A.Word.a.Day with Anu Garg

Turveydropian  (tuhr-vee-DROH-pee-uhn)  adjective  Overly concerned with one’s appearance, demeanor, etc.  After Mr. Turveydrop, a character overly concerned with deportment, in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, 1852.  Earliest documented use:  1876.

Gallionic  (gal-ee-AHN-ik)  adjective  Indifferent or uncaring.  After Gallio, a Roman senator, who refused to take action in a dispute.  Earliest documented use:  1920.

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From:  Andrew Pressburger   Subject:  Faustian  There are several instances in the operatic repertoire of the Faust legend.  Probably the most famous is the one by the 19th-century French composer, Charles Gounod, in which the aging philosopher offers his soul to Mephistopheles if the latter arranges for him to become young again and gain the love of the innocent young woman, Marguerite.  In the end, Faust is damned, while the supposedly errant girl’s soul ascends to heaven.  The oratorio The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz (the composer referred to it as a “dramatic legend”) shows Faust wandering in the wilderness in search of rejuvenation and true love, only to fall afoul of the devil’s machinations.  The Czech composer Leos Janacek based his opera The Makropoulos Case on Karel Capek’s play of the same name.  In it an old actress wishes for eternal life, but finally realizes that, once deprived of youthful vigour, life is not worth living.  From:  Andrew Pressburger  Subject:  dunce  Undoubtedly the most famous usage of this eponym is Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad, at once a satirical send-up of the social affectations in British society and of the pitiful publications by Pope’s contemporary poetasters.   Eighteenth-century literature provided copious examples of such nonsense, or--as Pope himself elsewhere admonished--“Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

From:  Marvant Duhon  Subject:  Duns Scotus and contemporaries  Duns Scotus had a disciple, William of Occam (1287-1347), who is often misunderstood today.  His Razor was the principle that you MUST NOT multiply causes, which is often simplified as that you must choose the simplest explanation that describes something.  To Occam this meant that, not just in theology but in every subject, the only relevant explanation was “God wills it”.  And you only understood that explanation through the light of faith alone.  All other explanations, such as ones using mathematics, were false.

From:  Alex McCrae  Subject:  Faustian and dunce  “A Confederacy of Dunces” is the title of John Kennedy Toole’s farcical novel, whose lead character, the pudgy, delusional Ignatius J. Reilly was inspired by Jonathan Swift who said, “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by a sign that the dunces are in a conspiracy against him.”  https://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail971.html

You aced your midterm, finished the research for your final project and only have weeks until you graduate.  Even though you’re on track to pass your courses, suddenly you begin to lose all the momentum you had at the beginning of the term.  Where did all your drive go?  If you’re struggling to read assignments, forgetting to turn things in on time or procrastinating with your coursework, you aren’t alone.  You’ve come down with senioritis.  “Keep a positive attitude through the end and keep reminding yourself of your end goal,” Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) academic advisor Abby Tincher says.  Ashley Wallis  Find tips for curing senioritis at https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/2018/10/what-is-senioritis   

THRILLING THISTLE  The artichoke was named the official state vegetable of California in 2013.  California produces 99 percent of the annual U.S. crop of fresh market artichokes.  The drive to name the official state food was organized by a radio station in San Francisco and was based on votes made through Facebook.  Other foods nominated for the drive included almonds, avocados, crab, sourdough bread and grapes/wine.  Kristen Cloud  https://www.theshelbyreport.com/2013/04/10/artichoke-named-official-state-vegetable-of-california/  See also https://whataboutthefood.com/artichoke-state-vegetable/

See list of state foods at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_foods and It's a scandal:  Oklahoma declares watermelon a vegetable at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/18/usa.matthewweaver 

Misfortune makes strange bedfellows . . . The Portrait of a Lady, a novel first published in 1881by Henry James (1843-1916)

The origin of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses is difficult to find.  One of the best descriptions is over on Wise Geek, where they go through several, optimism-focused theories ranging from the symbolism of roses and rose gardens to the Victorians to map-makers' glasses to gazing through the bottom of a wine glass.  There are also references to the book Tom Brown at Oxford by Thomas Hughes and written in 1861, but it's unclear if this is the first use of the term.  A more curious suggestion is that the term comes from the use of goggles on chickens to keep them from pecking feathers off each other.  An article about chicken eyeglasses at Ask.com states that "rose-colored lenses as the coloring is thought to prevent a chicken wearing them from recognizing blood on other chickens, which may increase the tendency for abnormal injurious behavior.  They were mass-produced and sold throughout the United States as early as the beginning of the 20th century."  This seems like an odd association of the term since rose-colored glasses accentuate reds unless chickens see red differently than humans.  Regardless, it may be contrary to our usage of the idiom.  No matter what the origin of the idiom is, seeing the world through rose-colored glasses really does make the world a better place.  https://www.thoughtco.com/i-learned-about-rose-colored-glasses-31496 

Comedian, actress, singer, and writer Sarah Silverman referred to “before the pandemic” as pre-pan on a TV talk show March 18, 2021.  

Emily Dickinson’s black cake is a traditional fruit cake, but pause before you crack a joke about modern versions of such desserts.  Dense, dark, brandy-soaked, and full of syrupy raisins, this molasses-rich original is worlds away from the much-maligned commercial fruitcakes available in the United States today.  It’s also massive.  Dickinson’s original recipe calls for 19 eggs, five pounds of raisins, and one and a half pounds of citron, an often-candied fruit that tastes like a thick-rinded, less-acidic lemon.  Beaten by hand, the resulting batter weighed more than 20 pounds.  Baked, then wrapped in cheesecloth and soaked in brandy for at least a month, the finished cakes were likely gifted to Dickinson’s friends and neighbors.  While some bakers have adapted the recipe to incorporate contemporary ingredients and more manageable quantities, purists insist on following the original as written in Dickinson’s sloping hand.  To reproduce the recipe as Emily would have baked it (with the addition of modern oven and tablet technology), staff at Harvard’s Houghton Library made a how-to video.  https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/emily-dickinsons-black-cake 

There's some debate over whether the phrase should be 'tinker's dam'--a small dam to hold solder, used by tinkers when mending pans, or 'tinker's damn'--a tinker's curse, considered of little significance because tinkers were reputed to swear habitually.  If we go back to 1877, in the Practical Dictionary of Mechanics, Edward Knight puts forward this definition:  "Tinker's-dam--a wall of dough raised around a place which a plumber desires to flood with a coat of solder.  The material can be but once used; being consequently thrown away as worthless."  That version of events has gone into popular folklore and many people believe it.  Knight may well have been a fine mechanic but there has to be some doubt about his standing as an etymologist.  There is no corroborative evidence for his speculation and he seems to have fallen foul of the curse of folk etymologists--plausibility.  If an ingenious story seems to neatly fit the bill then it must be true.  Well, in this case it isn't.  The Victorian preference of 'dam' over 'damn' may also owe something to coyness over the use of a profanity in polite conversation.  "There never was a book gotten up by authority and State pay, that was worth a tinker's cuss".  So, we can forget about plumbing. The earlier phrase simply migrated the short distance from 'curse' to 'damn' to give us the proper spelling of the phrase tinker's damn. https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/tinkers-damn.html

Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement. - William Morris, designer, poet, and novelist (24 Mar 1834-1896)  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2342  March 24, 2021