Monthly Archives: December 2011

Coffee & Croissant

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photo by Lauren Markham

Ah, now that’s more like it.

This post is a postscript to yesterday’s “Stuffing It,” which prompted many comments, on site and off. Most noted—the giant marshmallow that obliterated any chance to get to the rich hot chocolately goodness in the mug.

We had a lot of fun taking that photo, but it also reminded me of the fable “The Boy and the Filberts,” which I first read in the Pinocchio / Aesop’s Fables volume of our Great Books for Children series—a companion to our World Book Encyclopedia set.

Although it appears that “The Boy and the Filberts” is not actually attributable to Aesop, these fables—along with tales of Anansi the trickster spider of African and West Caribbean folklore—were favorite childhood reads, and I frequently returned them.

In the fable, a greedy boy reaches into a pitcher, grabs a handful of filberts (hazelnuts), and because he is unwilling let go of a single nut, cannot remove his hand from the jar. The boy bursts into tears and bemoans his fate. A bystander—in my version, “an honest fellow”—wisely advises him to take only half, “and you will easily get them.”

A lesson I never stop learning.

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    Dewlap

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    Today’s Best Word Ever is dewlap: the loose skin under the neck of an animal or person.

    A mid-fourteenth-century noun, dewe lappe from lappe “loose piece.” Originally used with reference to cattle. 

    Bessie glared into the mirror at her dewlap and groused, “I’ll wear a turtleneck again.” 

    Um—Hello?

    photo by Lauren Markham

    Excuse me, Mr. Tom. Two things:

    (1) You are at the wrong end of the alphabet. Your dewlap is called a wattle.

    (2) You are crashing the wrong holiday.

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      Stuffing It

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      photo by Lauren Markham and Felicia Chernesky

      The holidays are known for tidings of great joy—and excess.

      Everything we do starts off as an idea wrapped in good intentions that more often than not ends up crammed into an overcrowded closet…

      So what is it that we’re after—the diamantine star or the dazzling bauble?

      Asking this question is another way of reminding myself to simplify, simplify, simplify.

      Mark Twain is credited with writing to a friend: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

      When we hurry we tend to overdo, so instead of rushing, it seems wiser to take our time to buy-bake-run-write less, and make what we produce matter more.

      Of course, with the frantic pace a pre-holiday week takes, this advice is more easily given than lived.

      But every year ends with a new beginning—a chance to revise our expectations, renew our commitments to our dreams, and rewrite our futures.

      And what could be more blessedly winter wonderful than that?

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        Cwm

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        Today’s Best Word Ever is cwm: a valley, cirque.

        A Welsh noun (first known use 1853), cwm, “coomb,” or combe, “a deep valley, especially on a hillside.” Cwm survives in place names, and probably stems from Old English, from a Celtic base. 

        The hikers descended the hillside and carefully stepped along the steep green rim of the cwm.

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          I ♥ Pizza

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          photo (and pizza) by Jessica Chernesky

          There are as many ways to say “I Love You” as there are stars in the cerulean sky. But what you need to make love real—as any tinman knows—is heart.

          And it is often said that when we love what we do, we are putting “our heart into it.”

          Whether you are writing the first draft of the next great American novel or building a snowman or throwing a pizza, when you put your heart into it, chances are you know the feeling of losing yourself within the process.

          You look up from your beloved work—and time has flown.

          That’s inspiring, but the act of creation can also be lonely and isolating at times. On top of that, it can seem as if it takes three hearts just to keep pace with what we love and everything we have to do.

          Rushing recently from one obligation to another in the family van (also referred to as the “Mommy Coaster”), I heard this well-known, wonderful, and hilariously performed song on the Broadway channel on Sirius radio. I’ll admit it’s just what I needed to go from sagging to grinning.

          So have a little heart—and a little pizza. And don’t hesitate to ask for “the woiks.”

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            Alana the Octopus with the Boo-Boo Leg

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            “Alana the Octopus with a Boo-Boo Leg,” by Ava, age 4

            According to the chatty and creative Ava, age 4,  ”Alana the Octopus was at school in the ocean and fell off of the sea-swing.” She got “a boo-boo and her teacher put a band-aid on it.”  Well, that must have been a Hello Kitty bandage, because Alana looks happily ready to rejoin her classmates on The Octopus Garden playground.

            Thank you, Ava, for sharing your colorful multimedia creation with our readers. But before we go, Ava has a burning question for blogopus: “What do octopuses do all day anyway?”
             
            Well, Ava, there’s someone I know who can answer your question: Aly Busse, director of school and public programs at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, and our first guest blogger. Check back later this week for her answer on our inaugural Ask Aly post!

            *  *  *

            Friends, Romans, Preschoolers, help us populate The Octopus Garden:

            Send us some eight-armed holiday cheer! 

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              Abozzo

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              December 15, 2011:

              Today’s Best Word Ever is abozzo (also abbozzo): a rough draft or sketch.

              This noun stems from the Italian, abbozzo, from abbozzare, to make a rough sketch or draft (Latin ad- + bozzare), from bozza, “boss,” swelling, rough-hewn stone, rough sketch or draft, from boce, Old French (ca. 1300), “a hump, swelling, tumor.” This sounds terribly strange, but think of “emboss”: an embellishment with a raised surface. (How fascinating, the paths a word’s history leads us down…)

              The famous clown wanted his portrait done, so the artist began by sketching an abozzo.

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                Zenzizenzizenzic

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                Today’s Best Word Ever is zenzizenzizenzic: eighth power of a number.

                An obsolete form of mathematical notation representing the eighth power of a number (x8). The Oxford English Dictionary only records one citation for the term, in The Whetstone of Witte (1557), by Welsh mathematician and physician Robert Recorde—although his spelling was zenzizenzizenzike, from the equally obsolete root word zenzic. Speaking of equal, Recorde introduced another far more familiar mathematical symbol in Witte: the equal sign (=).

                Cyclops rented a unicycle during their vacation at the Jersey Shore, but Robby Octopus needed to ask the shop owner if he had any zenzizenzizenzic cycles.

                ΑΩ

                Today’s BWE entry is a milestone. Blogopus has completed the alphabet for the first time. We’ve gone from absquatulate (“to depart in a hurry”), a word I absolutely love, to zenzizenzizenzic, a word I could not have imagined in my craziest dreams. Put the two together and you get absquazenzic, or perhaps zenzitulate.

                Either way it’s eight times the fun, like our muffed and muffled mascot, Robby Octopus, who’s reminding us that there are only ten more shopping days until Christmas—time to skedaddle!  (Another great word!)

                p.s. By the way, Robby would like love, peace, and harmony for Christmas—and a Zippity Zebra My Pillow Pet.™

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