Althaea officinalis, or marsh-mallow, is a perennial species indigenous to Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa, which is used in herbalism and as an ornamental plant.  A confection made from the root since ancient Egyptian times evolved into  today's marshmallow treat, but most modern marshmallow treats no longer contain any marsh-mallow root.  The name of the genus comes from the Greek ἄλθειν (althein), meaning "to heal."  Marshmallow was traditionally used as relief for irritation of mucous membranes, including use as a gargle for mouth and throat ulcers and gastric ulcers.  In Russia, the root syrup is sold without a prescription by pharmacies, with intent to treat minor respiratory ailments.  The flowers and young leaves can be eaten, and are often added to salads or are boiled and fried.  The root extract (halawa extract) is sometimes used as flavoring in the making of a Middle Eastern snack called halva.  The later French version of the recipe, called pâte de guimauve (or guimauve for short), included an egg white meringue and was often flavored with rose water.  Pâte de guimauve more closely resembles contemporary commercially available marshmallows, which no longer contain Althaea officinalis.  See pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althaea_officinalis

Arthur (1863-1907) and Sylvia (1866-1910) Llewelyn Davies had five sons:  George (1893-1915), John, or 'Jack' (1894-1959), Peter (1897-1960), Michael (1900-1921) and Nicholas, or Nico' (1903-1980).  The boys were brought up in the Paddington and Notting Hill districts of London, and, one day in 1897, whilst out walking in Kensington Gardens with their nanny, Mary Hodgson (1876-1962), George and Jack met with and were befriended by the author J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), who would become an integral part of their lives, and they of his.  They would come to know him affectionately as "Uncle Jim."  The Llewelyn Davies family would become the inspiration for the Darling family and the Lost Boys in Barrie's Peter Pan; and Peter Llewelyn Davies, unwittingly, given he was a baby at the time, would lend his name to the play's central protagonist; although the actual character of Peter Pan was an amalgam of the personality traits of all five brothers, or as Barrie put it, "I made Peter by rubbing the five (boys) together, as savages with two sticks to produce a flame.  That is all Peter is--the spark I got from (the boys)."  The family's nurse, Mary Hodgson, was also included in the play as the character Nana, the dog/housekeeper, hired by Mr and Mrs Darling to look after the children.  The character of Peter Pan was inspired by Barrie's older brother, David, who was drowned in an ice-skating accident in their native Scotland, two days short of his fourteenth birthday.  An intriguing bit of trivia is that it was Barrie's naming of the Darlings daughter as "Wendy" that led to that name becoming a popular name for girls in the first sixty years of the 20th century.  The name was inspired by Margaret Henley, the daughter of the poet W. E. Henley (1849-1903), who had been a great friend of Barrie's when he had lived in Edinburgh.  Little Margaret idolized Barrie and used to refer to him as "my Fwendy Wendy"--the latter part of which Barrie later bestowed upon his heroine in Peter Pan.  https://www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/llewelyn-davies-boys-grave.htm

The forms loath, loathe, and loathed are not interchangeable.  The word loath is an adjective.  It’s from Old English lað which meant “hostile, repulsive.”  It’s related to German Leid (sorrow) and French laid (ugly).  Its most frequent modern usage is in the expression “to be loath to do something,” in which the meaning is not much stronger than “reluctant.”  The word loathe is a verb.  It’s from Old English laðian which had the meaning “to hate, to be disgusted with.”  The modern meaning is about the same:  “to feel strong aversion for; have extreme disgust at.”  A variant spelling of the adjective loath is loth.  The th in the adjective has the unvoiced sound heard in thin.  Maeve Maddox  https://www.dailywritingtips.com/loath-and-loathe/

Bok choy, also known as pak choy or pok choi, is a type of Chinese cabbage, that has smooth, wide, flat leaf blades at one end with the other end forming a cluster similar to that of celery.  May be eaten cooked or raw.  Find recipes at https://theforkedspoon.com/bok-choy-recipe/ and https://www.inspiredtaste.net/34160/lemon-garlic-bok-choy-recipe/

James Ambrose Cutting patented the ambrotype process in 1854.  Ambrotypes were most popular in the mid-1850s to mid-1860s.  Cartes de visite and other paper print photographs, easily available in multiple copies, replaced them.  An ambrotype is comprised of an underexposed glass negative placed against a dark background.  The dark backing material creates a positive image.  Photographers often applied pigments to the surface of the plate to add color, often tinting cheeks and lips red and adding gold highlights to jewelry, buttons, and belt buckles.  Ambrotypes were sold in either cases or ornate frames to provide an attractive product and also to protect the negative with a cover glass and brass mat.  

View all ambrotypes in the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog:  Ambrotypes

Tintypes, originally known as ferrotypes or melainotypes, were invented in the 1850s and continued to be produced into the 20th century.  The photographic emulsion was applied directly to a thin sheet of iron coated with a dark lacquer or enamel, which produced a unique positive image.  Like the ambrotype, tintypes were often hand-colored.  Customers purchased cases, frames, or paper envelopes to protect and display their images.  Tintypes and ambrotypes found in cases and frames can be difficult to identify.  A magnet will be attracted to the iron support, but if a sheet of metal is used behind an ambrotype, one could be fooled into thinking that the image is a tintype.  

View all tintypes in the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog:  tintypes  https://www.loc.gov/collections/liljenquist-civil-war-photographs/articles-and-essays/ambrotypes-and-tintypes/

Lancelot Brown (c. 1715–16-1783), more commonly known with the byname Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect.  He is remembered as "the last of the great English 18th-century artists to be accorded his due" and "England's greatest gardener".  He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure.  He was nicknamed "Capability" because he would tell his clients that their property had "capability" for improvement.  His influence was so great that the contributions to the English garden made by his predecessors Charles Bridgeman and William Kent are often overlooked.  It is estimated that Brown was responsible for over 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain.  His work still endures at Belvoir Castle, Croome Court (where he also designed the house), Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle, Harewood House, Highclere Castle, Appuldurcombe House, Milton Abbey (and nearby Milton Abbas village), and in traces at Kew Gardens and many other locations.  His style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles.  More than 30 of the gardens are open to the public.  See pictures and find a partial list of Lancelot Brown’s gardens at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”  Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)  Find quotes on justice at http://library.law.harvard.edu/justicequotes/explore-the-room/north-2/

Irish Slang:  Top 80 most used expressions  List includes Bucketing down, Cod/Codding ya, Holy Joe, Holy show, and The Pale.  https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/irish-slang-top-80-most-used-expressions/

Find a list of English-language terms of venery (venery being an archaic word for hunting), comprising terms from a tradition that arose in the Late Middle Ages, at least partly from the Book of Saint Albans of 1486, a historic list of "company terms".  The collective terms include:  mews of capons, parcel of hogs, and a snug of koalas.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_terms_of_venery,_by_animal

Daylight saving time in the United States is the practice of setting the clock forward by one hour during the warmer part of the year, so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less.  Most areas of the United States and Canada observe daylight saving time (DST), the exceptions being Arizona (except for the Navajo, who do observe daylight saving time on tribal lands), Hawaii,  and the overseas territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands.  The Uniform Time Act of 1966 established the system of uniform Daylight Saving Time throughout the US.  In the U.S., daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November, with the time changes taking place at 2:00 a.m. local time.  With a mnemonic word play referring to seasons, clocks "spring forward, fall back"—that is, in springtime the clocks are moved forward from 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and in fall they are moved back from 2:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.  Daylight saving time lasts for a total of 34 weeks (238 days) every year, about 65% of the entire year.  By 1962, the transportation industry found the lack of consistency confusing enough to push for federal regulation.  The result was the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-387).  Beginning in 1967, the act mandated standard time within the established time zones and provided for advanced time:  Clocks would be advanced one hour beginning at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and turned back one hour at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.  States were allowed to exempt themselves from DST as long as the entire state did so.  If a state chose to observe DST, the time changes were required to begin and end on the established dates.  In 1967, Arizona and Michigan became the first states to exempt themselves from DST (Michigan would begin observing DST in 1972).   In 1972, the act was amended (P.L. 92-267), allowing those states split between time zones to exempt either the entire state or that part of the state lying within a different time zone.  The newly created Department of Transportation (DOT) was given power to enforce the law.  As of 2014, the following states and territories are not observing DST:  Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2236  March 6, 2020