Irish Butter is made from cream that has been slightly cultured (think sour cream) before it is then pasteurized to kill the culture, and churned into butter, giving it a slight cheese flavor.  Much of the butter sold in Europe is made this way and is called 'cultured butter'.  Most North American Butter is called 'sweet cream butter' because it is not made from cultured (or 'soured') cream, but rather from fresh pasteurized cream.  There is also a very small difference in the amount of milk left in the Irish butter.  The milk is what allows butter to soften, and contributes to the small amount of protein in butter.  Irish butter has about 2 % less milk and so has 2% more butter fat than US butter (82 -vs- 80% fat).  The other difference is that much Irish butter is made from milk from mostly pasture fed (called grass fed) dairy cattle.  This imparts some subtle flavor notes and slightly different values for some micro-nutrients, but these change seasonally.  Fred Jewett  https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Irish-butter-and-standard-American-butter

Silent letters:  D in handkerchief and Wednesday; H in what, when, where, hour, honest, and honor.  Find more words with silent letters at https://www.thoughtco.com/pronunciation-silent-letters-1212086

Aphthong  noun  letter, or a combination of letters, employed in spelling a word, but in the pronunciation having no sound.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.  https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Aphthong

"Toledo isn't big, but it can hold everyone interesting in the world of astronomy at the same time."  How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky, a novel by Lydia Netzer 

Lydia Netzer on the city of Toledo and How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z6IJsaBa4E  1:16  See also http://lydianetzer.blogspot.com/

Ramie is the generic name for a bast fibre fabric made from the stems of plants in the wider nettle family.  It is also known as nettle cloth, china grass cloth, grass linen, and rhea.  Most of these names denote a specific plant source for the fibre.  Nettle cloth usually indicates fabric from the European Urtica dioica, the stinging nettle.  China grass cloth comes from white ramie, and is considered to be better quality than rhea, which comes from green ramie).  Most of the ramie that is sold today is china grass/white ramie, and comes from the plant Boehmeria nivea, native to China and Japan, but widespread throughout Asia from ancient times.  Both white and green ramie were used historically across Asia.  Nettle fabric in Europe was made from stinging nettles.  Ramie, like linen, is a bast fibre, made from the cellulose stalk of a plant.  Ramie stalks have a very gummy sap, and require a labour-intensive de-gumming process, which is part of the reason that ramie is not generally as commercially popular as linen.  If improperly de-gummed and cleaned, ramie is quite rough, and becomes brittle very easily.  If properly processed, ramie fibres are naturally white, and do not require significant additional bleaching. They are also stronger than any other natural fibre, do not loose strength when wet, and are naturally antibacterial.  Today ramie is grown commercially in China, the Philippines, Brazil, and in small quantities in India and the US.  Most ramie is used for industrial applications:  mixed with jute as carpet backings, blended into car upholstery, and use for cord and rope.  Ramie popularity for fashion garments fluctuates hugely, based partly on trends, and partly on reactions to fluctuations in the prices of other fibres.  Leimomi Oakes  See graphics at http://thedreamstress.com/2014/06/terminology-what-is-ramie-or-nettle-cloth/

Bast fibre (also called phloem fibre or skin fibre) is plant fibre collected from the phloem (the "inner bark", sometimes called "skin") or bast surrounding the stem of certain dicotyledonous plants.  They support the conductive cells of the phloem and provide strength to the stem.  Some of the economically important bast fibres are obtained from herbs cultivated in agriculture, as for instance flax, hemp, or ramie, but also bast fibres from wild plants, as stinging nettle, and trees such as lime or linden, wisteria, and mulberry have been used in the past.  Bast fibres are classified as soft fibres, and are flexible.  Fibres from monocotyledonous plants, called "leaf fibre", are classified as hard fibres and are stiff.  From prehistoric times through at least the early twentieth century, bast shoes were woven from bast strips in the forest areas of Eastern Europe.  Where no other source of tanbark was available, bast has also been used for tanning leather.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bast_fibre

There is no difference in meaning between fiber and fibre.  Both spellings are many centuries old, and neither spelling was clearly prevalent on either side of the Atlantic until the second half of the 18th century.  This was a period in which many British educators began to consider it proper for English words of French and Latin origin to take their more French and Latin forms rather than their more Anglicized forms.  Fibre is the French spelling of the word from which the English word is derived, so it was promoted as the standard spelling.  The belief that French and Latin should hold sway over English never had much traction in the post-independence United States, and while Americans also favored the French spelling through the 19th century, the more phonetic fiber steadily gained ground through that century until becoming the preferred form around 1910.  http://grammarist.com/spelling/fiber-fibre/

Kalpudding, eh?  Yet there it was, front and center in the New York Times magazine.  I’ve tried Sam Sifton’s recipes before—some I’ve loved and adopted, others left me puzzled.  Since I’d never heard of this dish, I did some research online.  Oh, look, there are lots of recipes for it!  It’s Swedish.  The word “kal” is supposed to have one of those little circle things over the “a”, so it’s pronounced “coal.”  That means cabbage.  But the rest of the name—the “pudding” part—is misleading, because it’s really a meat loaf with cabbage on top.  And you must keep an open mind, because the first thing you do is cook the cabbage in butter and molasses.  Yes, molasses.  Never would have thought of that.  posted by Sheila Connolly  Find recipe at http://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/2017/04/kalpudding-or-not-your-mothers-meatloaf.html

Two Broadway superpowers teamed for a new charity single as Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda and Dear Evan Hansen's Ben Platt unveiled the video for "Found/Tonight," a mash-up of Hamilton's "The Story of Tonight" and Dear Evan Hansen's "You Will Be Found."  Proceeds from the download of "Found/Tonight" will benefit March for Our Lives, which is leading the rally on Washington, D.C. on March 24th, 2018 to protest the government's inactivity on gun control.  "In the wake of Parkland, I was awestruck by the strength and leadership of the students and their ability to speak truth to power," Miranda said in a statement.  "In the midst of their grief, they mobilized the youth of our nation and created a movement.  This is their moment.  Not just for themselves, but for all of us.  This song is my way of helping to raise funds and awareness for their efforts, and to say Thank You, and that we are with you so let’s keep fighting, together."  "Better gun control is something that all Americans should be passionate about," Platt added.  "These students are paving the way for future generations and it’s so inspiring to see young people standing up for what is probably the most important cause right now in this country, and demanding action.  I hope that this song can play some small part in bringing about real change."  Daniel Kreps  Link to 3:13 video at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lin-manuel-miranda-shares-new-song-for-march-for-our-lives-w518009

Bestselling author James Patterson has increased his annual donations for classroom libraries from $1.75 million to $2 million.  Scholastic said on March 19, 2018 that Patterson is distributing 4,000 gifts of $500 each to teachers around the country, from Mechanic Falls, Maine, to Cheney, Kansas.  The so-called “Patterson Pledge” was launched in 2015 and is run in coordination with Scholastic Book Clubs, which adds book club points to Patterson’s contribution.  More than 80,000 teachers have applied for donations.  https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/latest-links/james-patterson-donates-2-million-school-libraries/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1861  March 21, 2018