A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  Trees sustain life.  They also sustain language.  We use many of the tree-related terms metaphorically, for example, the verb to cherry-pick. 

corroborate  (kuh-ROB-uh-rayt) verb. tr. To confirm or support a claim, theory, etc.  From Latin corroborare (to strengthen), from com/cor- (together) + roborare (to make strong), from robur (oak, strength).  Ultimately from the Indo-European root reudh- (red), which also gave us red, rouge, ruby, ruddy, rubella, robust, rambunctious, roborant, and russet.  Earliest documented use:  1530.

palmary  (PAL-muh-ree)  adjective  Of supreme importance; outstanding; praiseworthy.  From Latin palmarius (deserving or carrying the palm), from palma (palm).  The branches of the palm tree were carried as symbols of victory in ancient times.  The name of the palm tree derives from the resemblance of the shape of its frond to the palm of a hand.  Earliest documented use:  1646.  Two related words are palmy and palmer.

fig (fig)  noun  1.  A tree or shrub of the genus Ficus or its fruit.  2.  Something of little value.  3.  A gesture of contempt.  verb tr:  To dress up.  noun:  dress or array.  For noun 1-3:  From Old French fige, from Provencal figa, from Latin fica (fig, ficus).  Earliest documented use:  1225.  Also see fig leaf.  For the rest:  Of uncertain origin.  Earliest documented use:  1839.  It’s not clear why the fig has suffered such an undervaluation, historically speaking.  The OED lists the first citation in this sense from “The Court of Love” (1450):  “A Figge for all her chastite!”  The word is also used for the obscene gesture of a fist with the thumb sticking out between two fingers.  Another word given to us by the lowly fig is sycophant.

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day  From:  Tessa van Rooyen  In our small suburban garden in Cape Town we have two Eugenia or Australian cherry trees--the bane of my husband’s life as they are slap bang next to the swimming pool.  Expletives galore as he sweeps the fallen fruit up!  But we love that they have brought many beautiful birds, and anyway, the sweeping up is good exercise.  So they stay as long as we do.  From:  Melissa O’Connor (mel.a.oconnor gmail.com)  Read The Overstory by Richard Powers, an amazing novel.  You’ll never think of cutting down a tree again.  You’ll appreciate trees in a whole different light.  It’s also a very good audio book.  From:  Lynne Browne  We have many crab apple trees on campus.  There were two with “ribbons of doom” around their trunks.  I started asking various upper-level people why were they marked to be chopped down.  I finally received my answer from the person in charge of “tree death”.  He said, oh, I don’t know (they are messy).  He said, I suppose I can just have them trimmed and remove the ribbon of death.  I sent him a card (a photo of the trees) saying, “Thank you for not killing us.”  The trees stand today.  From:  Richard S. Russell  All across America, every year, people will search out an excellent specimen of an evergreen tree--symbol of eternal life--and proceed to murder it and drag its corpse back to their living rooms, where it will sit in a corner and slowly dessicate into a fire hazard.  Then, after it’s become too pathetic to look at any more, they’ll drag its remains out to the curb, to be carted off to hasten the end of the useful life of the local landfill.  Here’s an alternative to this silvacide epidemic.  Mark your calendar now for next spring, when you can head out to a local nursery and get a LIVE evergreen that you can plant in your front yard and have for years to come, enjoying its natural beauty year round while saving money, nurturing the environment, and still enjoying your holiday.  From:  Richard W. Burris  One of the great jazz songs is “Willow Weep for Me”, written in 1932.  Weeping, of course, a pun referring to the drooping or weeping structure of the tree as well as crying.  Virtually all great jazz vocalists recorded it. Here is Billie Holliday and Sarah Vaughan.  From:  Andrew Pressburger  The willow tree is often used as a symbol of sadness or tragedy, probably because of its drooping branches.  Two famous examples are Queen Gertrude’s account of Ophelia’s death in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 7, starting with Gertrude’s entrance in the second part of the scene:  “There is a willow grows aslant the brook”, etc.) and Desdemona’s song in Verdi’s Otello (Act 4, Scene 3), based on the Shakespeare play.  With its repeated lines of “willow, willow, willow,” Desdemona’s premonition of death at the hands of her husband has to be the most heartrending scene in the entire opera.  Desdemona is sung by Barbara Frittoli in this La Scala production from 2001, Placido Domingo is Otello, and Rossana Rinaldi is Emilia.  Start watching at 1:46:57.  From:  Marek Boym  Why the fig gesture is called obscene escapes me.  In my native Poland it was quite common, when one refused, to make that gesture and say something like “a fig” meaning “Forget it.”  It might not have been considered elegant, but in no way obscene.   

In 1834, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Weber and their nephew, August Hoen, carried pieces of lithographic machinery, lithographic stones, and ink powders from Coblenz, Germany, to America.  Upon arriving in America in 1835, Weber founded the E. Weber and A. Hoen Lithography Company.  So began 146 years of continuous business for the company, which garnered it the title of the oldest lithographic firm in the United States.  After Weber’s death in 1845, August took over and renamed the business A. Hoen & Co., Lithographers and Printers.  Hoen helped create an international name for the company.  He patented his litho-caustic method of printing, which required citric acid and gum Arabic to be laid over the etching in order to allow the lithographer to see the progress of his work.  The company became most readily known for its maps, art reproductions, medical charts, and posters.  Also, when the Civil War broke out in 1861, A. Hoen & Co. printed Confederate money.  Sierra Hallmen  See pictures and find location information at https://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/398 

Middlemarch is to be published for the first time in almost 150 years under George Eliot’s real name, Mary Ann Evans, alongside 24 other historic works by women whose writing has only ever previously been in print under their male pseudonyms.  Evans adopted the pen name of George Eliot in the mid-19th century, in order to ensure her works were taken seriously.  Middlemarch, originally published in eight parts in 1871-72, has never been released under her real name.  Evans said she was “resolute in preserving my incognito, having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation”, while her partner George Lewes said “the object of anonymity was to get the book judged on its own merits, and not prejudged as the work of a woman, or of a particular woman”.  Now the work voted the greatest British novel of all time is finally coming out as Evans’s, as part of the Reclaim Her Name campaign from the Women’s prize for fiction and prize sponsor Baileys, to mark the 25th anniversary of the award.  Some of the books, like Middlemarch, are well-known, including A Phantom Lover, a ghost story from Violet Paget, who wrote as Vernon Lee; and Indiana, a romance from Amantine Aurore Dupin, the 19th-century author better known as George Sand, who famously scandalised society by wearing male clothing and smoking cigars in public.  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/12/george-eliot-joins-24-female-authors-making-debuts-under-their-real-names 

The Bagdad Cafe doesn’t mean much to most Americans is perhaps exactly why it means so much to the rest of the world.  Every day, international film buffs venture into the middle of the Mojave Desert by the busload to visit this dinky Route 66 roadside cafe.  The set location of German filmmaker Percy Adlon’s 1987 indie cult-classic of the same name, the Bagdad Cafe is the Mojave Desert’s cinematic claim to fame.  It wasn’t always the Bagdad Cafe.  Until the producers selected it for the location of their film, it was known as the Sidewinder Cafe.  The name “Bagdad” was employed in reference to a ghost town 50 miles east on Route 66 called Bagdad, a nod to its situation in the driest corner of the contiguous United States.  The understated comedy-drama—which is titled Out of Rosenheim in Germany—tracks the unlikely friendship that emerges between two women, a German tourist and an African-American cafe owner, and how that bond rejuvenates the crumbling eatery into a vibrant meeting-point for a town of quirky characters.  European audiences in particular fell under its spell, birthing pilgrimages among international fans who, to this day, come to pay homage, even in the heat of July and August (European holiday season).  In 1995, the cafe’s real-life owners leaned into the film’s pull, officially changing the name to the Bagdad Cafe.  Find location and map at https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bagdad-cafe-newberry-springs 

Endymion is a novel published in 1880 by Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, the former Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He was paid £10,000 for it.  It was the last novel Disraeli published before his death.  He had been writing another, Falconet, when he died; it was published, incomplete, after his death.  Like most of Disraeli's novels, Endymion is a romance, although Disraeli took the unusual step of setting it between 1819 and 1859.  This meant that the hero of the novel–Endymion Ferrars–had to be a Whig, rather than a Tory.  The time period that Disraeli chose was dominated by the Whig party; there would have been little opportunity for a young, rising Tory.  Given that, it seems likely that Disraeli chose the time period in order to move a final time in the world in which he grew up and began his ascent.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endymion_(Disraeli_novel)   See Endymion by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7926 

A book is the world made small; so that even indoors on a rainy day you can travel around it twice each way and never get wet at all.  Valerie Worth  ©1991 

The key ingredient in this Sazon spice blend seasoning is ground annatto (achiote), the spice that gives yellow rice that yellow color.  Annatto is comes from the seeds of achiote tree.  In India, it’s referred to as sindoor, and in the Philippines, it is called atsuete.  I can find it in hispanic markets, but you can also find it on Amazon.  If you can’t find this, turmeric would be a good substitute.  posted by Steph   https://www.skinnytaste.com/homemade-sazon-seasoning-mix/  prep time—5 minutes  12 servings  

The Pony Express has fascinated Americans since its first riders hit the leather in April 1860.  It traveled 1,966 miles between Missouri and California in 10 days or less.  This innovative mail service lasted only 19 months, but won a permanent place in the history of the American West.  The National Pony Express Association (NPEA) strives to keep the spirit and memory of the Pony Express alive.  NPEA was established in 1978 to honor the memory and endeavors of the Pony Express riders of 1860-1861 and to identify, preserve, and mark the original Pony Express route through the eight states it crossed:  Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.  In 1992, Congress added the trail to the National Trails System as a Historic Trail, administered by the National Park Service.  With the creation of the Pony Express National Historic Trail the association became the primary non-federal advocate for the preservation of the designated national historic trail.  https://nationalponyexpress.org/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2249  August 26, 2020