A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

Kangaroo words carry a tinier version of themselves within.

quiescent  (kwee-ES-uhnt, kwy-)  adjective   Still; inactive; not showing symptoms.  From Latin quiescere (to rest), from quies (quiet).  Earliest documented use:  1605.

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From:  Donald Coppock   Subject:  quiescent  Because non-proliferating cells are called ‘quiescent’, I named a gene I found quiescin in a search to understand this phenomenon.  This gene is now known as QSOXI.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSOX1

From:  Steven Szalaj  Subject:  quiescent  Popsicles were a favorite treat on hot Chicago summer days.  One of my odd memories is, as a child, thinking about the phrase “A Quiescently Frozen Confection” printed on the wrapper in the 1950s & 1960s--see photo at http://www.esnarf.com/2035k.htm  I did look up the word, and when I discovered that “quiet” was a definition, I used to imagine how a confection can be frozen “quietly”.  Did the factory workers walk around the noiseless facility in soft booties only whispering to each other while the treats were caressed and coddled into their coolness?  Of course, it meant that they were not hard-frozen, like ice cubes, but frozen in such a way that you could bite them (and not “crack the enamel on your teeth”-- as my mother used to warn me when I chewed ice).  Looking back, I’m sure one reason the admen chose the word was its alliteration with “confection”.

It stands a bit over 37 feet.  It is 231 feet long.  It stretches from left field all the way to the triangle in center.  It is the Green Monster.  The wall was part of the park when it was originally built in 1912.  The original wall was made of wood and burnt down with much of the park in the 1934.  It was rebuilt and made of tin upon its reconstruction.  The current wall was built of a hard plastic and was assembled in 1976.  Up until 1947, advertisements draped the wall.  That year the wall was painted green and hence the name the Green Monster would become synonymous with Fenway Park forever.  http://boston.sportsthenandnow.com/2010/07/01/the-history-of-the-green-monster/  See also http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/bos/ballpark/information/index.jsp?content=facts and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenway_Park

Within walking distance of the Green Monster is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where, in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, a pair of thieves disguised as Boston police officers entered the museum, stealing thirteen works of art.  They posed as Boston police officers and stated that they were responding to a call.  The guard on duty broke protocol and allowed them entry through a security door.  Link to pictures and information on the stolen works at http://www.gardnermuseum.org/resources/theft

horse opera  noun   You have probably noticed that while there may be lots of horses in a cowboy film, there is usually no singing.  The word OPERA is used in this term because the exciting stories and the overacting reminded people of operas.  Horse opera, in reference to a western, dates from the late 1920s.  About ten years later the term soap opera came to be used for a radio and still later for a television drama that was frequently sponsored by a soap manufacturer.  By the late 1940s the term space opera came into use for a drama involving space travelers and beings on other planets.  http://www.wordcentral.com/cgi-bin/student?horse+opera  NOTE that there are lots of singing cowboys on horses in the movie Rio Rita (1929 and 1942 versions),  based upon the 1927 Flo Ziegfeld Broadway musical.  Read about the singing Texas Rangers at http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B03EFDF1E3EE13ABC4F53DFB6678382639EDE

Every day, trilling away innocuously in the background, dozens of tiny pieces of music are busy burrowing deep inside our psyche.  To the untrained ear they might sound unremarkable, even friendly - but drop your guard and you could fall under their spell.  Everyone recognises visual branding such as logos, and the aural equivalents are equally pervasive.  Nokia's ringtone, Intel's four-note bongs, McDonalds' "I'm lovin' it" refrain - all masterpieces of sonic branding, the 21st Century offspring of the jingle.  John Deathridge, a musicologist at King's College London, believes that sonic branding has an earlier, and yet more highbrow provenance.  Prof Deathridge notes that composer Richard Wagner was the first to truly popularise the power of the miniature musical motif, using more than 100 of them during his vast operatic Ring Cycle to identify characters, plots and objects.  These tiny themes, which became known as leitmotifs, were, Prof Deathridge believes, truly seminal--and the advertising industry may owe more than it realises to the Ring Cycle.  "It changed the face of opera, if not music as a whole  because a lot of composers wanted their music to mean something in a public sense," he adds, emphasising the debt owed to it by branders:  "The principle is basically the same."  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8748854.stm

Cobranding is a marketing partnership between at least two different brands of goods or services.  Cobranding encompasses several different types of branding partnerships, such as sponsorships.  This strategy typically associates the brands of at least two companies with a specific good or service.  http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cobranding.asp  See also The Pros and Cons of Co-Branding by Steve McKee at http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2009/sb20090710_255169.htm

Voice of America, the government-sponsored news organization that has been on the air since 1942, broadcasts in 44 languages--45 if you count Special English.  Special English was developed nearly 50 years ago as a radio experiment to spread American news and cultural information to people outside the United States who have no knowledge of English or whose knowledge is limited.  Using a 1,500-word vocabulary and short, simple phrases without the idioms and cliches of colloquial English, broadcasters speak at about two-thirds the speed of conversational English.  But far from sounding like a record played at the wrong speed, Special English is a complicated skill that takes months of training with a professional voice coach who teaches how to breathe properly and enunciate clearly.  A vocabulary of 1,500 words is adequate for news reporting, but for features and biographies, more words are allowed if they are explained in the context of the sentence.  Words can be added or dropped from the vocabulary.  Sabotage, a word used often in the World War II era, may be dropped because it is rarely used in news stories today.  http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2006-07-31/news/0607310205_1_english-voice-of-america-words

Garden Peas need to be shelled before eating.  Fresh garden peas have rounded pods that are usually slightly curved in shape with a smooth texture and vibrant green color.  Inside garden peas are green rounded pea seeds that are sweet and starchy in taste and can be eaten raw or cooked.  Garden peas have more nutrients and more calories than snow peas or sugar snap peas.  Garden peas are sweet and succulent for three to four days after they are picked but tend to become mealy and starchy very quickly if they are not cooked soon after harvesting.

Snow Peas or Chinese Pea Pods  This variety is usually used in stir-fries.  Snow peas are flat with edible pods through which you can usually see the shadows of the flat Pea seeds inside; they are never shelled.

Sugar Snap Peas  A cross between the garden and snow pea, they have plump edible pods with a crisp, snappy texture; they are not shelled.  Both snow peas and snap peas feature a slightly sweeter and cooler taste than the garden pea. 

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodtip&dbid=191

Samuel Menashe (1925–2011) earned acclaim as the creator of numerous compact and precise poems.  His first American volume, No Jerusalem But This, was praised by Stephen Spender for "language intense and clear as diamonds."  Spender declared that Menashe "can compress an attitude to life that has an immense history into three lines."  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/samuel-menashe  The Muser has celebrated National Poetry Month by reading short poems, including April and May by American poet Samuel Menashe with music by John Brodbin Kennedy.  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1289  April 27, 2015  On this date in 1667, the blind and impoverished John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.  On this date in 1749, was the first performance of George Frideric Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks in Green Park, London.