You’ve probably
encountered both of these phrases: coup de grace and tour de force.
A coup de grace (the
circumflex—coup de grâce—is considered standard by most
dictionaries, but for this post I’m encouraging an acceleration of Garner’s Law of Loanwords and have dropped
it) is the literal death blow dealt to a dying opponent, or the figurative
finishing stroke that puts an end to something.
A tour de force originally
indicated a great show of strength or power, but now commonly also describes a
feat of great skill. While originally
French, both phrases have been used in English for a long time: coup de grace since just before 1700, tour de force since the first decade of
the 19th century. English is a rich and
varied language, in large part because it’s been busily borrowing and stealing
words from other languages for over a millennium. There are, by conservative accounting, at
least 200,000 words in the language, with all usages and forms pushing that
number up by three to five times. So
there’s a word on the books for just about everything currently known to
human experience. Christopher Daly
Read more at https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/tour-de-force-coup-de-grace-maybe-coup-de-force-or-tour-de-grace/
How To Freeze Greens (Spinach, Kale,
Collards, Swiss Chard and More) by Amanda Rose We froze
about half of our greens collection, part of which was frozen raw and part
boiled. Learn how at https://www.freshbitesdaily.com/freezing-greens/
The phrase hem and
haw means to make hesitation sounds, or simply to hesitate, to avoid answering
a question or making a decision.
This expression first became
popular in the latter half of the 1700s.
One of its early uses comes from Jonathan Swift’s 1728 poem “My Lady’s
Lamentation.” He haws and
he hums. At last out it comes. Hem comes from the late 1400s
and means to clear one’s throat to get someone’s attention. A person can do this in a polite way or a
rude way. If a person wants to be extra
polite they can actually say the word ahem. People also make a hemming sound when
hesitating because they don’t want to answer a question directly. Haw is similar, and is a sound of
hesitation. This word dates back to the
1600s. A person can hem and haw in
two main ways. One way is to say many
things in order to avoid answering a question.
The other way is to makes sounds of hesitation such as, um, er,
or uh. https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/hem-and-haw
The Tall Paul Tales
What is it that draws millions
to the legends of Paul Bunyan . . . some say it is the constellation of
characters Paul assembled--people like Sourdough Sam; Cream Puff Fatty,
and the other cooks; Johnny Inkslinger, the brilliant poet, accountant and
all round deep thinker; Babe of course, with his gargantuan feats of strength;
Paul’s foreman, the Swede Hel Helson; Brimstone Bill; Big Ole; Chris Crosshaul;
and Sport, the reversible dog. For some
it is the amazing yet often disputed facts that we admire most about Paul and
Babe, facts as: Paul Bunyan was 63 ax
handles tall. Paul Bunyan had a frying
pan that covered an area of one acre, which was used to make pancakes. The cooks greased the pan by ice skating
across the griddle with sides of bacon strapped to their skates. Babe was 42 ax handles wide from the tip of
one horn to the tip of the other horn.
It took a crow a day to fly from one Babe’s horn tips to the other. Babe could eat 30 bales of hay, wires and
all, in a day. Paul Bunyan and Babe
created the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota.
Their footsteps created impressions in the land that filled with
rainwater, forming lakes throughout the state.
Want more proof-– just check out the shape of Lake Bemidji (shaped like
the top of Paul’s boot) and Lake Irving (shaped like the heel). Paul Bunyan once trained giant 2,000 pound
ants. Each ant could each do the work of
50 men. Read more and see graphics at https://www.visitbemidji.com/what-to-do/historical-cultural/paul-bunyan/tall-paul-tales/
"Tall tales" are stories that are told as if they were true but
contain exaggerated or unbelievable
parts. Some tall tales are exaggerations
of real events, while others are completely make-believe. Tall tales are usually very funny because the
exaggerations in the story tend to be the main focus of the whole story. A key part of American folk literature, tall tales are believed
to have started from the bragging contests that tough
American frontiersmen would start when
they gathered around a fire. Most tall
tales come from the 1800s, when courageous explorers had
exciting adventures on their way to the Wild West. Popular tall tale characters from
American folklore include Johnny
Appleseed, Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan and John Henry. https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-they-call-it-a-tall-tale/
Historic carousels have long held cultural value as cherished family attractions. “Everybody remembers carousels from some time
in their lives,” says Patrick Wentzel, president of the nonprofit National
Carousel Association (NCA), which offers grants and technical
assistance, and has held an annual convention for the past 45 years. “You see very few frowns going around a
carousel. They’re great to visit, and great for their communities to
have.” The origins of this amusement park
staple can be traced back to a combat training exercise practiced by Turkish
and Arabian soldiers in the 12th century.
However, carousels built for public use did not appear until the
1700s. World-class carvers such as
Gustav Dentzel of Germany and Charles I.D. Looff of Denmark immigrated to the
United States during the 19th century, using their creativity and technical
expertise to craft the most intricate, visually impressive machines of their
kind in the world. The “Golden Age of
Carousels” ended with the Great Depression.
But around 215 historic wooden merry-go-rounds can still be found across
the country, each with a unique story to tell.
Nicholas Som Read about some of
them and see pictures at https://savingplaces.org/stories/circle-back-into-the-past-at-these-historic-carousel-destinations#.W3AcYc5KiUk
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From: Barbara Chmielewska Subject:
Tosspot words Tosspots were quite
common in medieval Polish. What is
interesting, they are mostly words with pejorative meaning--cutpurse: robber, breakbone: robber, crushmountain: strongman, mournsoul: someone who complains, countturnip: a scrounge.
All tosspots mentioned are literal translations.
Vietnamese Pizzas with Rice Paper, Coconut Milk &
Turmeric by Nadine Horn and Jörg
Mayer Their inventive rice paper crust
“pizza” is topped with fresh mint, cilantro, grated carrots and scallions that
are all bound together in a coconut milk crepe.
Nutritional yeast brings a smack of cheese-like umami. Find recipe at
August 15, 2018 New
analyses that use tree rings could settle the long-standing debate about
when the volcano Thera erupted by resolving discrepancies between archeological
and radiocarbon methods of dating the eruption, according to new University of
Arizona-led research. "It's about
tying together a timeline of ancient Egypt, Greece, Turkey and the rest of the
Mediterranean at this critical point in the ancient world—that's what dating
Thera can do," said lead author Charlotte Pearson, an assistant professor
of dendrochronology at the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. "What we can say now is that the radiocarbon evidence is
compatible with the archeological evidence for an eruption of Thera in the 16th
century BC," Pearson said. Thera's
explosive eruption on Santorini more than 3,400 years ago buried the Minoan
settlement on the island in a layer of ash and pumice more than 130 feet (40
meters) deep. The effects of the eruption
were felt as far away as Egypt and what is now Istanbul in Turkey. "The volcano erupts and represents one
short moment in time," she said. If
you can date precisely when that moment is, then whenever you find evidence of
that moment at any archeological site, you suddenly have a very precise marker
point in time—and that's really powerful for examining human/environmental
interactions around that time period."
Archeologists have estimated the eruption as occurring sometime between
1570 and 1500 BC by using human artifacts such as written records from Egypt
and pottery retrieved from digs. Other
researchers estimated the date of the eruption to about 1600 BC using
measurements of radiocarbon, sometimes called carbon-14, from bits of trees,
grains and legumes found just below the layer of volcanic ash. By using radiocarbon measurements from the
annual rings of trees that lived at the time of the eruption, the UA-led team
dates the eruption to someplace between 1600 and 1525, a time period which
overlaps with the 1570-1500 date range from the archeological evidence. Narrowing the
date for the Minoan-era eruption of the volcano Thera is so important for
Mediterranean archeology that there have been whole conferences about when that
eruption occurred, she said. Read more
and see pictures at https://phys.org/news/2018-08-dating-ancient-minoan-eruption-thera.html
Minoa is the name of
several Bronze-Age cities on the coasts of the Aegean islands and Corfu in Greece, as
well as Sicily. The original
meaning of the word remains unknown, but it seems that there is a strong
connection with the mythic king of Crete, Minos, during the
bronze-age Minoan civilization which flourished in Crete and in the Aegean
islands in Greece between 2000-1470 BC. The inhabitants of Crete were named Minoans by Arthur Evans,
after the legendary king. The root min- corresponds to a group
of Aegean languages, and appears also in some toponyms like Minya, Minassos and
in the name of the Minyans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoa
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1937
August 20, 2018
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