The complete loss of smell is called anosmia (an-OHZ-me-uh).  Without your sense of smell, food tastes different, you can't smell the scent of a flower, and you could find yourself in a dangerous situation, unknowingly.  For example, without the ability to detect odors, you wouldn't smell a gas leak, smoke from a fire, or sour milk.  A person's sense of smell is driven by certain processes.  First, a molecule released from a substance (such as fragrance from a flower) must stimulate special nerve cells (called olfactory cells) found high up in the nose.  These nerve cells then send information to the brain, where the specific smell is identified.  Anything that interferes with these processes, such as nasal congestion, nasal blockage, or damage to the nerve cells themselves, can lead to loss of smell.  Hedy Marks  Find explanation of causes, symptoms, diagnosis  and treatments at https://www.webmd.com/brain/anosmia-loss-of-smell 

Knickerbocker  As an adjective, Knickerbocker refers to people or objects from Manhattan (New York City, before 1898).  Other uses:  Knickerbocker Holiday, a 1938 musical by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, The Knick, an American television drama series at the Knickerbocker Hospital, The Knickerbocker Buckaroo, a 1919 American silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks, The Knickerbockers, a "one hit wonder" American pop/rock music group best remembered for their 1965 hit "Lies", "Knickerbocker", a 2008 song by Fujiya & Miyagi, "Hey, Mr. Knickerbocker", a children's song about a man who likes to "boppity-bop", popularized on the children's television show Barney & Friends, The Knickerbocker or New-York Monthly Magazine (1833–1865), a literary magazine founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman, and The Knickerbocker Gang, a series of books for children by Austrian writer Thomas Brezina, and a TV series based on the books.  Find uses of knickerbocker in sports, buildings, sports and other ways at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knickerbocker 

Spumoni is a Neapolitan specialty with layers of three different colored and flavored ice cream.  Chocolate, pistachio and cherry are a popular combination.  Other flavors can be used, with nuts and candied fruit added to the layers.  Originally, in the days before ice cream, spumoni was sherbet blended with a large amount of Italian meringue (cooked, beaten egg white sweetened with hot sugar syrup); the name comes from the Italian word for for foam, spuma.  Find instructions for making spumoni and other ice creams at https://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/desserts/ice-cream-definitions-s.asp 

Frank J. Zamboni (1901-1988) invented the ice-resurfacing machine that bears his name to this day.  Working in California, Zamboni and his brothers were partners in an enterprise that made and sold block ice.  As the block ice industry declined due to mobile refrigeration, the Zamboni brothers instead used their ice making knowledge to create an indoor ice rink called Iceland in 1940.  The ice rink proved so successful that keeping the ice smooth was a labor-intensive job, requiring a crew of five people to work for an hour and a half.  The crew was required to scrape the top surface of the ice, sweep away the shavings, wash down the surface, mop it clean, and spray a final coat of water.  By 1949, Zamboni created a prototype of his ice-resurfacing machine that could complete the work in fifteen minutes.  Mass production of the machines began in 1954, and they received international exposure when used at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. Zamboni's machines quickly became indispensable at ice rinks everywhere.  https://www.invent.org/inductees/frank-j-zamboni 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

autonym  (O-tuh-nim)  noun  1.  A person’s own name, as distinguished from a pseudonym.  2.  A work published under the real name of the author.  From Greek auto- (self) + -onym (name).  Earliest documented use:  1854.

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From:  Sam Long   I thought autonym would be the name given to a car.  A well-known example is Mrs Merdle, the name D.L. Sayers’ detective hero Lord Peter Wimsey gave to his (1927) Daimler four-seater.  Another is Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  A third is Christine, a 1974 Plymouth Fury in a Stephen King novel of the same name. 

paradise noun   late Old English, "the garden of Eden," from Old French paradis "paradise, garden of Eden" (11c.), from Late Latin paradisus "a park, an orchard; the garden of Eden, the abode of the blessed," from Greek paradeisos "a park; paradise, the garden of Eden," from an Iranian source similar to Avestan pairidaeza "enclosure, park".   https://www.etymonline.com/word/paradise 

The great and noble surname Parker is English.  Borne by the Earls of Morley and Macclesfield; the Barons of Boringdon and Monteagle, and having more than sixty Coats of Arms, it is ultimately of French occupational origins.  It described an official in charge of the extensive hunting parks of a king or wealthy landowner.  The derivation is from the words "parchier" or "parquier" meaning "park- keeper".  The surname was first recorded in England in the latter half of the 11th century following the 1066 Norman Invasion, and as such was one of the very earliest surnames on record.  Only five percent of the entries in the great Domesday Book of 1086 show people having surnames, and this is one of them.  https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Parker

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2465  December 6, 2021