velvet glove (VEL-vet gluhv) noun 

   An outward appearance of gentleness concealing an underlying firmness

   or resolve. 

[From velvet, from Old French veluotte, from velu (velvety), from Latin

villus (tuft) + glove, from Old English glof.  Earliest documented use:  1850.] 

NOTES:  Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with the expression an iron fist in a velvet glove, meaning a bold approach presented in a gentle and courteous manner.  A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg   

52 things I learned in 2024 by Tom Whitwell   Shared by a Muse reader for your amusement.  The list includes: 

After 100 years of work, Egypt is now officially free of malaria, the disease that killed Tutankhamen.  [Jaroslav Lukiv]

Avatar Robot Cafe Dawn in Tokyo is staffed by robot waiters that are remotely controlled by workers with disabilities working from home.  [Yuji Semba]

Millions of free bikes have been given to children in rural India, doubling the number of girls cycling to school, increasing attendance and reducing dropouts. [Rachita Vora] 

People whose surnames start with U, V, W, X, Y or Z tend to get grades 0.6% lower than people with A-to-E surnames.  Modern learning management systems sort papers alphabetically before they’re marked, so those at the bottom are always seen last, by tired, grumpy markers.  A few teachers flip the default setting and mark Z to A, and their results are reversed.  [Jill Barshay] 

https://medium.com/@tomwhitwell/52-things-i-learned-in-2024-75efffe44f15   

On January 1, 2025, thousands of copyrighted works from 1929 will enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1924.  They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon.  This year’s literary highlights include The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.  In film, Mickey Mouse speaks his first words, the Marx Brothers star in their first feature film, and legendary directors from Alfred Hitchcock to John Ford made their first sound films.  From comic strips, the original Popeye and Tintin characters will enter the public domain. Among the newly public domain compositions are Gershwin’s An American in Paris, Ravel’s Bolero, Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’, and the musical number Singin’ in the Rain. Find  just a handful of the works that will be in the US public domain in 2025.  To find more material from 1929, you can visit the Catalogue of Copyright Entries.  The title of Faulkner’s novel was itself taken from a public domain work, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and its lament over the seeming meaningless of life.  “Life…is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”  The Sound and the Fury was published on October 7, 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression.  Faulkner won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.  https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/     

Watch 47^th Kennedy Honors Episode 1:  2024  https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/lQ_IH3lEyLL5tAg4Ht__Q_fXwzFp54_4/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2889  December 23, 2024