“Each July, Lisbon Falls hosts the Maine Moxie Festival.  There are bands, fireworks, and a parade featuring—I swear this is true—Moxie floats and local beauty queens dressed in Moxie-colored tank bathing suits, which means an orange so bright it can cause retinal burns.”  “A watershed is an area of land, usually mountains or forests, that drains into a river.”  “When kids went out on that special fall night, carrying empty bags they hoped to bring back filled with sweet swag, their costumes always reflected the current craze.”  11/22/63, a novel by Stephen King 

Hot roasted peanuts!  Fresh popcorn!  Ice-cold Moxie!  You might have heard such a snack vendor's cry at a baseball game-if you attended it in 1924.  That was the heyday of the soft drink named Moxie, which some claim outsold Coca-Cola at the height of its popularity.  The beverage was a favorite of American writer E. B. White, who wrote, "Moxie contains gentian root, which is the path to the good life.  This was known in the second century before Christ and is a boon to me today."  By 1930, moxie had become a slang term for nerve and verve, perhaps because some people thought the drink was a tonic that could cure virtually any ill and bring vim back to even the most lethargic individual.  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moxie 

A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

greige  (grayzh) 

noun:	1. A color between gray and beige.
	2. A fabric or yarn that has not undergone bleaching, dying, or other finishing processes.
adj.:	1. Of a gray-beige color.
	2. Unbleached, undyed, or unfinished.

For noun, adj. 1: A blend of gray + beige. Earliest documented use: 1927.
For noun, adj. 2: From French grège (raw, unfinished) influenced by gray/beige, from Italian greggio, probably from Latin gregius (plain, ordinary).  Earliest documented use:  1835.

zephyr  (ZEF-uhr)  noun  1.  A wind blowing from the west.  2.  A gentle breeze.  3.  A soft and light garment, fabric, or yarn.  4.  Anything having a soft, fine quality.  After Zephyrus, the god of the west wind in Greek mythology.  Earliest documented use:  before 1150.  

ritz  (rits)  noun:	Luxury, glamor, opulence, etc.  verb tr:
	1. To make a show of luxury or opulence.
	2. To behave haughtily toward someone; to snub.

 After César Ritz (1850-1918), a Swiss hotelier.  Earliest documented use:  1900.  César Ritz was known for his opulent hotels and was called “the hotelier of kings and the king of hoteliers”.  The word ritz is often used in the phrase “to put on the ritz” meaning to “make an ostentatious show”.  “In the film [Elysium], Earth’s rich live on a ritzed-out, ultra-technological satellite in orbit, and leave the poor to fight it out for resources back on the planet.”  Jacob Hersh; Countdown to the 3rd:  A Hair-Raising Scandal; The Daily Evergreen (Pullman, Washington); September 10, 2020.  “I didn’t ask to see you.  You sent for me.  I don’t mind your ritzing.”  Raymond Chandler; The Big Sleep; Knopf; 1939.
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Felix culpa:  This makes me think of the playwright Jean Kerr quoting her mother:  “Sometimes I wish I would get a blessing that is not in disguise.”  Laura Burns, Galveston, Texas  
Felix culpa:  the cat ate my homework.  Joel Mabus, Portage, Michigan

Richard Armour must have been thinking about rheology when he wrote this little couplet (often mistakenly attributed to Ogden Nash):  Shake and shake the catsup bottle none will come and then a lot’ll. 
Nancy R Wilson, Petaluma, California

From:  Dennis Pasek  Subject:  rheology  Please note that ketchup is an example of what is known as a non-Newtonian fluid.  Its viscosity changes according to the shear forces applied to it.  What most people don’t seem to understand is that ketchup will flow easily if you gently tap on the *side* of the neck near the opening of a typical glass bottle, applying the force at a right angle to the desired flow direction.  This is not intuitive and has resulted in schemes like plastic squeeze bottles with flexible elastomer membranes to make delivery easier for unskilled users. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2453  November 9, 2021