Is there anything more fantastically homey than that most marvelous of soft-baked cookies, the snickerdoodle?  The name is thought to have come from nineteenth-century New England, deriving from the word Schneckennudeln, a type of snail-shaped German cinnamon roll.  Snickerdoodles are famously associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Amish communities of Indiana, which explains how they made their way to the Midwest and have long been a homespun favorite here.  And, of course, if you can find a way to turn something, anything at all, into a recipe that can be crammed into a 9 x 13, it becomes extra midwestern.  The swath of frosting on top gilds the lily here, but it’s so worth it.  Shauna Sever  Find recipe making about 2 dozen bars at https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/frosted-snickerdoodle-bars

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
From:  Charlie Cockey  In Czech, here are the days of the week with approximate meanings attached: 
Monday = pondělí = The Day After Sunday; Tuesday = úterý = The Second Day (after Sunday); Wednesday = středa = The Middle Day; Thursday = čtvrtek = The Fourth Day (after Sunday); Friday = pátek = The Fifth Day (after Sunday); Saturday = sobota =The Sabbath Day; Sunday = neděle = The Do-No-Work Day
From:  Eric Miller  In German, “ein blauer Montag” (a blue Monday) is one that you take off from work.  Its origins lie in the medieval dyers, who would hang their blue-dyed cloth out to dry on a Saturday, then take Monday off from work to give it extra time to dry.  (Apparently, blue dye took longer than the others.)  The neighbors knew from the blue cloth that the dyers were not working that day.  By extension, “blau machen” (to “do blue”) has come to mean any time taken off from work or school, although now generally without permission from the boss or teacher.

From:  Nadine Smith  In English we use a lot of blue:  blue-chip stocks, blue-sky stocks (don’t buy them), blue-collar workers, blue-blooded ancestors (yours maybe; not mine), blue-nosed folks (prudes), folks who swear a blue streak, and blue stockings (folks with intellectual inclinations). Lovers should always be true blue.  In our country it’s not good to feel blue, but the bluebird of happiness)?  Blue.  In Brazil, if you’re blue, it means everything’s great (todo azul).

From:  David McKenzie  Interesting that the term “Sunday Driver” has first documented use in 1877, eight years before the motor car was invented in 1885!  Presumably it initially referred to a horse and cart driver (or train driver?)

James Edward Carter, OBE (born 19 August 1948) is an English film and television actor.  He is best known for his role in Downton Abbey (2010–2015) playing Mr Carson, a role that has earned him four nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (2012–2015).  He reprised his role in the feature film Downton Abbey (2019).  Carter's film credits include A Private Function (1984), A Month in the Country (1987), A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (1992), The Madness of King George (1994), Richard III (1995), Brassed Off (1996), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Ella Enchanted (2004), The Thief Lord (2006), The Golden Compass (2007), Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), My Week with Marilyn (2011), and the film The Good Liar (2019).  His television credits include Lipstick on Your Collar (1993), Cracker (1994), The Way We Live Now (2001), The Singing Detective (1986), Arabian Nights (2000), The Chest (1997), Red Riding (2009), A Very British Coup (1988), the Hornblower episode "Duty" (2003) and the Midsomer Murders episode "The Fisher King" (2004), and Dinotopia (2002).  He also plays Captain Brown in the five-part BBC series Cranford (2007) alongside his wife Imelda Staunton.  Carter is a former chairman of Hampstead Cricket Club, whose ground is near his home.  On 18 September 2011 he organised the Hampstead Cricket Club (HCC) Celebrity Cricket Match.  Carter is a keen cyclist and has frequently ridden for charity causes.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carter_(actor)  Carter played Montego, the magician in the 1986 film Haunted Honeymoon with Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner and Dom DeLuise.  

Delaware is often called the Small Wonder.  It consists of 2,044 square miles*.  Most of Delaware is on the Atlantic Coastal plain.  The northern part of the state is on the Piedmont plateau, a hilly area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coastal plain.  The dividing line runs east-west between the cities of Wilmington and Newark.  Delaware is 96 miles long* and 39 miles at its widest.  Delaware declared its independence from Great Britain on June 15, 1776.  It thereby also became independent of Pennsylvania with which it had been connected since 1682.   It is known as the "First State" because on December 7, 1787, it became the first to ratify the U.S. Constitution.  In 1610 explorer Samuel Argall named the Delaware River and Bay for the governor of Virginia, Thomas West, Lord De La Warr.  The state of Delaware takes its name from the river and bay.  One of its nicknames is the Diamond State.  Legend has it that Thomas Jefferson called Delaware a "jewel" among the states because of it's strategic location along the East Coast.  http://dehistory.org/delaware-facts  *The maximum length of Long Island is 118.1 miles, and it consists of 1,401 square miles.

Ulmus glabra, commonly called Scotch elm or Wych elm, is a large, wide-spreading, deciduous tree that typically grows to 70-100’ with a broad-rounded crown.  It is native from Great Britain to Siberia.  It was once widely planted in the U.S. as a shade tree for large lawns and parks, but is no longer used because of susceptibility to Dutch elm disease.  Insignificant small reddish-green flowers appear in spring before the foliage emerges.  Flowers give way to single-seeded wafer-like samaras (each tiny seed is surrounded by a flattened circular papery wing).  Seeds mature in April-May as the leaves reach full size.  Broad oblong-obovate to elliptic, rough-textured, dark green leaves (to 3-6” long) have acuminate tips, doubly toothed margins and asymetrical bases.  Leaves typically turn an undistinguished dull yellow in fall.  A magnificent specimen tree dating back to 1861 is located at the Missouri Botanical Garden next to Henry Shaw’s house.  The name wych comes from Anglo Saxon meaning “with plant branching”.  http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=287399

Wych elm once covered large parts of the UK.  Following the last ice age, as woodland became the dominant form of vegetation, Wych Elm stood out as one of the success stories.  For a few thousand years it flourished but then succumbed to what is thought to have been a disease very similar, if not, Dutch elm disease.  At the same time, humans, with their rapidly developing tools, were clearing larger and larger areas of woodland for farming.  The death of so many elms must have helped them.  See graphics at https://treegrowing.tcv.org.uk/identify/wych-elm  See also https://www.wood-database.com/wych-elm/

THINK, WRITE, SPEAK  Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor by Vladimir Nabokov ; edited by Brian Boyd & Anastasia Tolstoy    Award-winning biographer, editor, and literary critic Boyd (English/Univ. of Auckland; Why Lyrics Last:  Evolution, Cognition and Shakespeare's Sonnets, 2012, etc.) and scholar and translator Tolstoy (Junior Research Fellow/University of Oxford; co-translator: Nabokov’s The Tragedy of Mister Morn, 2013) have gathered more than 150 uncollected writings by the prolific Nabokov (Letters to Véra, 2014, etc.):  essays, reviews, questionnaire responses, letters to editors, and—accounting for the majority of the pieces—interviews, most dating from the “post-Lolita years of world fame.”  An informative introduction places the selections in the context of Nabokov’s life and writing career.  A rich treat for Nabokov’s admirers.  publication date:  November 12, 2019  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/vladimir-nabokov/think-write-speak/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2183  November 18, 2019