incognito (in disguise or under an assumed name) was traditionally pronounced in-KOG-ni-toh.  A newer standard is in-kog-NEE-toh.  The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style by Bryan A. Garner

brusque (abrupt, terse) rhymes with dusk

Satek (Indiana winery) rhymes with attic

Capri (Italian island) CAH-pree by Italians, usually pronounced kuh-PREE by English speakers  For information on Capri and pictures, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capri

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."  Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865.  Link to primarty documents at https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html

April 23, 2016  “Don Quijote de la Mancha is the second most translated book after the Bible” by Norma Saliba u Antonia Micallef  According to Spanish Professor Alfredo Moro, Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes is the most popular author in the world for his popular novel ‘Don Quijote de la Mancha’.  “He was the inventor of the modern novel.  His influence around the world was universal.  We are currently working on a project where we are assembling all the translations of Don Quijote in many languages all around the world and we have one language per chapter”, Prof. Alfredo Moro, who is Assistent Lecturer at the Cantabria Spanish University said.  Prof. Moro said that after only eight years of its publication, Don Quijote was being translated in other languages.  Cervantes, who had left a great impact on the Spanish language with the Don Quijote publication, was born on the 29th September 1547 and died on the 22 April 1616.  The Don Quijote literary work is the best of his works and is considered as the first modern European novel in the Western classic literature.  His works include the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) in 1613, Viaje al Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus) in 1614, Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quijote in 1615.  The last literary work of Cervantes was Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda), published in 1617.   https://www.tvm.com.mt/en/news/don-quijote-de-la-mancha-is-the-second-most-translated-book-after-the-bible/

Don Quixote translations  In 1687, John Phillips, one of John Milton’s nephews and the author of an attack on Oliver Cromwell and Puritanism, translated Cervantes’ novel.  His critics, and they are plentiful, contend his work is barely an approximation.  Phillips didn’t use the Spanish original.  He based it, as was his custom in general, on a French translation by Filleau de Saint-Martin.  The effect is like drinking fresh water from a plastic bottle.  Unsurprisingly, Samuel Putnam, himself a translator of the novel, who in my estimation has produced one of the best English-language renditions, published in 1949, called it the worst English translation ever made of a famous novel.  Among the most famous renditions is that of Peter Anthony (aka Pierre Antoine) Motteux, published in 1700.  After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes sent French Protestants abroad, Motteux, a native of Rouen, moved to England, where he became editor of the Gentleman’s Journal.   By the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the quality standards of translation were notably higher.  The development of scholarship on literary matters, and the rise of translation as a legitimate, if poorly remunerated profession, raised the standards of quality.  The work of John Rutherford (2000), Edith Grossman (2003), and Tom Lathrop (2005) is proof of it.  https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2008/septemberoctober/feature/one-master-many-cervantes  After looking at the first few sentences of several translations of Don Quixote, the Muser selected the Samuel Putnam translation because it was "earthy" and not contrived.  With new translations out since I read the novel, I might try the Edith Grossman translation.

According to Martin Chilton, Culture Editor of The Telegraph (UK newspaper) Don Quixote is the most mispronounced literary name.  Don Quixote is the 17th-century character created by Miguel de Cervantes.  If you're one of the 44% of readers who have been been pronouncing the knight's name as "Don Quicks-Oat" then it's time to learn the correct way:  "Don-Key-Hoh-Tee".  Find a list of the ten most mispronounced literary characters at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/don-quixote-top-mispronounced-literary-name/

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) was a major scholar of the English language, specialising in Old and Middle English.  Twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories, including most famously The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), which are set in a pre-historic era in an invented version of our world which he called by the Middle English name of Middle-earth.  The name “Tolkien” is pronounced Tol-keen with equal stress on both syllables.  David Doughan  https://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/biography/

The 27-year-old British novelist Daisy Johnson has become the youngest writer ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, with her novel Everything Under, about a troubled mother-daughter relationship that reimagines Greek myth in modern Britain.  It is one of six novels on a shortlist described by the chair of judges as reflecting the “dark times” we live in.   American novelists Rachel Kushner and Richard Powers were also nominated:  Kushner for The Mars Room, which takes on gender and class in a story of poverty and incarceration; and the National Book Award-winning Powers for The Overstory, about nine strangers trying to save a continent’s last few acres of virgin forest.  The shortlist is completed with Scottish poet Robin Robertson’s first novel The Long Take, told in verse about a D-Day veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.  The winner will be announced on 16 October 2018 at a dinner in London’s Guildhall.  Alison Flood  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/20/man-booker-2018-shortlist-daisy-johnson-anna-burns-rachel-kushner-richard-powers-esi-edugyan-robin-robertson   The Man Booker Prize was established in 1969.  The winner receives £50,000 as well as the £2,500 awarded to each of the shortlisted authors.  Both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a worldwide readership plus an increase in book sales.  https://themanbookerprize.com/fiction

October 12, 2018  Norman Rockwell's Vision of the Four Freedoms Left Some People Out.  These Artists Are Trying to Fill Those Gaps by Lily Rothman  Today, 75 years later, those four images—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Want, Freedom From Fear—remain some of history’s most iconic visual representations of the American idea.  But they were always more aspiration than reality.  One gap between Rockwell’s images and reality was obvious to artist Hank Willis Thomas and photographer Emily Shur.  Though the four original images contain a relatively large cast of characters—including specific representations of Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism in the “Freedom of Worship” tableau—that group barely brushes against the depth of American diversity at the time, much less today.  In 2016, Thomas and co-founder Eric Gottesman launched a non-partisan organization they called For Freedoms, with the idea of helping artists get involved in civic issues.  Last year, Thomas recruited Shur, a friend, to help him finally bring its eponymous project to life—“to make a portrait of the America that we live in,” as Thomas puts it.  Photographer Wyatt Gallery also was also asked to help as a producer on the project.)  Over the course of two separate shoots, they invited friends, acquaintances and near-strangers to pose for photographic recreations of the original paintings.  Though they were worried nobody would show up, they say something “clicked” once people realized the import of the project, and the word began to spread.  All told, more than 100 participants came through the studio—including celebrities, such as the actor and activist Rosario Dawson, and people with personal connections to the freedoms, such as the Japanese-American filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura, who spent time as a child in an internment camp. Their varied cast included Native Americans, trans people, immigrants,  activists and many others, as they strove to find representatives of as many meanings of “American” as possible.  A select portfolio of Four Freedoms sets will form the backbone of a national billboard campaign that is part of For Freedoms’ 50 State Initiative, a national “creative collaboration,” launched in September, which aims to use public art, exhibitions and community meetings as platforms for civic life.  (The Norman Rockwell Museum is also holding its own commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the images, including a separate set of “reimaginings” of the images by contemporary artists.)  http://time.com/longform/four-freedoms/  Thank you, Muse reader!

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1970  October 16, 2018, 289th day of the year  Word of the Day  aquaponics  noun  A sustainable food production system that combines traditional aquaculture with hydroponics, with effluent from the water in which fish are reared being used as nutrition for plants.  Today is recognized by the United Nations as World Food Day to highlight the importance of food security and good nutrition, and the need for action.