Despite its pronunciation, just deserts, with one s, is the proper spelling for the phrase meaning "the punishment that one deserves." The phrase is even older than dessert, using an older noun version of desert meaning "deserved reward or punishment," which is spelled like the arid land, but pronounced like the sweet treat. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/just-deserts-or-just-desserts
The big
cheese is the person who holds the most power in any situation. If you overhear someone at work describe you
as "the big cheese," it means that he thinks of you as
the most important person in the office.
You might also call someone important the head honcho or
the top dog. The idiomatic
phrase big cheese comes from a definition of cheese that
comes from Urdu, in which chiz means "a thing." The British colonization of India brought
English speakers and Urdu speakers together, and one result was the phrase
"the real chiz" to mean "a big thing or event."
This evolved over time into big
cheese. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/big%20cheese
The Maison carrée (French for
"square house") is an ancient Roman temple in Nîmes, southern France; it is one of
the best-preserved Roman temples to survive in the territory of the
former Roman
Empire.
It is a mid-sized Augustan provincial
temple of the Imperial cult, a caesareum. The Maison carrée inspired the neoclassical Église
de la Madeleine in Paris, St.
Marcellinus Church in Rogalin, Poland, and in the
United States the Virginia
State Capitol, which
was designed by Thomas Jefferson, who had
a stucco model made
of the Maison carrée while he was minister to France in 1785. In September 2023, the Maison carrée of Nîmes
was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maison_carr%C3%A9e
“Nothing to do and we do it all the time.”
“The Northeast coast blossomed . . . what in 1899 Thorstein Veblen would call conspicuous consumption.”
“The pitch of a roof is measured by comparing the horizontal with the vertical. If the roof rises six inches each horizontal foot, it is called a six-pitch roof.”
The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt
galvanic
(gal-VAN-ik) adjective
1. Stimulating; energizing; shocking.
2. Relating to electric current,
especially direct current.
After
Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), physician and physicist known for his pioneering
experiments on the electrical stimulation of animal tissues, which demonstrated
the existence of electricity within biological organisms. Earliest documented
use: 1797. A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
Modern
English is the Wal-Mart of languages: convenient, huge, hard to avoid,
superficially friendly, and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand. - Mark
Abley, writer and editor (b. 13 May 1955)
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2813 May 13, 2024
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