I’m your huckleberry is a once common idiom that meant, I’m the person you are looking for, I’m the man for the job, or, simply, I’m your man; I’m inconsequential, unimportant.  The idiom I’m your huckleberry, in modern times, was made famous in the movie Tombstone from 1993, starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer.  This movie was another in a long line of movies about Wyatt Earp and events in Tombstone, Arizona during the 188Os, including the famous “Shootout at the OK Corral.”  It was Doc Holliday who uttered the unfamiliar phrase to the character Johnny Ringo:  “I’m your huckleberry, that’s just my game.”  Whether or not Doc Holliday went around saying this all the time, we do not know, but it was used in the 1929 book Tombstone, by Walter Noble Burns.  The expression itself appeared in print as early as 1883.  In Doc’s case, it meant also, “I’m ready to fight.”  Normally, the expression seemed to be in response to a need.  It has been claimed that Mark Twain named Huckleberry Finn for the idiom.  Twain may have used the name Huckleberry to mean small and insignificant.  As well, while the character is most known as the main character in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we first encounter him as Tom Sawyer’s sidekick in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  If I’m your huckleberry, the idiom, was on Twain’s mind when he named the character, then Huck Finn’s role as a sidekick or willing companion would have fit well, as this is also a possible allusion of the idiom.  See more on Victoria Wilcox, the Art of Story.  The idiom may be based on the ease of picking the huckleberry, as multiple berries can be stripped off the bush by hand, making the more literal meaning ‘pick me’ or ‘I’m an easy pick.’  https://www.idioms.online/im-your-huckleberry/ 

I’m Your Huckleberry is the title of an autobiography by actor Val Kilmer.  I’m Your Huckleberry may mean I’m Your Hero. 

Huckle Cat is the main protagonist of Richard Scarry's "Busytown", as well as the animated cartoon "The Busy World of Richard Scarry".  He is 7 years old.  See pictures at https://jds-toonworld.fandom.com/wiki/Huckle_Cat 

lipstick tree  noun  The shrub Bixa orellana, which is native to Mexico and northern South America; the arils covering its seeds are a source of the orange-red colourant annatto, and the ground seeds are used in traditional Caribbean, Central American, and South American cuisine.  quotations ▼  Synonyms:  achiote, anatto, annatto, arnatto  See pictures at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lipstick_tree#English 

Retro style is a style that is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from the historical past, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes.  In popular culture, the "nostalgia cycle" is typically for the two decades that are 20–30 years before the current one.  The term retro has been in use since 1972 to describe on the one hand, new artifacts that self-consciously refer to particular modes, motifs, techniques, and materials of the past.  But on the other hand, many people use the term to categorize styles that have been created in the past.  Retro style refers to new things that display characteristics of the past.  Unlike the historicism of the Romantic generations, it is mostly the recent past that retro seeks to recapitulate, focusing on the products, fashions and artistic styles produced since the Industrial Revolution, the successive styles of Modernity.  The English word retro derives from the Latin prefix retro, meaning backwards, or in past times.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retro_style 

A book of poetry, art and photographs created and compiled by Hollywood legend Kim Novak is now on sale exclusively through The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio.  The planning for the book came about during Novak’s retrospective exhibition, Kim Novak:  An Iconic Vision, in the summer of 2019 as part of The Butler’s 100th anniversary celebration.  The exhibition was a retrospective collection of over 75 pieces of Novak’s artwork.  The museum also presented an exhibition of Novak’s paintings titled Kim Novak:  Pastel Paintings in 2014.  Before she became an actor, Novak was an artist.  She won a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago but instead took up modeling and later moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career.  She walked away from her film career in 1966, when she was still at her peak, because she was wary of losing her identity to the Hollywood lifestyle.  Guy D'Astolfo  https://businessjournaldaily.com/butler-museum-publishes-book-of-art-poetry-by-kim-novak/  Copyright 2021 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio 

The Butler Institute of American Art, located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art.  Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the museum has been operating pro bono since 1919.  Dedicated in 1919, the original structure is a McKim, Mead and White architectural masterpiece listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Institute_of_American_Art  See also https://butlerart.com/

The phrase "apple of my eye" refers in English to something or someone that one cherishes above all others.  Originally, the phrase was simply an idiom referring to the pupil of the eye.  Originally this term simply referred to the "aperture at the centre of the human eye", i.e. the pupil, or occasionally to the whole eyeball.  The earliest appearance of the term is found in the ninth-century Old English translation of the Latin Cura pastoralis attributed to Alfred the Great.  The sense "pupil" appears to be the meaning Shakespeare used in his 1590s play A Midsummer Night's Dream.  In the play, the fairy character Robin Goodfellow has acquired a flower that was once hit by Cupid's arrow, imbuing it with magical love-arousing properties, and drops juice of this flower into a young sleeping man's eyes, saying "Flower of this purple dye, / Hit with Cupid's archery, / Sink in apple of his eye".  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_of_my_eye 

Put your foot in your mouth means to accidentally say something that is embarrassing or that upsets or annoys someone.  The British expression is put your foot in it.  https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/put-your-foot-in-your-mouth  possibly  originated in 16th century--became common in 18th century.  To put your foot down - To act firmly / To tell someone strongly that they must do something or that they must stop doing something.  - To drive faster.  To press down harder on the accelerator (gas) pedal of your car.  See cartoon at https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/phrasal-verb-put-ones-foot-down 

Anniversary Gifts by Year  https://ideas.hallmark.com/articles/anniversary-ideas/anniversary-gifts-by-year/ 

mooncake  noun   A rich, dense Chinese pastry traditionally filled with lotus seed paste and nowadays with a variety of other fillings, usually eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar; early September to early October).  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mooncake#English  Mid-Autumn Festival, during which mooncakes are traditionally eaten, falls on September 21, 2021.  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2425  September 21, 2021  

The original World Trade Center was a large complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.  It opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks.  At the time of their completion, the Twin Towers—the original 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) at 1,368 feet (417 m); and 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower) at 1,362 feet (415.1 m)—were the tallest buildings in the world.  Other buildings in the complex included the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC.  The complex contained 13,400,000 square feet (1,240,000 m²) of office space.  The core complex was built between 1966 and 1975, at a cost of $400 million (equivalent to $2.27 billion in 2021.  On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the Twin Towers within minutes of each other; less than two hours later, both towers collapsed.  The attacks killed 2,606 people in and within the vicinity of the towers, as well as all 157 on board the two aircraft.  Falling debris from the towers, combined with fires that the debris initiated in several surrounding buildings, led to the partial or complete collapse of all the WTC complex buildings and caused catastrophic damage to 10 other large structures in the surrounding area.  The cleanup and recovery process at the World Trade Center site took eight months, during which the remains of the other buildings were demolished.  A new World Trade Center complex is being built with six new skyscrapers and several other buildings, many of which are complete.  A memorial and museum to those killed in the attacks, a new rapid transit hub, and an elevated park have been opened.  One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 1,776 feet (541 m) and the lead building for the new complex, was completed in May 2013 and opened in November 2014.  During its existence, the World Trade Center was an icon of New York City.  It had a major role in popular culture, and according to one estimate was depicted in 472 films.  Following the World Trade Center's destruction, mentions of the complex in various media were altered or deleted, and several dozen "memorial films" were created.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001)

urb  noun  an urban area.  [1965–70; back formation from suburb]

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.  https://www.thefreedictionary.com/urb 

Raymond Leon Roker is the Global Head of Editorial at Amazon Music.   He co-founded Urb (magazine) magazine in December 1990.  Examples of his design work can be found in the collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Roker 

Tara Westover (born 1986) is an American memoirist, essayist and historian.  Her memoir Educated (2018) debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list and was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the LA Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award.  The New York Times ranked Educated as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018.  Westover was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019.  Westover was the youngest of seven children born in Clifton, Idaho (population 259) to Mormon survivalist parents.  She has five older brothers and an older sister.  Her parents were suspicious of doctors, hospitals, public schools, and the federal government.  Westover was born at home, delivered by a midwife, and was never taken to a doctor or nurse.  She was not registered for a birth certificate until she was nine years old.  Their father resisted getting formal medical treatment for any of the family.  Even when seriously injured, the children were treated only by their mother, who had studied herbalism and other methods of alternative healing.  All the siblings were loosely homeschooled by their mother.  Westover has said an older brother taught her to read, and she studied the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  But she never attended a lecture, wrote an essay, or took an exam.  There were few textbooks in their house.  As a teenager, Westover began to want to enter the larger world and attend college.  She purchased textbooks and studied independently in order to score well on the ACT Exam.  She gained admission to Brigham Young University and was awarded a scholarship, although she had no high school diploma.  After a difficult first year, in which Westover struggled to adjust to academia and the wider society there, she became more successful and graduated with honors in 2008.  In 2018, Penguin Random House published Westover's Educated: A Memoir, which tells the story of her struggle to reconcile her desire for education and autonomy with her family's rigid ideology and isolated life.  The coming-of-age story was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, and was positively reviewed by the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, Vogue, and The Economist, among others.  As of February 2020, Educated has spent two years in hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list and is being translated into 45 languages.  The book was voted the No. 1 Library Reads pick by American librarians, and in August 2019, it had been checked out more frequently than any other book through all New York Public Library's 88 branches.  As of December 2020, Educated has sold more than 8 million copies.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Westover 

A demonym or gentilic is a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place.  Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (hamlet, village, town, city, region, province, state, country, continent, planet, and beyond).  Demonyms are used to designate all people (the general population) of a particular place, regardless of ethnic, linguistic, religious or other cultural differences that may exist within the population of that place.  Example:  Afghanistan → Afghans  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym 

An afghan is a covering, a quilt or shawl, made of knitted or crocheted squares.  Find explanation of what is an eponym and what isn’t an eponym at https://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/eponyms/ 

Tourists and residents in Venice experienced a musical treat on September 19, 2021 when a giant wooden violin floated down the city’s Grand Canal.  Musicians on the hand-carved instrument performed pieces by Vivaldi, Venice’s most famous musical son, as they floated along Il Canalazzo.  Performers from the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory stood barefoot on the 12-metre-long floating instrument, which was designed by Venetian sculptor Livio De Marchi.  Dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns, the musicians read from sheet music on stands placed on either side of the violin, which somehow managed to stay in place throughout the journey.  The long neck of the violin extended into the waterway, complete with pegs and a scroll.  Called the Violin of Noah, the vessel was designed to represent those affected by Covid-19, the city’s emergence from the pandemic and its intrinsic connection to art, culture and music.  Hayley Skirka  See pictures at https://www.thenationalnews.com/travel/news/2021/09/20/watch-a-giant-wooden-violin-ferries-musicians-down-venices-grand-canal/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2424  September 20, 2021

COMIC STRIP HUMOR  multi-basking:  three animals stretched out side by side in a sunny spot (Non Sequitur)  business card:  For All Your Demolition Needs Call Godzilla (Rhymes With Orange)   

BIRTHSTONES  https://www.gemsociety.org/article/birthstone-chart/

One of the birthstones for August is the spinel.  For centuries, spinel, the great imposter, masqueraded as ruby in Europe’s crown jewels.  https://www.gia.edu/spinel 

BIRTH FLOWERS  https://www.bloomandwild.com/birth-month-flowers-guide-whats-my-birth-flower

I sing the praise of Hollandaise . . . I would shudder to depict a world without Eggs Benedict.  Ogden Nash

Hollandaise sauce is a classic creamy sauce that’s perfect for breakfast or brunch!  This recipe by Lisa Bryan is easy and no-fail.  It takes just 5 minutes in a blender.  https://downshiftology.com/recipes/hollandaise-sauce/ 

Mustard—especially spicy Dijon—is classic, necessary, a required condiment in every refrigerator.  But mustard alone is not a sauce.  It's too intense for that.  It needs balance.  Enter the mayonnaise.  Mayo tempers the sinus-clearing power of Dijon mustard.  And what's even cooler is that when you combine these two classic condiments, what you get is not just a super-condiment, but a bona fide sauce that you can use on almost anything.  Tommy Werner  https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how-to-make-dijonnaise-article 

The American expression 'Six ways to Sunday' is used with more than one meaning.  Most people use it to mean 'in every possible way, with every alternative examined', as in "we checked him out six ways to Sunday before offering him that big loan".  We can find the same idiom expressed as '2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or even a thousand ways to Sunday'.  As well as the numbers of ways we can also find 'different', 'both' and 'many'.  Not content with that the 'to' is also often listed as 'from' or 'for'.  That's 39 variants, all found in print in US newspapers, and there are others.  That's quite appropriate given the 'many alternatives' meaning of the phrase.  Google's Ngrams viewer lists the number of times expressions have appeared in print and ranks the different forms of the phrase in this order:  Six ways to Sunday, Seven, Ten, Three, Eight, and Nine.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/six-ways-to-sunday.html 

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian and American novelist, short-story writer, poet, translator, and lepidopterist was born into a wealthy St. Petersburg family.  He grew up trilingual from childhood.  https://sites.bu.edu/russian-poetry/biography-vladimir-nabokov/

 “A given landscape lives twice:  as a delightful wilderness in its own right, and as the haunt of a certain butterfly or moth.”  Vladimir Nabokov 

Vladimir Nabokov took many road trips over his lifetime and drove thousands of miles across the United States, but his first cross-country adventure was in the summer of 1941.  The writer donated many of the butterflies and moths collected on that trip to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.  Curatorial Assistant Suzanne Rab Green geo-referenced and curated Nabokov’s 1941 collection, re-tracing his three-week cross-country road trip, providing a vivid record of a formative period for the great novelist.  Read more and see graphics at https://www.amnh.org/shelf-life/nabakov-butterflies-360 

“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.”  Vladimir Nabokov  His scientific drawings and watercolors of butterflies have now been collected into one volume, Fine Lines.  https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2016/may/26/vladimir-nabokov-butterfly-art-illustrations 

Patricia Smith has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement, a $100,000 honor presented by the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation.  Previous winners include W.S. Merwin, Kay Ryan and the current poet laureate, Joy Harjo.  Smith is known for such collections as “Blood Dazzler” and “Incendiary Art,” a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018.  On September 14, 2021, the foundation also announced that Susan Briante won the $7,500 Pegasus Award for poetry criticism for her essay collection “Defacing the Monument,” and that five emerging poets were named Poetry Fellows:  Bryan Byrdlong, Steven Espada Dawson, Noor Hindi, Natasha Rao and Simon Shieh.  The fellows will each receive $25,800.   https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-poetry-joy-harjo-ws-merwin-452a2be8702d1ad895140bae74e7ce68 

ROASTED CORN  Bake corn cobs in their husks in a pan or on a rack in a preheated 400 degree oven.  After 15 minutes turn then, and then roast them another 10 minutes.  Thank you, Muse reader!  

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2423  September 17, 2021

“Grabbing at straws” (or “grasping,” today the more common form) comes from the very old proverb noted by Samuel Richardson in his novel Clarissa (1748):  “A drowning man will catch at a straw, the proverb well says.”  The “straw” in this case refers to the sort of thin reeds that grow by the side of a river, which a drowning man being swept away by a fast current might desperately grasp in a futile attempt to save himself.   Thus “grasp at straws” has, since at least the 18th century, meant “to make a desperate and almost certainly futile effort to save oneself”.  The original, and still the most literal, meaning of “straw” is the stems and stalks of grains, such as wheat, rye, oats, etc., left over after the grain has been threshed and the bits useful as food have been removed.  Hay is essentially dried grass used as food for livestock.  Straw has also loomed large in English idioms and proverbs.  “Man of straw” or “straw man” (what we would call a “scarecrow”) has, since the 16th century, meant a dishonest person of no substance, an imaginary foe, or, most often today, an invented and bogus argument.  It was just one more straw (“the last straw”) that broke the proverbial camel’s back, and “a straw in the wind” has long been a metaphor for something that indicates a change in public attitudes, which gave us “straw poll” and “straw vote” as terms for quick, unofficial surveys of opinion.  http://www.word-detective.com/2010/03/grasping-at-straws/   

Imply and infer are opposites, like a throw and a catch.  To imply is to hint at something, but to infer is to make an educated guess.  The speaker does the implying, and the listener does the inferring.  https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/imply-infer/  Mnemonics to help remember differences in the words:  The e in infer goes with the term educated guess—and the e can stand for ear or listener.  Thank you, Muse reader!   

THREE HEARTS SALAD  Combine shredded hearts of romaine with bite-sized hearts of palm and artichoke hearts.  Add salad dressing if desired.   

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, and as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives and destinies and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms.  Maupassant was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, seemingly effortless dénouements.  Many are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s, describing the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught up in events beyond their control, are permanently changed by their experiences.  He wrote 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse.  His first published story, "Boule de Suif" ("The Dumpling", 1880), is often considered his masterpiece.  Henri-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born on 5 August 1850 at the late 16th-century Château de Miromesnil, near Dieppe in the Seine-Inférieure (now Seine-Maritime) department in France.  He was the first son of Laure Le Poittevin and Gustave de Maupassant, both from prosperous bourgeois families.  His mother urged his father when they married in 1846 to obtain the right to use the particule or form "de Maupassant" instead of "Maupassant" as his family name, in order to indicate noble birth.  Gustave discovered a certain Jean-Baptiste Maupassant, conseiller-secrétaire to the King, who was ennobled in 1752.  He then obtained from the Tribunal Civil of Rouen by decree dated 9 July 1846 the right to style himself "de Maupassant" instead of "Maupassant" and this was his surname at the birth of his son Guy in 1850.  Maupassant wrote under several pseudonyms such as Joseph Prunier, Guy de Valmont, and Maufrigneuse (which he used from 1881 to 1885).  Leo Tolstoy used Maupassant as the subject for one of his essays on art:  The Works of Guy de Maupassant.  His stories are second only to Shakespeare in their inspiration of movie adaptations with films ranging from Stagecoach, Oyuki the Virgin and Masculine Feminine.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_de_Maupassant   

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck. - Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist   

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg  From:  Victor A Poleshuck  Subject:  End in -al or not?  Today’s email made me think that there are words which may have an -al added with no change in meaning (but maybe they’re fancier that way?).  I’m an obstetrician/gynecologist. A prominent journal in my field is Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey which could very well do without the double -al.  

The suffixes “-ic” and “-ical” both form adjectives meaning “of, resembling, characterized by, or relating to,” and they are notoriously difficult to distinguish.  In many cases, words can be spelled with either ending with no change in meaning, with one version simply more common than the other; in other instances, the “-ic” and “-ical” versions will have similar but slightly different meanings, making each one more suited in particular contexts.  See extensive list of examples at https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Commonly-Confused-Suffixes-ic-vs-ical.htm

Theaters reopen at 100 percent capacity September 14, 2021 for marquee Broadway shows like “Hamilton,” “Wicked,” “The Lion King,” and “Chicago.”  In the coming weeks, several other productions will come back, including “Six” on Oct. 3, “Come From Away” on Sept. 21 and “Moulin Rouge” on Sept. 24.  “Jagged Little Pill” is slated to return on Oct. 21 and “The Phantom of the Opera” on Oct. 22.  “At least 30 shows are reopening between now and the end of the year,” said Anne del Castillo, commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.  Julia Marsh and Sam Raskin  See pictures at https://nypost.com/2021/09/14/broadway-reopens-with-big-shows-like-hamilton-and-wicked/   

Create your National Book Festival experience with the Library of Congress in 2021 by engaging in author conversations online, watching the broadcast special on PBS, listening to NPR podcasts, tuning in to Washington Post Live author interviews and attending a ticketed event at the Library.  Join us for an expanded Festival, Sept. 17-26, a 10-day event with the theme, “Open a Book, Open the World.”  For news and latest updates, subscribe to the National Book Festival blog.  https://www.loc.gov/events/2021-national-book-festival/   

September 15 is the International Day of Democracy, which is recognized by the United Nations to promote and uphold the principles of democracy.

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2422  September 15, 2021 

The prefix para- is versatile, meaning “beside,” “closely related,” or “closely resembling”; “accessory” or “subsidiary”; “beyond”; or “abnormal” or “faulty.”  The commonality is that a word beginning with para- pertains to the relationship or resemblance of something to something else.  Mark Nichol  Find a list of words starting with para from 1. parable (“throw beside”):  a story illustrating a moral or religious principle to 40. paratrooper (“against soldier,” on the model of parachute):  a soldier specializing in parachuting from an aircraft at https://www.dailywritingtips.com/40-words-beginning-with-para/

“Hell hath no fury like the media scorned . . . The media can love you one day and bury you the next.”  “The rules of voir dire are designed to remove bias and deception from the jury.  The term itself comes from the French phrase “to speak the truth.”  “Sometimes the messenger can obscure the message.”  “ . . . the guiltier you were, the more lawyers you needed.”  “Back when I was riding patrol, you know what we called a killing that came down to simple street justice . . . the brass verdict.”  The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly 

The Brass Verdict is the 19th novel by American author Michael Connelly and features the second appearance of Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Michael "Mickey" Haller.  Connelly introduced Haller in his bestselling 2005 novel The Lincoln Lawyer.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brass_Verdict 

The frappé, as the Greeks make it, is a pretty simple recipe.  In a cocktail shaker or mixer you add one or two teaspoons of instant coffee granules, sugar to taste and a little water.  Using a shaker helps you get the characteristic frothy layer at the top of the coffee.  This can be served with or without milk.  The version that is now popular in coffee shops all over is made using a blender.  You typically dump ice cubes, milk, sugar, strong coffee, a little water, flavourings or syrups of your choice (even alcohol!) in the blender, give it a good whirl and pour it into a tall glass.  Top it with whatever your heart desires--whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, melted chocolate--you cannot go wrong here.  A popular coffee website lists upwards of thirty different frappé recipes.  In the Boston area of New England, where this drink originated, frappe is a thick milkshake made with ice cream.  The Frappuccino, a drink made by combining milkshake with coffee, was developed, trademarked and sold by The Coffee Connection, an eastern Massachusetts coffee shop, originating in New England.  When Starbucks bought The Coffee Connection in 1994 they also got the rights to make, sell and market the drink as Frappuccino.  They slightly altered the recipe, introduced it under the Starbucks banner and it remains a very popular drink on their menu to this day.  The recipe itself is a blend of a few different cold drinks such as iced coffee, milkshake, Italian cappuccino and other flavouring and syrups.  Starbucks also sells bottled versions of their Frappuccino in grocery stores and vending machines.  So you see, Frappe vs Frappuccino, they are not related, at all!  posted by Demri  https://www.littlecoffeeplace.com/what-is-a-frappe

 nut out   phrasal verb nut something out  ​(Australian English, New Zealand English, informal) to calculate something or find the answer to something  I'm going to have to nut it out on a piece of paper.  https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/nut-out 

suss out  1.  determine, discover, or come to understand something.  A noun or pronoun can be used between "suss" and "out." I spent the entire class trying to suss out the meaning of the poem, but I just couldn't get it. 2.  To observe and form an opinion about or estimation of someone or something.  A noun or pronoun can be used between "suss" and "out." I strolled around the arena sussing out the competition.

suss someone out  slang .  to try to figure someone out.  I can't seem to suss Tom out.  https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/suss+it+out 

In early 1777, George Washington ordered all Continental soldiers to undergo inoculation, followed by a period of strict isolation.  Within a year, smallpox had all but disappeared from his camp, saving the army and probably the Revolution.  Twenty years later, as the new United States struggled to survive in what remained a British-dominated world, the English physician Edward Jenner showed that vaccinia, which caused a harmless case of cowpox, also protected people against smallpox (hence, vaccination).  Even though his method was far safer than inoculation, many accused Jenner of treating people like livestock; in 1802, one cartoonist imagined cow parts growing out of the arms and faces of the vaccinated.  But Jenner found an unusual ally in the man who succeeded Washington and Adams as U.S. President: Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson’s successor as president, James Madison, was a true believer in the limited powers that the U.S. Constitution—of which he was a principal author—granted the president, even in times of war.  Of course, the constitution did not specify a public health role for the federal government, either.  In the early months of the war, however, Congress passed a bill to create a National Vaccine Institute, which would send vaccinia free of charge across the vast new country.  As the physician in charge of the institute argued, “every citizen should have the right secured to him of a free access” to this lifesaving material.  For Madison, this was not a constitutional issue but rather a common sense measure on behalf of what the constitution called the “general welfare,” a good deed that no good government could fail to do.  Read more and see graphics at https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-founding-fathers-would-want-us-to-get-the-covid-19-vaccine-152932 

We often hear the saying about “our glasses being half full” or “half empty.”  When people say that their glass is half full they are portraying optimism, and the latter, a half empty glass, portrays pessimism.  

I once heard a different way to quote the metaphor about a full glass, and the quote was “The glass is neither half full, nor is it half empty; it is just refillable.”  The reason I love this quote so much is because it is saying that people cannot look at situations positively or negatively all the time because life is all about balance.  Christina Donati  https://www.readunwritten.com/2018/02/12/why-glass-half-full-half-empty/ 

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded on September 14, 1960. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2421  September 14, 2021