A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg 

bibliotaph or bibliotaphe  (BIB-lee-uh-taf)  noun  One who hoards books.  From Greek biblio- (book) + taphos (tomb), which also gave us cenotaph.  Earliest documented use:  1823.

bouquiniste or bouquinist  (BOO-ki-neest)  noun  A dealer in old and used books.  From French bouquiniste, from bouquin (a colloquial word for a book, little book, or old book).  Earliest documented use:  1840.

pandect  (PAN-dekt)  noun  1.  A complete body of the laws of a country, organization, etc.  2.  A comprehensive treatise on a subject.  From Latin pandectes (encyclopedia), from Greek pandektes (all-receiving), from pan- (all) + dektes (receiver), from dekhesthai (to receive).  Ultimately from Indo-European root dek- (to take, accept), which also gave us dignity, discipline, doctor, decorate, docile, deign, condign, dogmatic, doxy, heterodox, philodox.  Earliest documented use:  1531.

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From:  Mike Cottrell  Subject:  bouquiniste  I had never encountered the word bouquinist(e) until reading your email this morning.  Then--quelle coincidence--I heard a programme on BBC Radio 4 Extra an hour ago called The Paris Bouquinists.

From:  Jenifer Grant  Subject:  biblio-tap-tap  If you include different languages, there is a coined word, biblio-tap-tap.  In Haiti, the Soros-funded library FOKAL reaches out to readers in neighborhoods with a converted pick-up truck, all fitted out with books to loan to kids and adults.  Tap-tap is the word for the brightly painted pick-up trucks converted to “taxis”.  In rural Deschapelles, Haiti, our Sister Cities Essex Haiti sponsored library, Bibliothèque Communautaire Deschapelles, the librarians have Biblio-Ecole and Bibio-Santé programs where they bring books to share with teachers and children in the village “ecoles” schools and the moms and children at the outlying “Centre Santés” (Hopital Albert Schweitzer Haiti Hospital Health Centers), reading to children, giving them a chance to hold and read or look at the books themselves, encouraging them to come to the library to enjoy the books and many programs offered there.

From:  Gopalakrishnan Sankaran  Subject:  bibliotaph  Your write-up for today kindles many memories.  I have been accumulating books from my younger years.  Now I am 89 and I have run short of storage space.  Any subject is grist to my reading mill.  Barring novels.  No patience tracking the plot.  Books abounding in humour are my cherished ones.  Authored by the likes of Erma Bombeck, P.G. Wodehouse, Richard Gordon, and the like.  I keep many diaries in which I write down passages, words, etc., that strike me as memorable.  I have lost count of such diaries.  Luckily for me, there is a friendly bookseller, a few steps from my home.  Knowing my taste in books, he keeps a lookout for such titles and alerts me.  In fact, he gives me a special discount.  One life is truly short for reading all what you want to read. 
From:  Katharine Dickens  Subject:  bibliotaph  Glad to know there is a word for people like me--with bookcases (full to overflowing) in almost every room in the house.  Trying to read a lot of them and now to pass them on to our local library for their book sale.  Don’t want my “children” to fuss with all of them at my demise.  Come by it honestly--both sets of grandparents as well as my parents had large libraries and some of their books are on my shelves.

Building on the 19th-century tradition established on the shores of New York’s Chautauqua Lake, Ohio Chautauqua is a five-day community event that combines living history performances, music, education, and audience participation into a one-of-a-kind cultural event the entire community will enjoy.  Daytime activities feature stimulating adult programs and hands-on workshops for youth hosted by local community organizations.  Each evening, family and friends gather as live music fills the air.  Then, a talented performer appears on stage, bringing a historic figure to life through personal stories and historic detail.  With its warm, nostalgic vibe, this truly unique experience is sure to open minds and start conversations.  The tour now travels to four towns in Ohio each summer.  Find information on the places featured in 2019 (Defiance, Milan, Geauga County and Warren) at http://www.ohiohumanities.org/ohio-chautauqua/

April 9, 2019  It was only about 40 years ago that plastic bags became standard at U.S. grocery stores.  This also made them standard in sewers, landfills, rivers and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  They clog drains and cause floods, litter landscapes and kill wildlife.  The national movement to get rid of them is gaining steam—with more than 240 cities and counties passing laws that ban or tax them since 2007.  New York recently became the second U.S. state to ban them.  But these bans may be hurting the environment more than helping it.  University of Sydney economist Rebecca Taylor recently published a study of bag regulations in California.  It's a classic tale of unintended consequences.  Before California banned plastic shopping bags statewide in late 2016, a wave of 139 California cities and counties implemented the policy themselves.  Taylor and colleagues compared bag use in cities with bans with those without them.  For six months, they spent weekends in grocery stores tallying the types of bags people carried out (she admits these weren't her wildest weekends).  She also analyzed these stores' sales data.  Taylor found these bag bans did what they were supposed to:  People in the cities with the bans used fewer plastic bags, which led to about 40 million fewer pounds of plastic trash per year.  But people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog poop or lining trash bins, still needed bags.  "What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned," she says.  This was particularly the case for small, 4-gallon bags, which saw a 120 percent increase in sales after bans went into effect.  Trash bags are thick and use more plastic than typical shopping bags.  "So about 30 percent of the plastic that was eliminated by the ban comes back in the form of thicker garbage bags," Taylor says.  On top of that, cities that banned plastic bags saw a surge in the use of paper bags, which she estimates resulted in about 80 million pounds of extra paper trash per year.  Plastic haters, it's time to brace yourselves.  A bunch of studies find that paper bags are actually worse for the environment.  They require cutting down and processing trees, which involves lots of water, toxic chemicals, fuel and heavy machinery.  While paper is biodegradable and avoids some of the problems of plastic, Taylor says, the huge increase of paper, together with the uptick in plastic trash bags, means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions.  That said, these bans do reduce nonbiodegradable litter.  What about reusable cloth bags?  We know die-hard public radio fans love them!  They've got to be great, right?  Nope.  They can be even worse.  A 2011 study by the U.K. government found a person would have to reuse a cotton tote bag 131 times before it was better for climate change than using a plastic grocery bag once.  The Danish government recently did a study that took into account environmental impacts beyond simply greenhouse gas emissions, including water use, damage to ecosystems and air pollution.  These factors make cloth bags even worse.  They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.  Greg Rosalsky

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-plastic-bag-bans-garbage  Thank you, Muse reader!

Hoi polloi is an expression from Greek that means the many or, in the strictest sense, the people.  In English, it has been given a negative connotation to signify deprecation of the working class, commoners, the masses or common people in a derogatory or (more often today) ironic sense.  Synonyms for hoi polloi, which also express the same or similar distaste for the common people felt by those who believe themselves to be superior, include "Basket of deplorables", "the great unwashed", "the plebeians" or "plebs", "the rabble", "the masses","the dregs of society", "riffraff", "the herd", "the canaille", "the proles" (proletariat), "sheeple", and "peons".  The phrase probably became known to English scholars through Pericles' Funeral Oration, as mentioned in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War.  Pericles uses it in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy, contrasting it with hoi oligoi, "the few."  Its current English usage originated in the early 19th century, a time when it was generally accepted that one must be familiar with Greek and Latin in order to be considered well educated.  The phrase was originally written in Greek letters.  Knowledge of these languages served to set apart the speaker from hoi polloi in question, who were not similarly educated.  There have been numerous uses of the term in English literature.  James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans, is often credited with making the first recorded usage of the term in English.  The first recorded use by Cooper occurs in his 1837 work Gleanings in Europe where he writes "After which the oi polloi are enrolled as they can find interest."  Lord Byron had, in fact, previously used the term in his letters and journal.  In one journal entry, dated 24 November 1813, Byron writes "I have not answered W. Scott's last letter,—but I will.  I regret to hear from others, that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements.  He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parnassus, and the most English of bards.  I should place Rogers next in the living list (I value him more as the last of the best school)—Moore and Campbell both third—Southey and Wordsworth and Coleridge.  Byron also wrote an 1821 entry in his journal " . . . one or two others, with myself, put on masks, and went on the stage with the 'oi polloi."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2096  May 13, 2019