Archive for the ‘Naming Things’ Category
Signs of High Blood Sugar
Sometimes I get to be a spokesman/resource for diabetes, and people will ask how they can know if they might be showing signs of its onset. I happened across this set of "7 signs of high blood sugar" yesterday, and I think they are practical and cover most of the ground.
In: All, Briefly Noted, Explaining Things, Naming Things, Wanderings
"Lay" vs. "Lie"
When it comes to the inscrutably arbitrary intricacies of the English language (any major variant), I am quite pleased with myself that I somehow managed to memorize the differences between the verb spelled "lay" versus the verb spelled "lie" many years ago. However, my dirty little secret is that I am hopeless at any sort […]
In: All, Naming Things, Writing
Fish Names
This is wonderful. You know how excited I can get sometimes about resolving an issue related to common / regional names for things. Well, tonight, during research for a completely other topic, I tripped over this page from the NOAA Fisheries, Office of Science and Technology, called "Local Fish Names". For the perfectly reasonable reason […]
We Plant a Spirea
At the first house I ever lived in, the house from which we moved when I was between second and third grades, there was a large bush that my mother called a "bridal-wreath spirea". I liked that shrub; in my nostalgic memory I adored that shrub, but that may be recovered emotion due to advancing […]
In: All, Naming Things, Personal Notebook
A Worm Moon
This just in from Space Weather News for March 10, 2009 (http://spaceweather.com): WORM MOON: Tonight's full Moon has a special mame–the Worm Moon. It signals the coming of northern spring, a thawing of the soil, and the first stirrings of earthworms in long-dormant gardens. Step outside tonight and behold the wakening landscape. "Worm moonlight" is […]
Within the British Isles
Just in case, like me, you've long had trouble sorting out which of the following are strictly subsets of the other Great Britain United Kingdom British British Isles not to mention what to call someone from Scotland, whether they are also British, and what's the deal with Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland, […]
Moon Names
It keeps coming up, this time because I wrote a small note about the recent "harvest" moon: what are the names of the moons throughout the year? This seems to me about as important as the list of "official" birthstones, but at least these names for the moon's manifestation in different months does seem to […]
The Harvest Moon
For those of us who wonder why the "harvest moon" is called that, the kind folks at Space Weather (a NOAA project: Space Weather) give this brief explanation: HARVEST MOON: There's a full Moon tonight (Wed., Sept. 26) and it has a special name–the "Harvest Moon," the full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox. In […]
Types of Printing
Soon after his time in Basel, Dürer took up a new medium–one that would prove very important not only in his own later work but also in shaping the directions that print would subsequently take us. It was copperplate engraving. Copperplate was less in evidence than woodcuts were during the maturation of print [in the […]
The Original Bath of Maria
One other Hellenistic [i.e., ancient Greek] inventor had worked directly with steam, but she showed greater staying power in the long age of alchemy that covered the wake of Hero and Lucretius. She was a chemist called Maria the Jewess. Maria has left fewer personal tracks than any of the others we have mentioned, despite […]
"Official" Birthstones
I've always wondered at the particularly American penchant for "official" pronouncements, regardless of their origins. I wrote previously about the "official beginning of summer", as an example. In my recent reading, I was happy to discover just how "official" is that list of "official birthstones", particularly since a few years back I saw Hallmark promoting […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Naming Things
Tyrian Purple
This excerpt is from my current reading, an excellent book by Philip Ball called Bright Earth (citation below). This bit struck me for two reasons: for filling in details about Tyrian purple (i.e., Roman Imperial Purple) and its manufacture, plus the sense it provides that the rich and powerful have always gone to considerable lengths […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Naming Things
Types of Wheat Flour
Not long ago, I was having a discussion with our young friend Scotty* about different kinds of flours, and I found I really had no idea what the differences signified. Fortunately, the editors of The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook had (on page 2) a brief but useful summary: The main difference between types of […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Naming Things
Mandarin Oranges
I was happy to have yet another naming issue cleared up, thanks to an article I just read called "Mad about mandarins"*, referring to the citrus fruit. It turns out that Clementines — which I had neither seen nor heard of until just a couple of years ago — are, indeed, tangerines or — more […]