"Hoity-toity" comes from our penchant for creating rhyming phrases such as "loosey-goosey" or "helter-skelter," and in this case its base is "hoit," an obsolete 16th century verb whose meaning is "to play the fool" or "to indulge in riotous and noisy mirth."  ("Hoity-toity" was more commonly used to describe those who engaged in thoughtlessly silly or frivolous behavior before it became more of a synonym for "pretentious.")  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hoity-toity/  Thank you Muse reader!   

Journalist-turned-novelist Ernest Hemingway was known for his clean, restrained writing style.  Which makes it conceivable that he's the author of the most famous six-word short story of all time.  The story goes that Hemingway wrote the gut-punching line "For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn" to win a bet against his writer friends.  But there's no evidence that such a bet ever took place, and it's likely that one of the best-known works attributed to Hemingway has nothing to do with the author at all.  According to Open Culture, the urban legend sets Hemingway in a hotel (usually the Algonquin, but the location varies) some time in the 1920s.  He was allegedly having lunch with a group of writer pals when he bet them he could write a story with a full narrative in just six words.  After his friends put their money down, Hemingway jotted down a few words on a napkin and passed it around the table.  Though brief, the other writers couldn't deny that "Baby Shoes" was indeed a full story.  Chances are this story actually originated years after Hemingway's 1961 death.  It first appeared in print in the 1991 book Get Published! Get Produced!:  A Literary Agent’s Tips on How to Sell Your Writing by agent Peter Miller.  When recounting the anecdote, Miller wrote that he first heard the tale from an unnamed newspaper syndicator in 1974.  The story spread from there and its original source only became murkier.  A retelling of the tale was included in the one-man biographical Hemingway play Papa in 1996, and then in a Reader's Digest essay in 1998.  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/595402/ernest-hemingway-did-not-write-six-word-baby-shoes-story   

Snopes, formerly known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a fact-checking website.  It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet.  The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture.  In 1994, David and Barbara Mikkelson created an urban folklore web site that would become Snopes.com.  On August 13, 2021, BuzzFeed News published an investigation by reporter Dean Sterling Jones that showed David Mikkelson had used plagiarized material from different news sources in 54 articles between 2015 and 2019 in an effort to increase website traffic.  Mikkelson also published plagiarized material under a pseudonym, "Jeff Zarronandia".  The BuzzFeed inquiry prompted Snopes to launch an internal review of Mikkelson's articles and to retract 60 of them the day the Buzzfeed story appeared.  Mikkelson admitted to committing "multiple serious copyright violations" and apologized for "serious lapses in judgment."  He was suspended from editorial duties during the investigation, but remains an officer and stakeholder in the company.  On September 16, 2022, David Mikkelson stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by shareholder and board member Chris Richmond.  Richmond and fellow shareholder Drew Schoentrup together acquired 100% of the company, ending the ownership dispute which began in 2017.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes   

July 21 Events:

356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is destroyed by arson.

1861 – American Civil War:  First Battle of Bull Run:  At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins and ends in a victory for the Confederate army.

1925 – Scopes Trial:  In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching human evolution in class and fined $100.

1949 – The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.

1954 – First Indochina War:  The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.  

1970 – After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.

2010 – President Barack Obama signs the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_21   

Former President Barack Obama has shared his playlist of his current favorite songs for Summer 2023.  His latest picks include SZA’s SOS track “Snooze,” “Not Strong Enough” by Boygenius, and Janelle Monáe‘s “Only Have Eyes 42,” as well as cuts by Bob Dylan, Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj, Aretha Franklin, Jorja Smith, Kelela, Leonard Cohen, and more.  “Like I do every year, here are some songs I’ve been listening to this summer—a mix of old and new,” Obama tweeted along with his selections.  “Look forward to hearing what I’ve missed.”  See the full playlist at https://pitchfork.com/news/barack-obama-shares-2023-summer-playlist-sza-boygenius-janelle-monae-bob-dylan-and-more/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2699  July 21, 2023