A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Frankenfood (FRANG-kuhn-food) noun Genetically
modified food. From franken-
(genetically modified), alluding to the artificially created Frankenstein’s monster Earliest documented use: 1992.
preternatural (pree/pri-tuhr-NACH-uh-ruhl) adjective
Beyond what is natural or normal.
From Latin praeter-
(beyond, past) + naturam (nature). Earliest
documented use: 1580.
logomaniac (lo-guh-MAY-nee-ak) noun One who is obsessively interested in words.
From Greek logo- (word) +
-mania (excessive enthusiasm or craze). Earliest
documented use: 1870. See Robbert van der Steeg's
Embraced by Words at https://www.flickr.com/photos/robbie73/4289385819
Sculptor and artist Donatello (c. 1386–1466) apprenticed early with well-known sculptors and
quickly learned the Gothic style. Before
he was 20, he was receiving commissions for his work. Donatello, the early Italian Renaissance
sculptor, was born Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi in Florence, Italy. His friends and family gave him the nickname
“Donatello.”
He was the son of Niccolo
di Betto Bardi, a member of the Florentine Wool Combers Guild. This gave young Donatello status as the son
of a craftsman and placed him on a path of working in the trades. Donatello was educated at the home of the
Martellis, a wealthy and influential Florentine family of bankers and art
patrons closely tied to the Medici family.
It was here that Donatello probably first received artistic training
from a local goldsmith. He learned
metallurgy and the fabrication of metals and other substances. In 1403, he apprenticed with Florence
metalsmith and sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.
A few years later, Ghiberti was commissioned to create the bronze doors
for the Baptistery of the Florence Cathedral, beating out rival artist Filippo
Brunelleschi. Donatello assisted
Ghiberti in creating the cathedral doors.
http://www.biography.com/people/donatello-21032601
Bonfires of the vanities Decades
after St. Bernardino di Siena opened the practice of burning
“temptation-inducing” items to turn Catholic adherents back toward the faith,
parishioners of Friar Girolamo Savonarola launched one of the largest bonfires
of the vanities on February 7, 1497. Set
in the capital of the Italian Renaissance, Florence, historians wonder to this
day what priceless works of art or literature may have been destroyed as “frivolous,
sinful pursuits.” Throughout the 1400s,
the cities of Europe engaged in a slow process of awakening from the Middle
Ages. New ideas blossomed all over the
continent, led predominantly by Italian scholars interested in ancient Latin
works and artists experimenting with more realistic styles of painting and
drawing. Fueled by investment from the
Medici family, and particularly patriarch Lorenzo, the best painters and
sculptors in Italy received commissions that brought them to Florence. (It certainly helped that Leonardo da Vinci,
Sandro Botticelli and Michaelangelo Buonarroti were all born nearby.) The
development of new schools of thought, such as humanism, and advancements in
printing technology opened the Roman Catholic Church to critique it had never
experienced before. Determined to keep
Christianity at the center of the average person’s life, a number of priests
delivered sermons denouncing the new “distractions” that encouraged sin. Franciscan missionary Bernardino gained a
reputation for particularly anger-filled calls to shed these “heresies” while
traveling through the Italian countryside for more than three decades until his
death in 1444. His sermons often ended
with piles of cosmetics, evening gowns and books burning where he preached in
city squares, “bonfires of the vanities” to purify the hearts of his
listeners. Over the next five decades,
these items remained the target of ascetic preachers as a cause for the
calamities facing the Church, such as the advance of Ottoman armies into Europe
from Mehmed II’s seizure of Constantinople in 1453. Caught up in religious fervor, crowds burned
almost anything they could get their hands on -- Botticelli is even said to
have tossed his own works based on Greek mythology into the flames as a symbol
of his dedication.
The Mercer Oak was a large white oak tree that stood in Princeton Battlefield State Park in Princeton, New Jersey. The tree was about 300 years old when it was
torn by strong winds in March 2000. It
was the emblem of Princeton Township and appeared on the seal of the township. The tree is also the key element of the seal
of Mercer County, New Jersey. The Mercer Oak was named after Hugh Mercer,
a brigadier general in the Continental
Army during the American Revolution. After a lightning storm in 1973 dropped a
large branch of the original "Mercer Oak" Ned Brown, a local artisan
cabinet fabricator, from the Skillman, NJ, had the insight to preserve some of
the lumber. Pieces of the preserved
lumber were later integrated into the woodwork of a local restaurant, ONE 53. The inlay includes the craftsman's
representation of a silhouette of the oak tree, as well as a sections of oak
throughout the bar. The balance of the
fallen branches were left in the hands of Princeton's Historical Society. On March 3, 2000, a wind storm felled the
oak's last four branches. For public
safety reasons, arborists cut off the remnants of the trunk the day after the
tree fell. Following the tree's death,
several scions from the tree were planted around the
battlefield. In May 2000, an 8-foot
sapling grown from a Mercer Oak acorn was planted inside the stump of the
former tree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Oak See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Individual_oak_trees
cedilla noun a
mark¸ placed under the letter c (as in façade ) to show that it is pronounced like s and not k. origin
Spanish, the obsolete letter ç (actually a medieval form of the
letter z), cedilla, from
diminutive of ceda, zeda the letter z, from Late Latin zeta — more at zed first known use: 1599 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cedilla How to type characters with a cedilla http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/finetypography/ht/cedilla.htm
“The stadium is a unit of measurement from the
ancient world, based on the length of a footrace in the Greek Olympics. That’s where we get our modern word. About six hundred feet is one stadium, so
there are between eight and ten stadia in a mile.”
Steganography
is the art and science of hiding information by embedding messages within
other, seemingly harmless messages.
Steganography works by replacing bits of useless or unused data in regular
computer files (such as graphics, sound, text, HTML, or even floppy
disks ) with bits of
different, invisible information. This
hidden information can be plain text, cipher
text, or even images.
Steganography sometimes is used when encryption is not permitted. Or, more commonly, steganography is used to
supplement encryption.
Adverbs are
words that modify: (1) a verb (He
drove slowly.
— How did he drive?) (2) an adjective (He
drove a very fast
car. — How fast was his car?) (3) another adverb (She moved quite slowly
down the aisle. — How slowly did she move?)
Adverbs can modify adjectives, but an adjective cannot modify an adverb. Adverbs often function as intensifiers, conveying a greater or
lesser emphasis to something. Intensifiers
are said to have three different functions: they can emphasize, amplify, or downtone. Find much more at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adverbs.htm See also https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/537/02/
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1268
March 12, 2015 On this date in
1894, Coca-Cola was bottled and sold for the first
time in Vicksburg,
Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator Joseph Biedenharn. On this date in 1912, the Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of
the USA) were founded in the United States.
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