Although
the usual plural of
life is lives, the art phrase still
life makes the plural still lifes.
Garner’s Modern English Usage
For the
small device used to guide the cursor on a computer display, many dictionaries
endorse both mice and mouses as
the plural form, and few usage and style guides offer a definitive preference
(exception: AP says “mice”). Searches of current news articles reveal 31
instances of “computer mice” to only seven of “computer mouses.” And on the whole web, Google finds nearly 10
million results for “computer mice” to only around 200,000 for “computer
mouses.” https://grammarist.com/usage/mice-mouses/ May 9, 2020 search on Google
Mouse is
an acronym for Manually Operated User Selection Equipment. Find 13 meaning of mouse as an acronym at https://www.allacronyms.com/MOUSE
grot
noun
grotto 1506 Middle French grotte, from Italian grotto Example in sentence: The famous Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a
long-forgotten grot by a shepherd boy https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grot https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grot
Li Bai (Li Po) and Du Tu (Tu Fu) are the
most loved Chinese poets. They are as
important in Chinese literary history as Shakespeare is to people in Britain .
. . https://www.poemhunter.com/li-po/
“Honor Among Thieves” means thieves will not steal from each other. In other words, this proverb says that
criminals observe a moral code of honor in that they do not do anything illegal
to their partners in crime. In British
English, this proverb is spelled honour among thieves. The idea behind this expression exists in
many different languages. The English
playwright William Shakespeare used it at the end of the 1500s in his
play Henry IV.
Plato discussed the concept in Greek in his work Republic, which dates all the way back to 380
B.C. The opposite view there is no honor among thieves is a contrasting
proverb. People may believe one or the other, and they may say either to suit
their current situation.
Mirabilis jalapa, the marvel of Peru or four o'clock flower, is the most
commonly grown ornamental species of Mirabilis plant,
and is available in a range of colours. Mirabilis in Latin means
wonderful and Jalapa (or Xalapa) is the state capital
of Veracruz in México. Mirabilis jalapa was
cultivated by the Aztecs for medicinal and ornamental purposes. The flowers usually open from late afternoon
or at dusk (namely between 4 and 8 o'clock), giving rise to one of its common
names. Flowers then produce a strong,
sweet-smelling fragrance throughout the night, then close for good in the
morning. New flowers open the following
day. It arrived in Europe in 1525. Today, it is common in many tropical regions
and is also valued in Europe as a (not hardy) ornamental plant. It is the children's state flower of
Connecticut under the name of Michaela Petit's Four O'Clocks. The name
of Mirabilis jalapa given by Carl
Von Linne in 1753 is formed from
the scientific Latin Mirabilis meaning "admirable" by
allusion to the remarkable colors of its flowers and the specific name jalapa that would refer to its origin in the Jalapa
in Guatemala. But the epithet of jalapa could also refer to
the city of Xalapa (Jalapa)
in Mexico from which came a former purgative drug,
named jalap, taken from the tubers of the tuberous jalap.
All one hundred desks in the U.S. Senate are
constructed of solid mahogany,
with the drawers made mostly of poplar and pine.
Most of the mahogany came
from a now deforested Haiti. Desk 88:
Eight Progressive Senators Who Changed America by Sherrod Brown Thank you, Muse reader!
Howard Nemerov
(1920–1991) Born on February 29, 1920 in
New York, New York, Howard Nemerov displayed an early interest in the arts, as
did his younger sister, the photographer Diane Arbus. He graduated from the Society for Ethical
Culture's Fieldstone School in 1937 and went on to study at Harvard, where he
earned his bachelor's degree in 1941.
Nemerov was first hired to teach literature to World War II veterans at
Hamilton College in New York. His
teaching career flourished, and he went on to teach at Bennington College,
Brandeis University, and Washington University in St. Louis, where he was
Distinguished Poet in Residence from 1969 until his death. His numerous collections of poetry
include Trying Conclusions: New and Selected Poems, 1961-1991 (University
of Chicago Press, 1991); War Stories: Poems About Long Ago and Now (1987); Inside
the Onion (1984); Sentences (1980); The
Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (1977), which won the Pulitzer
Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize; Gnomes and
Occasions (1973); The Winter Lightning: Selected Poems (1968); The
Blue Swallows (1967); Mirrors and Windows (1958); The
Salt Garden (1955); Guide to the Ruins (1950);
and The Image and the Law (1947). Nemerov was also an accomplished prose
writer. His essay collections
include The Oak in the Acorn (1987); Figures of
Thought (1978); Reflexions on Poetry and Poetics (1972); Journal
of the Fictive Life (1965); and Poetry and Fiction (1963).
His fiction titles include Stories, Fables and Other Diversions (1971); The
Commodity of Dreams and Other Stories (1959); The Homecoming
Game (1957); Federigo: Or the Power of Love (1954);
and The Melodramatists (1949).
Nemerov was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including
fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and The Guggenheim Foundation, a
National Endowment for the Arts grant, and the National Medal of the Arts. He also served as poetry consultant to the
Library of Congress in 1963 and 1964, as a Chancellor of the Academy of American
Poets beginning in 1976, and as poet laureate of the United States from 1988 to
1990.
The Gang of Eight in the context
of Congress has historically referred to
eight members of Congress: four
members—the chair and ranking member, of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate Select Committees on Intelligence,
and the four leaders of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. The Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980
mandated that the CIA “fully and currently [inform]” Congressional oversight
committees of their activities including “any significant anticipated
intelligence activity.” In
special cases, the Act authorized the President to
brief only the majority and minority leaders of each chamber as well as the
chairmen and ranking minority members of the Intelligence Committees. It is
this group that is informally known as the "Gang of Eight" of Congress. Find members at https://ballotpedia.org/Gang_of_Eight
In
the politics of the United States, the Gang
of Six refers to one of three bipartisan groups of
six Senators consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans. One group,
active in 2009, focused on health care reform
in the United States during
the 111th United States Congress. A different
group, active in 2011, is following up the compromise on the United States public debt from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. A third
group, active in 2018, is focused on the Senate immigration debate. Find members at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Six
Gone to pot: The common phrase for something that's fallen
apart or disintegrated goes back to the 16th century, basically in reference to
things that were actually going into the pot.
While the chopping and stewing of meats and vegetables definitely
illustrates its colloquial usage, "gone to pot" evolved into a
17th-century euphemism for those who'd fallen victim to cannibals. See other
phrases including cold shoulder, taking the cake, and humble pie at The
Curious Origins of 9 Delicious Phrases by Mangesh Hattikudur https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/17080/curious-origins-9-delicious-phrases
Friday's full moon, June
5, 2020, also known as the strawberry moon, will light up the night sky in most
of the Western Hemisphere (including North America), but that's not the case
the world over. In much of the Eastern
Hemisphere, the full moon on Friday will showcase a penumbral lunar eclipse,
meaning that the strawberry moon will appear dark and silvery. The strawberry moon is named for the
relatively short strawberry growing season in northeastern North America; it's
a name recognized by most Algonquin tribes, the now-defunct Maine Farmer's
Almanac reported in the 1930s, according to NASA. In fact, June is prime
strawberry growing time for most of the United States, according to the food site
Epicurious, which also pointed out that strawberries are a favorite,
ranking sixth as the country's most popular fruit. If you have a sweet tooth, go for wild strawberries,
which tend to have sweeter, tangier flavors than the more firm, waterier
store-bought ones, Live Science previously reported. Other names for this full moon include the
mead moon, honey moon, rose moon and LRO moon (for the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter, which was launched toward the moon June 18, 2009), according to NASA. Whatever you call it, this will be the last
full moon of spring, before the summer solstice on June 20. Laura
Geggel https://www.livescience.com/strawberry-full-moon-june-2020.html
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2279
June 3, 2020
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