Christmas
pudding is a type of pudding traditionally served as part of the Christmas dinner in Britain and
in some other countries where it has been brought by British emigrants. It has its origins in medieval England, and is sometimes known as plum pudding or just "pud", though this can also refer to other kinds of
boiled pudding involving dried fruit. Despite
the name "plum pudding," the pudding contains no actual plums due to
the pre-Victorian use of the word "plums" as a term for raisins. The pudding is composed of many dried fruits
held together by egg and suet, sometimes moistened by treacle or molasses and
flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and
other spices. The pudding is aged for a
month, months, or even a year; the high alcohol content of the pudding prevents
it from spoiling during this time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding
Quodlibetal,
an adjective with vowels in reverse order, means relating to a question or
topic for debate or discussion. From
Latin quodlibetum, from Latin quod (what) + libet (it pleases), meaning
“whatever pleases”. Earlier the term
referred to a mock exercise in discussion or debate. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
From: David
Franks Subject:
quodlibetal In music, a quodlibet is a piece that
incorporates melodies from diverse sources, usually with humorous intent. For example, a quodlibet might contain
recognizable snippets of “You Are My Sunshine”, “Stormy Weather” and “A Foggy Day”. J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations includes
a quodlibet as the final variation before the reprise of the aria that begins
the work. As the entire work is a tour
de force of compositional techniques, this quodlibet is an interweaving of four
tune fragments from two folk songs: “Ich
bin so lang nicht bei dir g’west” (“I have so long been away from you”) and
“Kraut und Rüben haben mich vertreiben” (“Cabbage and turnips have driven me
away”). A recording of Rosalyn Tureck
performing J.S.
Bach's Aria mit 30 Veränderungen, BWV 988 "Goldberg Variations" -
Var. 30 Quodlibet a 1 Clav. is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGgNRBE_Tkk
2:07
From: Anu Garg: Subject: Odds &
Ends The Netherlands (literally,
lowlands) is also called Holland even though Holland is the name of a region in
the country (North Holland and South Holland are two of the twelve
provinces). Holland was a powerful
region of the country so its name was used for the whole country. For the same reason, the name Russia was used
for the former Soviet Union and England for the whole of the UK. So, why “the” Netherlands? Usually, when a place is named after a
geographic feature, it goes with a definite article. The capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam,
but the seat of government is The Hague (from des Graven hage: The Counts’ Hedge). The word Dutch comes from
the same root as the word Deutschland, a Germanic word diota meaning people.
Costa Rica, Brazil, Philippines,
Thailand and Indonesia
are the world’s top pineapple producers, and more than 300 billion pineapples a
year are grown worldwide. Hawaii grows
only about 400 million pineapples a year, mostly for tourists, Hawaiians, and
to ease occasional shortages in California.
Hawaii has no canneries. It takes
about 18 months for a plant to produce fruit. — Smithsonian.com, American
Society for Horticultural Science. http://thecourier.com/opinion/columns/2015/11/02/where-do-our-pineapples-come-from/
The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) is a "play with music", translated by
German dramatist Elisabeth Hauptmann from John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera, with
music by Kurt Weill, and insertion ballads by François Villon and Rudyard Kipling as
adapted by Bertolt Brecht. The work offers a Socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at
Berlin's Theater am
Schiffbauerdamm. By 1933,
when Weill and Brecht were forced to leave Germany by Hitler's Machtergreifung, the play had been translated into 18
languages and performed more than 10,000 times on European stages. Songs
from The
Threepenny Opera have
been widely covered and become standards, most notably "Die Moritat von Mackie
Messer" ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife") and "Seeräuberjenny" ("Pirate Jenny"). There have
been at least three film versions.
German director G. W. Pabst made a 1931 German- and French-language version simultaneously (a common practice in the early days of
sound films). Another version was
directed by Wolfgang Staudte in West Germany in 1962 starring Curd Jürgens, Gert Fröbe, and Hildegard Knef. Scenes withSammy Davis Jr. were added for its American release. In
1989 an American version (renamed Mack the Knife)
was released, directed by Menahem Golan, with Raúl Juliá as Macheath, Richard Harris as Peachum, Julie Walters as Mrs Peachum, Bill Nighy as Tiger Brown, Julia Migenes as Jenny, and Roger Daltrey as the Street Singer. Andy Serkis has announced a collaboration with musician Nick Cave on a planned motion capture film of The Threepenny Opera.
The roots of language: what makes us different from other animals? by Paul Ibbotson and Michael Tomasello Language
seems to have evolved just once, in one out of 8.7 million species on earth
today. The hunt is on to explain the
foundations of this ability and what makes us different from other animals. The intellectual most closely associated with
trying to pin down that capacity is Noam Chomsky. He proposed a universal grammatical blueprint
that was unique to humans. This
blueprint operated like a computer program. Instead of running Windows or Excel, this
program performed “operations” on language–any language. Regardless of which of the 6000+ human
languages that this code could be exposed to, it would guide the learner to the
correct adult grammar. It was a bold
claim: despite the surface variations we
hear between Swahili, Japanese and Latin, they are all run on the same piece of
underlying software. As ever, remarkable
claims require remarkable evidence, and in the 50
years since some of these ideas were laid out, history has not been kind. Read more and see Minna Sundberg’s
illustration of the relationship of Indo-European and Uralic languages at http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2015/nov/05/roots-language-what-makes-us-different-animals
Uralic languages: family
of more than 20 related languages, all descended from a Proto-Uralic language that
existed 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. At
its earliest stages, Uralic most probably included the ancestors of the Yukaghir language. The Uralic languages are spoken by more than
25 million people scattered throughout northeastern Europe, northern Asia, and
(through immigration) North America. The
most demographically important Uralic language is Hungarian, the official language of Hungary. http://www.britannica.com/topic/Uralic-languages
In the fall of 2015, Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack and other federal officials announced the nation’s first national
food loss and waste goal, calling for a 50 percent reduction by 2030. The numbers are staggering. The USDA says 30-40 percent of the food
supply is wasted, the equivalent of 1,249 calories per American per day. The impact is huge. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates
that 21 percent of all municipal solid waste is food. The cost includes the wasted water, soil,
gasoline and other resources used to grow, ship and store that food. And rotting food produces methane, a
greenhouse gas. Fighting food waste
is an old battle for some generations. The USDA launched
food-waste campaigns during World War I and II, and some of the advice
still applies: “serve just enough, save what will keep.” The agency has also adopted new tools,
including a smartphone app called FoodKeeper that
offers cooking and storage tips, sends expiration reminders, and a 24/7 virtual
expert to answer questions. Food Tank, a
think tank that focuses on the food system, has compiled a list of 13
other apps that connect farmers, retailers, consumers and donors to
reduce food waste. Here are other tips from the EPA on reducing food
waste: Shop your refrigerator
first. Cook or eat what you already have at home before buying more. Plan your menu before you go shopping and buy
only those things on your menu. Buy only
what you realistically need and will use. Buying in bulk only saves money if you are
able to use the food before it spoils. Be
creative. If safe and healthy, use the edible parts of food that you
normally do not eat. For example, stale
bread can be used to make croutons and beet tops can be sautèed for a side
dish.
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1384
November 27, 2015 On this date in
1968, Penny Ann Early became
the first woman to play major professional basketball, for the Kentucky Colonels in
an ABA game
against the Los Angeles Stars. On this date in 1973, the United States Senate voted
92–3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice
President of the United States. (On December 6, the House
confirmed him 387–35). Word of the Day
for November 27 bodge verb (Britain) To do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary
repair; mend, patch up, repair.
To work green wood using traditional country methods; to perform the
craft of a bodger.
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