The Verrazano–Narrows
Bridge is
a double-decked suspension bridge in
the U.S. state of New York that connects the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn.
It spans the Narrows, the reach connecting the
relatively protected upper bay with
the larger lower bay. The bridge is named for both the Florentine explorer Giovanni da
Verrazzano who,
while in the service of Francis I of France,
became in 1524 the first European to enter New York Harbor and
the Hudson River, and for the body of water it
spans, called The Narrows.
It has a central span of 4,260 feet (1,298 m) and was the longest
suspension bridge in the world at the time of its
completion in 1964, surpassing the Golden Gate Bridge by
60 feet, until it was in turn surpassed by 366 feet by the Humber Bridge in
the United Kingdom in 1981. Currently,
it has the eleventh longest main span in the world, while retaining its place
as the longest bridge span in the Americas.
Its massive towers can be seen throughout a good part of the New York
metropolitan area, including from spots in all five boroughs of New
York City and in New Jersey.
The bridge establishes a critical link in the local and regional highway
system, and also marks the gateway to New York Harbor. All cruise ships and container ships arriving
at the Port of New
York and New Jersey must pass underneath the bridge and
therefore must be built to accommodate the clearance under the bridge; the
funnel of the RMS Queen Mary 2 was
redesigned to ensure at least 13 feet of clearance would exist at high tide.
Word origins
No Male in Female Female comes
from the diminutive of the Latin word femina ("woman"). It made its way into English through French as femelle.
No Limp in Limpid Limp (an unsteady walk) is a word that goes back to Middle
English. It's unrelated to the adjective limpid (clear or calm), which
comes from the Latin word limpidus.
No Noise in Noisome The adjective noisome has more to do with the sense of smell
than the sense of sound. It's derived
from the Old French word for "annoy," and means "objectionable,
unwholesome, foul-smelling." http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/Semantic-Change-And-The-Etymological-Fallacy.htm
breakfast The Old English word for dinner, "disner", in Old French,
"disjejeunare", in Latin, actually means to break
fast and was the first meal eaten in the day until its meaning shifted in the
mid-13th century. It was not until the
15th century that “breakfast” came into use in written English to describe a
morning meal, which literally
means to break the fasting period
of the prior night; in Old English the term was morgenmete meaning "morning meal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_breakfast
blog Web log
(n.)
Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that
serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect
the personality of the author. (v.)To
author a Web log. Other forms: Blogger (a person who blogs).
The Rub al-Khali (“Empty Quarter”), in the Arabian
Desert, is the world's largest expanse of unbroken sand. The world's deserts are divided into four
categories. Subtropical deserts are the hottest, with parched terrain and rapid
evaporation. Although cool coastal deserts are located within the same latitudes as subtropical deserts, the
average temperature is much cooler because of frigid offshore ocean currents. Cold winter deserts are marked by stark temperature differences from season to season,
ranging from 100° F (38° C) in the summer to 10° F (–12° C) in the winter. Polar regions are also considered to be deserts because nearly all moisture in these
areas is locked up in the form of ice.
Find principal deserts of the world listed with location, size and
topography given at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0778851.html
Common Core Reading, Part 1: The New
Colossus
Common Core Reading,
Part 2: The High Achievers http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/13/356358135/common-core-reading-the-high-achievers
Common Core Reading, Part 3: The Struggle
Over Struggle
Common Core Reading, Part 4: Difficult, Dahl, Repeat
Use Leading and Kerning to Improve Readability by Curtis Newbold Leading (pronounced
LED-ing) is a fancy term for line spacing, or the space between lines. Kerning, on the other hand, is
the space between two letters (spacing between many letters is actually called
“tracking,” but you may hear designers use the term kerning for that as well). Kerning is good when typefaces seem crowded,
or when two letters seem awkwardly close together. http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/2013/05/14/use-leading-and-kerning-to-improve-readability/
TIME TO ABSORB
In speaking, we hesitate
after phrases and sentences, so people have time to absorb what we mean. On the written page, we need white space so
we can absorb the meaning easily.
In
this sense, silence between spoken words is akin to white space between written
words.
Fun words
ado noun
(trouble or difficulty)
akin adjective
(of similar character)
akimbo adverb
(with hands on the hips and elbows turned
outward)
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1226
December 5, 2014 On this date in 1666, Francesco Scarlatti,
Italian composer, was born. On this date in 1933, Prohibition
in the United States ended:
Utah became the 36th U.S. state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution,
thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to enact the amendment. (This overturned the 18th Amendment which had made the manufacture, sale,
or transportation of alcohol illegal in the United States.)
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