simple and healthful:  bell peppers, cabbage, chicken broth, lime juice

App--short for application.  The word comes down from Latin applicatio, which is ap plus plicatio (based on the root plica, "fold").  Ap is actually ad ("to").  Copter is short for helicopter--helico- ("spiral") plus pter ("wing"), same as in pterodactyl, "wing finger".  Obviously nobody says it like "helico-pter" — pronunciation trumps etymology.  Comp comes from complimentary, which comes from compliment (originally referring to a courtesy), which comes from Latin com ("with"; used as an intensifier) plus plementum, from the verb plere ("fill").  Did you notice how that's spelled plem and not plim?  Guess what:  they come from the same source, but compliment came by way of French in the 1600s, while we got complement from Latin a bit earlier.  James Harbeck, "professional word taster and sentence sommelier"  Find more words dissected at http://theweek.com/article/index/263404/10-words-that-are-badly-broken

The Inca road system was the most extensive and advanced transportation system in pre-Columbian South America.  The construction of the roads required a large expenditure of time and effort, and the quality of that construction is borne out by the fact that it is still in quite good condition after over 400 years of use.  The network was based on two north-south roads with numerous branches.  The best known portion of the road system is the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.  Part of the road network was built by cultures that precede the Inca Empire, notably the Wari culture.  During the Spanish colonial era, parts of the road system were given the status of Camino Real.  The Qhapaq Ñan (English: Great Inca Road, or Main Andean Road, and meaning "the beautiful road") constituted the principal north-south highway of the Inca Empire traveling 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) along the spine of the Andes.  The Qhapaq Ñan unified this immense and heterogeneous empire through a well-organized political system of power.  It allowed the Inca to control his Empire and to send troops as needed from the capital, Cusco.  The most important Inca road was the Camino Real (Royal Road), as it is known in Spanish, with a length of 5,200 kilometres (3,200 mi).  It began in Quito, Ecuador, passed through Cusco, and ended in what is now Tucumán, Argentina.  The Camino Real traversed the mountain ranges of the Andes, with peak altitudes of more than 5,000 m (16,000 ft). El Camino de la Costa, the coastal trail, with a length of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi), ran parallel to the sea and was linked with the Camino Real by many smaller routes.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_road_system

Linguists, public relations professionals and management experts were not shocked when a General Motors document surfaced that includes words that engineers were told not to use when discussing its products.  Words to be avoided included “asphyxiating,” “deathtrap,” “disemboweling,” “genocide,” “grenadelike,” and “powder keg.”  But some of the advice was more extreme, for example, urging people to use such watered-down language as “does not perform to design” instead of “defect,” and “condition” instead of “problem.”  In fairness, GM is not the only company to encourage such euphemisms.  Ford, for example, has recalled vehicles at risk of “thermal events,” when the diesel engine in the 2008 F-Series Super Duty pickup could result in flames coming out of the exhaust.  Cable TV providers take pains to avoid the word “monopoly,” when emphasizing competition from satellite TV, telephone and mobile phone providers.  Brent Snavely and Alisa Priddle  http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20140617/NEWS02/306170011/GM-s-banned-words-What-s-wrong-using-plain-English-?nclick_check=1

achromatic  adjective   (1)  Designating color perceived to have zero saturation and therefore no hue, such as neutral grays, white, or black.  (2)  Refracting light without spectral color separation  (3)   Biology:  Difficult to stain with standard dyes.  Used in reference to cells or tissues.  (4)  Music:  Having only the diatonic tones of the scale.  The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition  https://www.wordnik.com/words/achromatic

Trivia  The Institute for the Works of Religion, also called the Institute for Religious Works, is commonly referred to as the Vatican Bank.  The Smithsonian Institution has collected more than 142 million objects.  The word atom is derived from the Greek word "atomos", meaning indivisible.

Muse reader's follow-up to art crimes article:  Priceless:  How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman  "The Wall Street Journal called him “a living legend.”  The London Times dubbed him “the most famous art detective in the world.”  In Priceless, Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career for the first time, offering a real-life international thriller to rival The Thomas Crown Affair.  Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year career that was nothing short of extraordinary.  He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.  In this page-turning memoir, Wittman fascinates with the stories behind his recoveries of priceless art and antiquities:  The golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king.  The Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement.  The headdress Geronimo wore at his final Pow-Wow.  The rare Civil War battle flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments.  He traveled the world to rescue paintings by Rockwell and Rembrandt, Pissarro, Monet and Picasso, often working undercover overseas at the whim of foreign governments.  Closer to home, he recovered an original copy of the Bill of Rights and cracked the scam that rocked the PBS series Antiques Roadshow."  http://www.amazon.com/Priceless-Undercover-Rescue-Worlds-Treasures/dp/0307461483

James MacGregor Burns, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and political scientist who wrote voluminously about the nature of leadership in general and the presidency in particular, died July 15, 2014 at his home in Williamstown, Mass.  He was 95.  Mr. Burns, who taught at Williams College for most of the last half of the 20th century, was the author of more than 20 books, most notably “Roosevelt:  The Soldier of Freedom” (1970), a major study of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s stewardship of the country through World War II.  It was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.  He distinguished

between transforming and transactional leadership.  He explained it in “Leadership,” the transactional leader is the more conventional politician, a horse trader with his followers, offering jobs for votes, say, or support of important legislation in exchange for campaign contributions.  The transforming leader, on the other hand, “looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person of the follower,” Mr. Burns wrote.  “The result of transforming leadership,” he went on, “is a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents.”  He would never bump a student appointment to meet with someone more important.  Once Hillary Clinton invited him to tea, and he wouldn’t go because he had to meet with a student.  And he would never leave his place in Williamstown during blueberry season.  Bruce Weber  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us/james-m-burns-a-scholar-of-presidents-and-leadership-dies-at-95.html?_r=0

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1171  July 16, 2014  On this date in 1790, the District of Columbia was established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act.  On this date in 1941, Joe DiMaggio hit safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a MLB record.  On this date in 1951,  The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger was published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.