to every corner of the Hoosier State and sampled more than 120 versions of the sandwich, reviewing each breaded tenderloin on his blog with the critical verve of a Roger Ebert (breadedtenderloin.wordpress.com).  The biggest surprise is that 120-plus variants of the sandwich exist in Indiana, and that's probably not even the half of it.  Every pub in the state, Garrett told me, has its own version.    It's no surprise that the sandwich has a following in Indiana, our nation's fifth-largest pork-producing state (according to the National Pork Producers Council).  Also not surprisingly, breaded pork tenderloin is popular in Iowa, the No. 1 pork-producing state.  But through his travels, Garrett said, he has found differences between the two versions.  "For one, they call it a breaded pork tenderloin in Iowa and breaded tenderloin in Indiana.  That's not universal, but about 90 percent true," Garrett said.  "The ones in Iowa also tend to be pounded out thinner.  Iowa tends to take it to the extreme, looking like hubcaps. The ones in Indiana are more the thickness of pork chops."  Naturally, Garrett said he prefers the Indiana version, and it's not just civic allegiance:  "When you bite into a thicker sandwich, you get the crunch of the breading, then the firmness of the pork.  It's two distinct textures you're biting into.  The ones pounded so thin, you get one crunch and that's it."  Kevin Pang  http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/ct-trav-0406-indy-pork-tenderloin-20140403,0,3474579.story

The Lewis and Clark Exposition dollar was a commemorative gold coin struck in 1904 and 1905 as part of the United States Government's participation in the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, held in the latter year in Portland, Oregon.  Designed by United States Bureau of the Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, the coin did not sell well and less than a tenth of the authorized mintage of 250,000 was issued.  The Lewis and Clark Expedition, the first American overland exploring party to reach the Pacific Coast, was led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.  Between 1804 and 1806, its members journeyed from St. Louis to the Oregon coast and back, providing information and dispelling myths about the large area obtained by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.  The Portland fair commemorated the centennial of that trip.  The coins were, for the most part, sold to the public by numismatic promoter Farran Zerbe, who had also vended the Louisiana Purchase Exposition dollar.  As he was unable to sell much of the issue, surplus coins (90% gold, 10% copper) were melted by the Mint.  The coins have continued to increase in value, and today are worth between hundreds and thousands of dollars, depending on condition.  The Lewis and Clark Exposition dollar is the only American coin to be "two-headed", with a portrait of one of the expedition leaders on each side.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Exposition_dollar

A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins and marked with a cross on the top, traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, but now popular all year round   In the times of Elizabeth I of England (1592), the London Clerk of Markets issued a decree forbidding the sale of hot cross buns and other spiced breads, except at burials, on Good Friday, or at Christmas.  The punishment for transgressing the decree was forfeiture of all the forbidden product to the poor.  As a result of this decree, hot cross buns at the time were primarily made in home kitchens.  Further attempts to suppress the sale of these items took place during the reign of James I of England/James VI of Scotland (1603-1625).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_cross_bun


Anyone can learn to play Hot cross buns:  it needs only three notes, the same three that start out Three blind mice.

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
royal road (ROI-uhl road)  noun  An easy way to achieve something.   According to the philosopher Proclus, when King Ptolemy asked for an easy way to learn, Euclid replied that there is no royal road to geometry.  Royal Road was a highway in ancient Persia.  Earliest documented use:  1793.
sashay  (sa-SHAY)  verb. intr.  1.  To move, walk, or glide along nonchalantly.  2. To strut or move in a showy manner.  From switching of syllables in a mispronunciation of French chassé (a ballet movement involving gliding steps with the same foot always leading), past participle of chasser (to chase), from captare (to try to catch), frequentative of Latin capere (to take).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root kap- (to grasp), which also gave us captive, capsule, chassis, cable, occupy, deceive, behoof, caitiff, percipient, captious, and gaff.  Earliest documented use:  1836.
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day  From:  Steve Swift  Subject:  royal road  My favourite use of the term "royal road" comes from an example of how to handle inappropriate requests for loans:  "Lending money is the right royal road to losing friends.  Here, have a fiver."

The Pulitzer Prizes have been slow to change.  But lately, some of the best online news reporting and multimedia storytelling are being honored.  And the Pulitzer board has had a number of younger, non-newspaper members join it lately, bringing more experience in digital and multimedia journalism.  Last year’s national reporting winners, staffers from the tiny, online InsideClimate News, show how an upstart news organization can turn great reporting into a Pulitzer.  The site exposed flawed regulation of the nation’s oil pipelines.  And the 2013 prize for feature writingwent to John Branch of the New York Times for his inventive “Snow Fall” narrative, about skiers killed in an avalanche, which combined video, audio and interactive charts in an entirely novel way.  How to pronounce the prizes’ name:  It’s pronounced “pull-it-sir,” not “pew-lit-sir.”  Even some winners get it wrong.  Roy J. Harris Jr. 

The 2014 Pulitzer winners and finalists  http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/2014


http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1136  April 16, 2014  On this date in 1818, the Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot Treaty, establishing the border with Canada.  In 1908, the Natural Bridges National Monument was established in Utah.

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