Musings

I’ve heard of tea towels now and then, and now I have one. I still don’t know the role they play in tea-time—to coddle the pot, perhaps? Speaking of time (or herbal thyme, here in French on this tea towel of “Paree”), isn’t that the essence of life?

Thanks for this thoughtful gift; you know who you are!

Posted at 8:02 PM | Comments Off on French time/thym

Street seating decoration…bar bow…or barbeau? I don’t speak French and my sense of its etymology is…poor. But I think barbeau is related to barbed, like a type of fish-face. This, however, is an inexpensive fake-velvet bow on the separator-fence of a neighborhood tavern. So, bar-bow?

Posted at 9:30 PM | Comments Off on What’s in a name?

Look at them branches! What a nest of angles!

Posted at 9:43 PM | Comments Off on Ain’t no brain rot

The word history traces back to the Greek, where its meaning required investigation/inquiry and research; it wasn’t merely story telling. History also has a context (social, cultural, temporal, etc.), and, sometimes, good luck figuring that out.

Apologies for the two-day delay in posting….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on It’s about timing?

There’s a bit of politics behind it, but the lake levels are dropping (by removing boards in the dam) to prepare for the ice season followed by the spring melt.

Just off our beach, odd bits of sandbars are surfacing, like this island(let). I was spellbound by the diamond pattern generated by the wave series coming from different directions on the far side of the emerging landform.

Perhaps riffles are technically only created by interruptions in flowing water, like creeks and rivers, but I keep thinking of this as a riffle.

Posted at 8:55 PM | Comments Off on Not Atlantis

I’m sure it’ll be warmer again soon, but for now the mornings keep being in the 60s. I’m still distrustful that it’ll continue. Call me a climate sceptic?

I found the word minimifidian among the synonyms for sceptic. I’ve no recollection of ever seeing it before. Turns out it was apparently used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1825—once. No wonder I missed it.

Posted at 8:28 PM | Comments Off on I’m a minimifidian (sometimes) (kinda)

I saw this grey above and thought “lowering sky.” Where did I get that?…as in, that’s an uncommon adjective, no?

Elsewhere…I came across this definition: Fishing—precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge.—observation by character Henry Standing Bear in “Land of Wolves” (2019) by Craig Johnson.

Posted at 8:46 PM | Comments Off on So right

Watch out for the epenthetic schwa. Then (hopefully) you can sort your plurals and possessives.

Details in Remy Tumin’s article in the NYTimes. It may be called “Is It Harris’ or Harris’s? Add a Walz, and It’s Even Trickier.”

Posted at 8:42 PM | Comments Off on Apostrophe complexity

I am beyond aggravated at discussions of poll results showing a candidate ahead/behind, when both values are within the margin of error…meaning they could be equal, or they could be the reverse of what is offered in the text, as in this article in the NYTimes. Rrrrrrgh. The Times isn’t the only “reputable” source doing this. Double rrrrrrgh.

Posted at 9:36 PM | 1 Comment »

I do enjoy this swirl on the inside of a shallow bowl made by an Athens (GA) potter-friend. It is a finger-ridge on the clay that has heightened the shading in the glaze. I like the crazing/crackle/craquelure*, too. Crazing is not crazy.

* The appropriate term depends on whether the effect is intentional or not, as I understand it. In this case, I dunno the intention.

Posted at 9:14 PM | Comments Off on Material culture, again