Historian Edward L. Widmer tells us that O.K. was “briefly short for ‘oll korrect,’ a Dutch phrase for ‘all right,’ but then got shifted onto Martin Van Buren as he ran for president.”  Several histories state that the moniker O.K.—short for Old Kinderhook—was used by Democratic supporters of Van Buren in the 1840 campaign, when he was challenged by Gen. William Henry Harrison, a Whig, who ultimately defeated him.  William Safire, a former Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times has discussed the origins of “O.K.” in January 1982, June 1982, February 1989 and July 1991.  Mr. Safire decisively concluded that “O.K.” comes from “oll korrect.”  Sewell Cahn  Read much more at https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/a-spitzer-tale-is-not-oll-korrect/?_r=0

DATA MEASUREMENT CHART  Bit:  Single Binary Digit (1 or 0);  Byte:  8 bits;  Kilobyte (KB):  1,024 Bytes;  Megabyte (MB):  1,024 Kilobytes;  Gigabyte (GB):  1,024 Megabytes;  Terabyte (TB):  1,024 Gigabytes;  Petabyte (PB):  1,024 Terabytes;  Exabyte (EB):  1,024 Petabytes  Find other charts such as connection speed and audio/video at http://www.wu.ece.ufl.edu/links/dataRate/DataMeasurementChart.html  How to pronounce gigabyte  https://forvo.com/word/gigabyte/  How to pronounce giga  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga-

Justice has many faces, but they don't always include mercy.  Racing the Devil, #19 in the Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery series by Charles Todd ( mother-and-son writing team Caroline and Charles Todd).

In the politics of the United States, dark money is a term that describes funds given to nonprofit organizations—primarily 501(c)(4) (social welfare) and 501(c)(6) (trade association) groups—that can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals, and unions, and spend funds to influence elections, but are not required to disclose their donors.  In some elections, dark money groups have surpassed traditional political action committees (PAC) and "super PACs" (independent-expenditure-only committees) in the volume of spending.  In 2014, the group Freedom Partners was identified as the "poster child" for the rise of dark money.  In 2012, Freedom Partners had the ninth-highest revenues among all U.S. trade associations which filed tax returns that year, more than "established heavyweights" such as the American Petroleum Institute, PhRMA, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Freedom Partners largely acted as a conduit for campaign spending; of the $238 million it spent in 2012, 99 percent went to other groups, and Freedom Partners itself did not have any employees.  This was a major distinction between other high-revenue trade associations, which typically have many employees and devote only about 6 percent of spending to grants to outside groups.  The rise of dark money groups was aided by the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2008) and Citizens United v. FEC (2010).  In Citizens United, the Court ruled (by a 5-4 vote) that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against political candidates.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money

At first, Joseph Pulitzer did not have to worry much about competing with other newspapers. He purchased the “New York World” in 1883 and things were going well.  Under Pulitzer, the “World” had circulation grow from 15,000 to 600,000.  However, things started to change in 1895.  William Randolph Hearst purchased the “New York Journal” and wasted no time in starting a circulation battle.  The two papers embellished stories and sometimes made them up all together.  This strategy of sensationalizing the news to raise circulation was named “yellow kid” Journalism after a popular cartoon that both papers ran at the time, but was soon shortened to yellow journalism.  One of the prime examples is their coverage of the Spanish-American War.  When Hearst heard about tension building in Cuba, he sent an artist down to capture images of the war that was supposedly about to start.  However, the artist spent some time in Cuba and could not find the problems he was told to illustrate.  He sent a telegraph to Hearst to tell him there were no problems and that there would be no war.  Hearst responded by telling him, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”  The USS Maine exploded on February 15, 1898, and both papers jumped at the opportunity for a story.  Despite the fact the cause of the explosion was unknown, the “World” ran a story about the ship being blown up by an enemy torpedo along with a picture of a violent explosion.  The “Journal” ran a similar story, claiming they would give a $50,000 reward to anyone with information on the attack.  This was obviously just to pull in readers since there was no actual attack on the ship.  Read more and see pictures at http://historyofjournalism.onmason.com/2009/09/16/46/

March 28, 2017  The phrase “so-called” has been tossed around a lot in recent months, and it’s one that deserves attention and explanation.  Let’s look first at the form of the word:  should so-called have a hyphen or not (so called)?  Should the words be separated by a space or by a hyphen?  The answer isn’t as simple as we might hope.  Although, if you follow best practices with the rules of compound adjectives in English, then this is pretty easy to keep straight.  Generally speaking, when so-called is used as an adjective then you hyphenate.  It’s an adjective phrase, modifying the noun that immediately follows.  On the other hand, if so called isn’t used as part of an adjective-noun formulation, you shouldn’t use the hyphen.  When is it not an adjective?  When it might be an adverb.  Let’s slide into that now by covering the two different uses of so-called/so called: the more frequent contemporary use (as an adjective, and generally used unflatteringly) and the less frequent adverb use.  First the less-frequent older use.  It shows up in constructions that look like this:  Tanqueray is a London dry gin; it is so called because of its distillation process, as well as originating in Bloomsbury, London.  In this case, so called is an adverb.  Actually, so is the adverb, with called the verb. What it’s saying is “it is called by this name because.”  The same hyphen rule — hyphen as an adjective, no hyphen as an adverb—would also apply to so named, so labelled, so described, or any similar phrase in which the adverb or adjective function can vary in specific use and context.  Now, on to the contemporary use and meaning of so-called.  Most dictionaries allow for a broad interpretation of so-called, with both negative and neutral senses.  For example, Merriam-Webster succinctly notes that it indicates either how something is “commonly named” or that it is “falsely or improperly named.”  I suggest, however, that this is no longer accurate: in contemporary usage the phrase almost always has a negative meaning.  If you use the phrase so-called to describe something or someone—she was my so-called friend; departing employees received a so-called bonus; the case went before a so-called judge—it does not show that person or thing in a positive light.  If your goal is to remain neutral or objective, or to show the subject in a positive way, or simply to present information, then you should avoid this phrase.  The American Heritage Dictionary provides so-called with an interesting usage note that’s worth sharing:  Usage Note: Quotation marks should not be used to set off descriptions that follow expressions such as so-called and self-styled, which themselves relieve the writer of responsibility for the attribution:  his so-called foolproof method (not “foolproof method”).  Do you get that?  The “irony quotes”—maybe we should think of them as derision quotes or mocking quotes in this case—shouldn’t be used when so-called is brought into play because so-called already serves that purpose.  Using mocking quotes with so-called is redundant.  The OED also gives us a little more ammunition, adding to the definition “Called or designated by this name or term, but not properly entitled to it or correctly described by it.”  I kind of like their expansion of “falsely or improperly named” to “not properly entitled to it.”  That’s certainly how it’s commonly used when it’s thrown as an almost-civilized insult.  It might be an adverb, and that’s probably what most people would eventually decide it is, since there’s a verb being modified.  But in a strictly technical sense, it’s not.  I have it on good authority—the OED again—that so called is a class of adjective called a predicative adjective.  I’ve combed through many explanations of what a predicate is (and what a predicate adjective is), and finding one that really hits the nail on the head where so called is concerned was difficult.  This one might be about the best.  http://www.k12reader.com/term/predicate-adjective/  The wikipedia entry for predicative expression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicative_expression is pretty good, too.  Christopher Daly  https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/another-so-called-or-is-it-so-called-blog-post/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1686  March 31, 2017  On this date in 1909, construction of the ill fated RMS Titanic began.  On this date in 1913, the Vienna Concert Society rioted during a performance of modernist music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Anton von Webern, causing a premature end to the concert due to violence; this concert became known as the Skandalkonzert.  On this date in 1918, Daylight Saving Time went into effect in the United States for the first time.  https://mybirthday.ninja/?m=March&d=31&y=1963&go=Go#axzz4ckWGhKMz

Upperville is an unincorporated town in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States, along U.S. Route 50 fifty miles from downtown Washington, D.C..  Founded in the 1790s along Pantherskin Creek, it was originally named Carrstown by first settler Josephus Carr.  Through an 1819 Act passed by the Virginia General Assembly, the name was changed to Upperville.  John Updike wrote of Upperville in his sardonic 1961 poem Upon Learning That a Town Exists Called Upperville.  Upperville has been designated as the Upperville Historic District and is a Virginia Historic Landmark that is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  See a picture of the Upperville Library at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upperville,_Virginia

Dull is an unincorporated community in Van Wert County, Ohio, United States.  Dull is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) west-southwest of Ohio City.  Dull was originally called McKee, and under the latter name was laid out in 1879 by J. M. Dull and others.  See location of Dull on Ohio map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dull,_Ohio  NOTE that an enterprising Toledo librarian made a field trip to Dull.

The Brumback Library stands as the first county library in the United States.  Built with funds bequeathed to Van Wert County residents by John S. Brumback, an early entrepreneur, the building was dedicated in 1901.  The architecture is a combination of Gothic and Romanesque.  With its turreted towers and Ludowici roof, the library presents a most grand appearance amid the trees of the park where it is located.  In 1979, the Brumback Library was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying both because of its architecture and because of its place in the area's history.  The library has been selected by Library Journal as the number one library in the state of Ohio and number eight in the United States for libraries with similar budgets and funding levels.  See picture of library at http://visitvanwert.org/historical-attractions.php#Brumback

Restive arrived in the fifteenth century from the French word now spelled rétif, ultimately from Latin restare, to rest.  In its first incarnation it was spelled restiff and meant a horse that resisted control and in particular refused to move forwards when commanded.  Restiff remained in the language until the nineteenth century.  At the very end of the sixteenth century a variant form evolved from it in the modern spelling of restive, with a sense of being still or sluggish.  This spelling and sense likewise stayed in the language into the nineteenth century.  To confuse matters, by the middle of the seventeenth century, restive had borrowed the main sense of restiff, a stubborn refusal of a horse to do what it was told.  During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the skittishness and wild movements that often resulted from the refusal of a horse to obey caused restive to acquire the new meaning “fidgety” or “impatient”.  This has become our dominant one today.  Restive has muscled in on the territory of restless, both of them suggesting a physical manifestation of internal unease, but for different reasons.  Behind restive lie impatience, irritation, dissatisfaction, or boredom (J B Priestley wrote in 1929 in The Good Companions:   “The audience was growing restive; there was some stamping of feet at the back”).  A thesaurus will put restive with insubordinate, recalcitrant and unmanageable (reflecting the older sense of an uncooperative horse) as well as fidgety and impatient.  Restless, on the other hand, usually implies anxiety and you can often replace it by edgy, nervous, agitated or tense.  To have a restless night implies that you can’t sleep because you are turning over some problem in your mind or or are suffering some physical discomfort.  Many writers have tried to defend the older sense of restive against the newer one and to try to maintain a distinction between it and restless.  Sir Ernest Gowers wrote in the 1965 edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage:  “A horse may be restless when loose in a field, but can only be restive if it is resisting control.  A child can be restless from boredom, but can only be restive if someone is trying to make him do what he does not want.”  This distinction remains, though it is being eroded by users who consider restive and restless to be exact synonyms.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-res1.htm

NAME CHANGES  Blake Lively (born Blake Ellender Brown 1987)  Barbara Carroll (born Barbara Carole Coppersmith 1925)  Sting (born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner 1951)  Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Moses 1860)  Joan Crawford  (born Lucille Fay LeSueur 1905?)

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg 

A back-formation is a word formed under the assumption that it must be the parent of an existing word.  For example, the verb “to burgle” appears to have given birth to its noun, but it’s the other way: burglar came first.  Similarly, we coined the verb “to typewrite” after the noun “typewriter”.

offing  (AW-fing, AWF-ing)  Near future (used in the phrase “in the offing”).  In nautical use, offing is the part of sea visible from the shore, but beyond anchoring ground.  From off (away), from of.  Earliest documented use:  1600.

The New York Public Library has digitized 100 "how to do it" cards found in cigarette boxes over 100 years ago, and the tips they give are so practical that millennials reading this might want to take notes.  Back in the day, cigarette cards were popular collectibles included in every pack, and displayed photos of celebrities, advertisements, and more.  Gallaher cigarettes, a UK-founded tobacco company that was once the largest in the world, decided to print a series of helpful how-to's on their cards, which ranged from mundane tasks (boiling potatoes) to unlikely scenarios (stopping a runaway horse).  Most of them are insanely clever, though, like how to make a fire extinguisher at home.  Who even knew you could do that?  The entire set of life hacks is now part of the NYPL's George Arents Collection.  Link to all Gallaher cards at http://www.boredpanda.com/vintage-100-year-old-life-hacks/?cexp_id=2355&cexp_var=2&_f=featured  Thank you, Muse reader!  See also https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/divisions/george-arents-collection  and https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/art-from-the-george-arents-collection-on-tobacco#/?tab=navigation

Frequently cited by journalists, public officials and researchers, the independent Quinnipiac University Poll regularly surveys residents in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and nationwide about political races, state and national elections, and issues of public concern, such as schools, taxes, transportation, municipal services and the environment. Known for its exactness and thoroughness, the Quinnipiac poll is featured regularly in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and on national network news broadcasts.  In 2010, respected public opinion polling analyst Nate Silver ranked the Quinnipiac University poll as most accurate among major polls conducting surveys in two states or more. 

https://poll.qu.edu/

How to Pronounce Quinnipiac  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il6wP5zj9OY and

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/connecticut/articles/2017-03-21/basketball-fans-learn-to-pronounce-quinnipiac

The Associated Press Stylebook says it is “opening the door” to use of the singular they.  A new stylebook entry, which was announced March 23, 2107 as part of the AP’s session at the 21st national conference of ACES:  The Society for Editing in St. Petersburg, Fla., for the first time allows use of they as a singular pronoun or gender-neutral pronoun.  “We stress that it’s usually possible to write around that,” said Paula Froke, lead editor for the AP Stylebook.  “But we offer new advice for two reasons:  recognition that the spoken language uses they as singular and we also recognize the need for a pronoun for people who don’t identify as a he or a she.”  The new entry in the stylebook starts:  They, them, their  In most cases, a plural pronoun should agree in number with the antecedent: The children love the books their uncle gave them.  They/them/their is acceptable in limited cases as a singular and-or gender-neutral pronoun, when alternative wording is overly awkward or clumsy.  However, rewording usually is possible and always is preferable.  Clarity is a top priority; gender-neutral use of a singular they is unfamiliar to many readers.  We do not use other gender-neutral pronouns such as xe or ze.  Gerri Berendzen  Read more at http://www.copydesk.org/blog/2017/03/24/ap-style-for-first-time-allows-use-of-they-as-singular-pronoun/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1685  March 29, 2017  On this date in 1806, construction was authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.  On this date in 1638, sachems--the Lenape name for their leaders--and Swedes hoping to establish a commercial colony for the New Sweden Company signed an agreement by which the newcomers received land on the western side of the Delaware River.  The settlers and soldiers built a log house and stockade, which they named after their Queen, Christina.  At its height in 1655, when New Sweden stretched across southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and all of Delaware, no more than 500 settlers lived in New Sweden.  http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-24

Word of the Day  fauxtatoes  noun  A dish of mashed cauliflower used as an alternative to potatoes by followers of a low-carbohydrate diet.

"Tofu has a bland, nutty-like flavor that gives it a chameleon-like capability to take on the flavor of the food with which it's cooked," according to The New Food Lover's Companion, the fifth edition of the classic food bible.  "Its texture is smooth and creamy, yet it's firm enough to slice."  Tofu comes as a 5-inch block in regular, low-fat and nonfat varieties, as well as extra firm, firm, soft, and silken (which is more like a liquid and comes in soft, regular, and firm styles).  You store it in the refrigerator covered in water.  You can slice, dice, or mash it up for soups, stir-fry dishes, casseroles, sandwiches, salads, salad dressings, and sauces.  It's easy to digest, low in calories, calcium, and sodium, and high in protein.  Tempeh is a soybean cake with a much different texture and nutritional profile.  Cooked, whole soybeans are fermented into a firm, dense, chewy cake that tastes nuttier and more earthy.  It possesses more protein, dietary fiber, and vitamins compared to tofu, as well as a firmer texture and stronger flavor.  You often see it in the store in flat, 8-inch rectangular pieces that look brownish with bits of soybean showing through.  Like tofu, tempeh absorbs the flavors with which it's cooked.  https://www.chowhound.com/food-news/177594/whats-the-difference-between-tofu-and-tempeh/

Absence of proof isn't proof of absence.  We need to focus on proving a positive, not proving a negative.  Guilty Minds , #3 in "private spy" Nick Heller series by Joseph Finder 

Joseph Finder’s plan was to become a spy.  Or maybe a professor of Russian history.  Instead he became a bestselling thriller writer, and winner of the Strand Critics Award for Best Novel for BURIED SECRETS (2011), winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Novel for KILLER INSTINCT (2006) and winner of the Barry and Gumshoe Awards for Best Thriller for COMPANY MAN (2005).  Born in Chicago, Joe spent his early childhood living around the world, including Afghanistan and the Philippines.  In fact, Joe’s first language was Farsi, which he spoke as a child in Kabul.  After a stint in Bellingham, WA, his family finally settled outside of Albany, NY.  After taking a high school seminar on the literature and history of Russia, Joe was hooked.  He went on to major in Russian studies at Yale, where he also sang with the school’s legendary a cappella group, the Whiffenpoofs (and likes to boast that he sang next to Ella Fitzgerald, an honorary Whiffenpoof).  Joe graduated summa cum laude from Yale College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, then completed a master’s degree at the Harvard Russian Research Center, and later taught on the Harvard faculty.  He was recruited to the Central Intelligence Agency but eventually decided he preferred writing fiction.  http://www.josephfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Joseph-Finder-Extended-Bio.pdf

An Essay on Criticism is one of the first major poems written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688–1744).  It is the source of the famous quotations "To err is human, to forgive divine" and "A little learning is a dang'rous thing," frequently misquoted as "A little knowledge is a dang'rous thing."  It first appeared in 1711 after having been written in 1709, and it is clear from Pope's correspondence  that many of the poem's ideas had existed in prose form since at least 1706.  Composed in heroic couplets (pairs of adjacent rhyming lines of iambic pentameter) and written in the Horatian mode of satire, it is a verse essay primarily concerned with how writers and critics behave in the new literary commerce of Pope's contemporary age.  The poem covers a range of good criticism and advice, and represents many of the chief literary ideals of Pope's age.  Pope contends in the poem's opening couplets that bad criticism does greater harm than bad writing:  Part II of An Essay on Criticism includes a famous couplet:  A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.  This is in reference to the spring in the Pierian Mountains in Macedonia, sacred to the Muses.  The first line of this couplet is often misquoted as "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".  The Essay also gives this famous line (towards the end of Part II):  To err is human, to forgive divine.  The phrase "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" from Part III has become part of the popular lexicon, and has been used for and in various works.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_Criticism

Since it was first minted in 1787, the penny has always been symbolically important in America despite its small value, representing the spirit of the nation, often depicting images like lady Liberty or the flying eagle.  The penny was the first currency to be officially minted by the United States of America, giving it added importance, and the small value made it the currency of the people; although inflation has since caused it to lose its value, the penny was once a very commonly used mode of currency--over 300 billion one cent coins have been minted since 1787.  The design for America’s one-cent coin was initially suggested by Benjamin Franklin.  During the first century and a half of its existence, the penny had no single set design or make.  The design and the material that the mints used to produce the penny changed periodically--there have been eleven different designs minted since the penny was first introduced almost two and a half centuries ago.  The first penny was copper, fifty percent larger, and over five times heavier, but by the turn of the twentieth century when they introduced the Lincoln penny for the first time it was smaller (the size that it is today) and made of a combination of both copper and zinc.  By that time, the penny displaying lady liberty wearing an Indian headdress--the image has often been mistaken for an Indian Chief--had been in circulation since 1859.  The person responsible for authorizing the creation of the Lincoln penny was President Theodore Roosevelt.  For years, Roosevelt had believed that the art on American coins was bland and uninspiring, particularly in comparison with their European counterparts.  Favoring classically influenced sculpture and art, Roosevelt initially commissioned the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to redesign all American coins, but Saint-Gaudens died before he could finish his work.  Then, enamored with a portrait plaque of Lincoln created by Victor David Brenner in 1907, Franklin commissioned the artist to create the Lincoln penny in time for the 100^th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth in 1909.  Brenner used virtually the same design for the penny that he had on the plaque, which had been based on a photograph of the President taken by Anthony Berger in 1864 (which is why the image on this coin is facing in the opposite direction from all of the others).  The Lincoln penny was supposed to simply be a commemorative penny, only produced for that year, but the popularity of the coin among the American public was such that the design remained in production and has not changed to this day.  http://livinglincoln.web.unc.edu/2015/04/16/the-origination-of-the-lincoln-penny/

March 23, 2017  SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher in America, has turned itself into a social media powerhouse over the past few years.  Its editors star in online videos on hot-button topics like the serial comma, gender pronouns and the dreaded “irregardless.”  Its Twitter feed has become a viral sensation, offering witty—and sometimes pointedly political—commentary on the news of the day.  Kory Stamper, a lexicographer here, is very much part of the vanguard of word-nerd celebrities.  Her witty “Ask the Editor” video contributions, like a classic on the plural of octopus, and personal blog, Harmless Drudgery, have inspired a Kory Stamper Fan Club on Facebook.  But the company remains very much a bricks-and-mortar operation, still based in this small New England city where the Merriam brothers bought the rights to Noah Webster’s dictionary in the 1840s and carried on his idea of a distinctly American language.  Ms. Stamper is the author of the new book “Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries”.  In a dungeonlike storage room used as a podcast studio is the Backward Index, which includes some 315,000 cards listing words spelled … backward.  “It was conceived of as another way of shuffling information,” Ms. Stamper said of the index, which seems to have been produced intermittently from the 1930s to the ’70s.  “Basically, someone sat here and typed up all the entries backwards.  And then went crazy.”  Craziness is a bit of a leitmotif in “Word by Word.”  The book, published last week by Pantheon, mixes memoiristic meditations on the lexicographic life along with a detailed description of the brain-twisting work of writing dictionaries.  The Atlantic called it “an erudite and loving and occasionally profane history of the English language” that’s also “a cheerful and thoughtful rebuke of the cult of the grammar scolds.”  Jennifer Schuessler  Read much more and see pictures at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/books/merriam-webster-dictionary-kory-stamper.html

The Anisfield-Wolf Awards recognize books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity.  Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf established the book awards in 1935, in honor of her father, John Anisfield, and husband, Eugene Wolf, to reflect her family’s passion for social justice.  Presented by the Cleveland Foundation, it remains the only American book prize focusing on works that address racism and diversity.  Find list of 2017 winners at http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/  Find list of all winners by year at http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/winners/winners-by-year/

"The Toledo Lucas County Public Library is pleased to be partnering with Ohio Memory to present our growing digital archive."  Find list of categories, including yearbooks, maps, photographs, manuscripts and rare documents at http://www.ohiomemory.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16007coll33

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1684  March 27, 2017  On this date in 1746, Michael Bruce, Scottish poet and composer, was born.  On this date in 1868, Patty Hill, American songwriter and educator, was born.

Genes are typically not the only determinants of traits.  Although a few traits, such as blood type, are determined strictly by genetics, most traits are influenced both by genes and the environment in which we live.  We do not inherit a disease, instead we inherit susceptibility factors that increase risk for a disease.  For example, recent studies suggest 50 to 60 percent of alcoholism risk is genetic (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism).  This means the other 40 to 50 percent of the risk is environmental.  A person may be genetically predisposed to alcoholism due to previous family history.  However, certain healthy lifestyle choices, like minimizing alcohol intake, will help prevent that individual from becoming dependent on alcohol.  The environment can have the same effect on those predisposed to obesity. Obesity has a genetic component caused by the action of multiple different genes.  However studies report dramatically different results on the degree of genetic contribution.  If obesity runs in a family, but an individual chooses to make healthy eating choices and exercise regularly, he or she can prevent obesity.  Genes do not set in stone what traits we will and will not possess.  Ultimately, a person making healthy lifestyle choices and educating themselves on which diseases they are genetically predisposed to can help reduce the risk of certain diseases.  When people hear the word “dominant”, often they incorrectly believe that the majority of the population expresses this trait.  Describing a trait as dominant does not mean it is the most common; it means that it is expressed over the recessive trait.  For example, tongue rolling is a dominant trait, controlled by the dominant version of a particular gene (R).  Individuals with one or two copies of R will exhibit tongue rolling.  Only individuals that have two recessive versions of the gene (r) will lack the ability to tongue roll.  But what does this tell us about the relative commonness or rareness of tongue rolling in a population?  How frequently a trait is observed in a population is not related to whether or not it is dominant or recessive.  Instead, it is a reflection of how frequently the gene responsible for causing a trait is found in people.  For example, polydactyly, the presence of extra fingers and/or toes, can be caused by a dominant mutation.  However, polydactyly only occurs in 0.31-6.18 births in 1,000, depending on ethnic background.  This means it is very rare for a person to have the gene mutation that causes polydactyly, even though it is dominant.  Read much more at http://knowgenetics.org/common_misconceptions/

The better part of valor is discretion  Falstaff:  To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed.  The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life.  Henry The Fourth, Part 1 Act 5, scene 4, 115–121  Almost invariably quoted today as "Discretion is the better part of valor," Falstaff's phrase elegantly redeems a cowardly act.  The bragging, bulbous knight has just risen from his feigned death; he had played the corpse in order to escape real death at the hands of a Scotsman hostile to Henry IV.  Claiming that abstractions like "honor" and "valor" will get you nothing once you're dead, Falstaff excuses his counterfeiting as the kind of "discretion" that keeps a man from foolishly running into swords in order to cultivate a reputation for heroism.  If counterfeiting keeps you alive, well then, it's not counterfeiting, but an authentic "image of life."  https://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/better-part-valor-discretion

The Supreme Court building was constructed between 1932 and 1935 using several different types of marble.  Vermont marble was used extensively in the exterior.  The inner courtyards were made using bright white marble from Georgia, and the interior corridors and entrance halls are made from creamy white marble from Alabama.  The Lincoln Memorial was built between 1914 and 1922.  Many different stones were used in the memorial.  The terrace walls and lower steps were made of granite from Massachusetts.  The upper steps, columns, and outside facade were made using marble from Colorado.  The interior walls are Indiana limestone (called "Indiana Marble" by many architects).  The floor was made using pink marble from Tennessee, and the statue of Lincoln is made from a very bright white marble from Georgia.  Read about other famous structures and see pictures at http://geology.com/rocks/uses-of-marble/

A Shot in the Dark is a 1964 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards and is the second installment in The Pink Panther series.  Peter Sellers is featured again as Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the French Sûreté.  Clouseau's bungling personality is unchanged, but it was in this film that Sellers began to give him the idiosyncratically exaggerated French accent that was to become a hallmark of the character.  The film also introduces Herbert Lom as his long-suffering boss, Commissioner Dreyfus, and Burt Kwouk as his stalwart servant Cato, both of whom would become series regulars.  Elke Sommer plays Maria Gambrelli.  Gambrelli would return in Son of the Pink Panther, this time played by Claudia Cardinale, who played Princess Dala in The Pink Panther. Graham Stark reprised his Hercule Lajoy role in Trail of the Pink Panther.  Kato was named after The Green Hornet character.  For legal reasons, the spelling was later changed from "Kato" to "Cato."  The film was not originally written to include Clouseau, but was an adaptation of a stage play by Harry Kurnitz adapted from the French play L'Idiote by Marcel Achard.  The film was released only a few months after the first Clouseau film, The Pink Panther.  http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/A_Shot_in_the_Dark_(1964_film)

Gluten refers to the proteins found in cereal grain’s endosperm (a type of tissue produced in seeds that are ground to make flour).  Gluten both nourishes plant embryos during germination and later affects the elasticity of dough, which in turn affects the chewiness of baked products.  Gluten is actually composed of two different proteins:  gliadin (a prolamin protein) and glutenin (a glutelin protein).  Alina Bradford  http://www.livescience.com/53265-what-is-gluten.html  See also http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/gluten-free-diet/art-20048530

The term "gluten-free" has been approved for use on food labels since 2013, and it is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that sets standards for its use.  When you see "gluten-free" on a food label in the U.S., that food must conform to FDA standards for labeling.  The basic components of FDA labeling standards for "gluten-free" are as follows:   (1)  Absence of all gluten-containing grains in the product.  Gluten-containing grains are specified as wheat, barley, rye, spelt, kamut, or their crossbred hybrids like triticale (which is made from wheat and rye).  (2)  Absence of all grain components in a food product (like wheat flour or wheat starch) that have not been processed for removal of gluten.  (3)  Maximal level of 20ppm (parts per million) of gluten in the final food product after gluten-containing components have been processed for gluten removal.  In practical terms, 20ppm of gluten proteins in a food would mean 2 milligrams of gluten proteins in 100 grams of the food (about 3.5 ounces).  For most people with healthy immune, inflammatory, and digestive systems who nevertheless experience gluten-related problems, this trace-level amount of gluten appears to be well-tolerated.  However, for individuals with compromise to these body systems, for example, persons diagnosed with celiac disease, there is no guarantee that unwanted reactions will be prevented following intake at this trace level.  It is also worth noting here that consumption of multiple gluten-free products throughout the day could result in exposure to substantially higher milligram amounts of gluten proteins in foods that fully meet the FDA guidelines for "gluten-free."  http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=381

Americanese in the 19th century  noun  British  depreciative   American English; English which contains many Americanisms.  Origin  mid-19th century.  From American + -ese. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/americanese

Americanese in the 21st century  noun  During a panel discussion on “Anderson Cooper 360” March 20, 2017, Jeffrey Lord said:  Trump was speaking “Americanese” when he tweeted that Obama had orchestrated a “Nixon/Watergate” plot against him.  The president’s supporters knew what he meant, but Washington insiders didn’t and blew it out of proportion.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/21/trump-didnt-lie-jeffrey-lord-says-on-cnn-he-just-speaks-a-different-language-americanese/?utm_term=.a711267fa162

See also From 'American Knees' to 'Americanese' by Peter Kelley at http://www.washington.edu/news/2012/01/20/from-american-knees-to-americanese/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1683  March 24, 2017  On this date in 1693, John Harrison, English carpenter and clock-maker, invented the Marine chronometer.  On this date in 1808, Maria Malibran, Spanish-French soprano, was born. 

From 1842 to 1882 there were eight attempts to kill or assault Queen Victoria, the last being on March 2nd, 1882.  Scottish poet Roderick McLean attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria at Windsor, England, with a pistol.  His motive was purportedly a curt reply to some poetry that he had mailed to the Queen.  Tried for high treason on April 20th, 1882, McLean was found “not guilty, but insane” by a jury after five minutes’ deliberation, and he lived out his remaining days in Broadmoor Asylum.  The verdict prompted the Queen to ask for a change in English law so that those implicated in cases with similar outcomes would be considered as “guilty, but insane.”  A poem was later written about McLean’s attempt on the Queen’s life by William Topaz McGonagall, considered by some the worst poet in the English language.  He wrote about 200 poems, including his notorious “The Tay Bridge Disaster“, which are widely regarded as some of the worst in English literature.  http://thepandorasociety.com/this-day-in-history-march-2nd-1882/  "The Queen has not suffered from the attempt made upon her life by the man Maclean, and Her Majesty continues calm and in excellent spirits.  Throughout the forenoon today the grand quadrangle was visited by a number of residents, groups of spectators collecting at the base of the Round Tower and watching the principal entrance to obtain a glimpse of Her Majesty whenever she might leave the palace.  After receiving a visit from Sir W. Harcourt, the Home Secretary, Her Majesty and Princess Beatrice quitted the palace at noon and went out for a walk in the Home Park.  In the course of the morning service held at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, a special thanksgiving prayer was offered for the preservation of the Queen's life, and the subject was also alluded to in the lecture.  Sir J.R. Elvey, the organist, played the National Anthem as the congregation were quitting the sacred building."   https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/mar/04/queen-victoria-assassination-attempt-1882

Enthymeme (EN-thuh-meme):  A figure of reasoning in which one or more statements of a syllogism (a three-pronged deductive argument) is/are left out of the configuration; an abbreviated syllogism or truncated deductive argument in which one or more premises, or, the conclusion is/are omitted.  Example:  All humans are mortal.  (major premise)  Michael is human.  (minor premise)  Michael is mortal.  (conclusion)  The syllogism would be rendered an enthymeme simply by maintaining that "Michael is mortal because he's human" (leaving out the major premise).  Or put differently, "Since all humans are mortal, Michael is therefore mortal" (leaving out the minor premise).  Statements may be strategically excluded in an enthymeme because they are too obvious or because revealing them might damage the force of the argument.  Yet another reason to exclude a premise or conclusion is to let the audience infer it.  http://www.americanrhetoric.com/figures/enthymeme.htm

Tournament debating started in colonial America with the Spy Club at Harvard in the early 1700s and opened up to women a hundred years later at Oberlin . . . Speaking in Tongues, a novel by Jeffery Deaver

Cornwall’s renowned author, Rosamunde Pilcher came to international fame with her best-selling novel The Shell Seekers.  The book sold 5.5 million copies and was dramatized on screen.  Many other works soon followed, especially popular with German speaking nations, where 14 of her novels came to life for television.  All this attention show-cased the beauty and magnetism of Cornwall’s breath-taking scenery and its quaint and grand buildings.  From Penzance to Pencarrow, you can follow in the footsteps of the characters and places that captivated the hearts of many.  The sites include Land’s End, Penzance, St Michaels Mount, Lamorna, Prideaux Place and Pencarrow.   http://www.holidaycornwall.co.uk/activity/rosamunde-pilcher-trail-cornwall/  See also Forget Poldark, now Germans are filming in Cornwall at http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2016-10-07/forget-poldark-now-germans-are-filming-in-cornwall/ and 5 to try:  Cornish Literary Highlights at https://www.visitcornwall.com/about-cornwall/blogging-cornwall/5-to-try-cornish-literary-highlights

Who is Robin Pilcher?  Robin was born in Dundee, Scotland, on the 8th of August 1950.  His father, Graham Pilcher, ran a family jute business, and he was also a war hero.  His mother, Rosamunde Pilcher on the other hand was a celebrated romance author.  She wrote several books under the pseudonym of Jane Fraser, some of which were published by Mills and Boons.  Later on in her career, she took to writing under her own name until she retired from writing in 2000.  Robin has two sisters and one brother.  Robin went to school in Dunfermline and Bristol, and he finally returned to Scotland to finish his education at the Dundee College of Commerce.  At some point in his life, Robin has been a cowboy, a song writer, a photographer, a farmer, a tennis coach and he also tried his hand at farming.  He also once co- managed a mail order business with a friend.  To date, he still engages in several other activities besides writing.  However, most of his efforts go towards empowering upcoming writers, and providing material for short story enthusiasts.  To advance his cause, Robin started a website with a friend aimed at creating an online community of short story writers and readers.  The website is known as Shortbread, and it is a great and interactive forum for all ardent book lovers.  He also plans to establish The Pilcher Foundation of Creative Writing in Andalusia, Spain.  http://www.bookseriesinorder.com/robin-pilcher/

March is Women's History Month  The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United State Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.  View Women of Protest:  Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party  This collection includes 448 digitized photographs selected from approximately 2,650 print photographs in the Records of the National Woman's Party (NWP).  The NWP sought to attract publicity, generate public interest, and pressure government officials to support women's suffrage in order to win passage of a federal amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing women the right to vote. 

http://womenshistorymonth.gov/

March 21, 2017  TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  A small, all-natural dairy isn’t being deceptive when it calls its skim milk “skim milk,” a federal appeals court has ruled—a victory for a Florida creamery that fought the state’s demand to label the product “imitation” because vitamins aren’t added to it.  The ruling overturns a decision last March when a federal judge sided with the Florida Department of Agriculture, which said the Ocheesee Creamery couldn’t label its skim milk “skim milk” because the state defines the product as skim milk with Vitamin A added.  The state instead said that if the creamery wanted to sell the product, it should label it as “imitation” skim milk.  The dictionary definition of skim milk is simply milk with the cream removed . But the Department of Agriculture says under state and federal law, skim milk can’t be sold as skim milk unless vitamins in the milk fat are replaced so it has the same nutritional value as whole milk.  http://nypost.com/2017/03/21/court-skim-milk-doesnt-need-to-go-by-imitation-milk/  Florida in 2012 moved to block sales of skim milk from the creamery, leading to negotiations about getting a permit under a law dealing with imitation milk.  The ruling said various alternatives were proposed, such as describing the skim milk as a "milk product."  The creamery filed a lawsuit in 2014, arguing that the state was violating its First Amendment rights by refusing to allow it to use the label "skim milk."  A federal district court last year granted summary judgment to the state, finding that "it is inherently misleading to call a product 'skim milk' if that product does not have the same vitamin content as whole milk," the appeals court said.  But the March 20, 2017 22-page decision overturned the lower court, saying the record of the case "makes clear that numerous less burdensome alternatives existed and were discussed by the state and the creamery during negotiations that would have involved additional disclosure without banning the term 'skim milk.' "  The ruling sent the case back to the district court.  http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/id=1202781748104/Federal-Appeals-Court-Rules-Against-State-on-Skim-Milk-Labeling?slreturn=20170222091506

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1682  March 22, 2017  On this date in 1855, Dorothy Tennant, British painter, was born.  On this date in 1887, Chico Marx, American actor, was born.  Word of the Day  hydronym  noun  (onomastics) The name of a river, lake, sea or any other body of water.  Today is World Water Day, which focuses on the importance of fresh water and the sustainable management of freshwater resources.