I suppose Christensen chose <cafc.dk> because <cfc.dk>, was already taken. The latter forwards to the main website of Kopenhagen Fur. Why does a Danish company use a combination of German (Kopenhagen would be København in Danish) and English (fur is pels in Danish and Pelz in German)? Indeed, why was <cfc.dk> an appropriate domain name for Kopenhagen Fur? You better know the answer because it's going to be on the test. I hope someone gets it right because I'd like to know the answers.
Their motto is in English whether the language you select to read is English, Chinese, or Danish. (You need to know the reason for that too. It's because the Chinese start page text is in English. You should have realized long ago that the academic solution to a difficult problem is the answer to a simpler question.)
The motto itself is ``Simply the world's finest fur.'' Oh, simply that. The model has fine skin too. It reminds me of the expression ``neither hide nor hair.'' [Typical use: ``I've seen neither hide nor hair of him.'' Almost literally equivalent to ``I haven't seen any part of him.'' Essentially, it's just a colorful intensification, so the full sentence is equivalent to ``I haven't seen him at all.''] There's a German expression that's parallel, but the hide cognate still refers unironically to human skin (``Haut und Haar,'' meaning `skin and hair'). It seems to be widespread, at least in West Germanic. In Dutch it's ``huid en haar.'' English used to have the phrase ``[in] hide and hair'' meaning, like the previous two, `wholly, completely, like, totally, man!' but I've only encountered the English version in a dictionary. (I also owe the Dutch version to a dictionary, but since I rarely read or try to read Dutch, this isn't very significant.)
Kopenhagen Fur offers auction services (see the webpage) for fur ranchers. I once briefly (about 20 hours) dated a woman whose father had been a mink farmer. He fed them chicken, which he also raised. They're mean, nasty critters (the mink, especially the American species, but maybe the chicken too).
You know, in many countries you can't register a trademark unless you're actually going to use it (or a similar one that you're protecting) for something. Of course, the page includes the usual ``search tool'' returning paid links irrelevant to your search terms. And it deposits three cookies, so now you know something less appetizing than store brand.
What, back already? Well, I didn't claim they would confirm my antiperspirants claim. Clean Arms for Community seems to be a gang-tattoo removal program operating at a juvenile facility, the ``Southern Youth Correctional Reception Center and Clinic.'' The word ``Southern'' here refers to southern California; the facility is in Norwalk. ``Correctional Reception Center and Clinic'' and ``facility'' are euphemisms for prison or perhaps part of a prison. Sure, ``Reception Center'' sounds welcoming, but why not ``Residential Lounge''? A ``gang tattoo'' seems to be any kind of tattoo on anyone who has ever been a gang member.
(The youngest son of a woman I know was recently kicked out of Catholic school and entered public middle school, where someone asked him if he was a Crip or a Blood. He explained or pointed out that he is white. His dad is actually Mexican. I also know Mexicans who would be regarded as pale in Spain and who consider themselves neither ``whites'' nor ``Westerners'' -- on account of their national origin. ``Race'' is no longer socially constructed; now it's a matter of personal choice, like hair color and gender.)
CAFC has a lot of video and stills, but they don't show any before-and-after comparisons. Absence of proof, they say, is not proof of absence. Here it is the absence of proof of absence that is not proof of absence of absence, but it does raise a doubt.
The use of circuit-riding appeals courts was begun under the reign of King Henry II and extended to North America in colonial times. Until 1891, even justices of the US Supreme Court had circuit-riding duties. (Carried out in summer, when the old dirt roads were more passable. This is supposedly the origin of the traditional long summer recess. They ended the tradition just as the bicycle craze led to a rapid increase in paved roads.) Below the level of the Supreme Court, there are still many itinerant judges.
The federal appeals court system below the Supreme Court comprises thirteen ``circuits.'' Individual cases are heard by tribunals. For some reason the much-preferred term is ``three-judge panels.'' Maybe the word ``tribunal'' is deemed threatening or forbidding. The judges for a case are selected at random from among the sitting judges. They're still called sitting judges even though the larger circuits use courthouses in far-flung districts, so they have to get up and travel to another city. The Ninth Circuit is by far the largest, with jurisdiction for the districts from Alaska to Arizona, and Montana to Hawaii (and Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands). Most cases are heard in Portland, San Francisco, or Pasadena, but panels occasionally sit in other venues.
Eleven of the thirteen US Courts of Appeals have multi-state jurisdictions. The DC Circuit has jurisdiction for Washington, D.C. (the federal government gives them a chunk of caseload). The CAFC (remember? that's what this entry is about) is the only one without a geographically defined bailiwick. It was created in 1981 (actually inaugurated in 1982) in a merger of the US Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA) with the appellate division of the US Court of Claims, and its jurisdiction is nation-wide. It hears cases originating in various specialized lower courts, and also cases that originated in district courts but concern patents and scattered other legal matters specified by statute. (Because its jurisdiction is national, giving it the authority to rule on interpretation of a law prevents conflict-of-precedents problems in the administration of laws affecting activities that might span multiple circuits.)
They mostly sit in one of their DC courthouses, but once or twice a year they'll have a panel sit somewhere else. Frankly, the US Patent system today (2010) is broken, with clerk shortages, long delays, and poor quality of work. I don't know where that leaves the CAFC.
Most of these websites are written for people who already know a lot about the F.C. whose webpage they're visiting, and who just want to get caught up on the latest bluster and trivia. This is opportunity wasted. Webpages are like dictionary entries: most people visit them while looking for something else. If Crewe Alexandra F.C. had a link to follow that provided information such as, say, where their stadium is located... But no, if you want to know that sort of stuff, you go to the Wikipedia page. (Their stadium is ``at Gresty Road in Crewe, Cheshire and [they're] nicknamed The Railwaymen due to the town's historical links with the rail industry.'')
I'm going to have to go dig through the anthropology literature to see if anyone has solved the great mystery of why people attend sports events and care who wins. Don't tell me ``because it's fun.'' That's like ``explaining'' the existence of the world by saying that ``it was created by God'' (using materials he found on the back of the giant turtle, no doubt). No, sports fandom is a great mystery, and great mysteries should have deep answers. No explanation short of the cosmological is likely to be right.
``This new CAFE will measure `petroleum mileage' and give automakers incentives and credits for increasing ethanol consumption as a percentage of fuel use of their vehicles, not least by promoting flex-fuel vehicles, which can run on either gasoline or E85 fuel, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. This approach promises several significant benefits.'' Particularly to corn farmers.
Also, if you mix in some accordion music you don't need to film Paris on location.
According to marine biologist Tom Fenchel (see above) ``We found a new species of ciliate during a marine field course in Rønbjerg and named it Cafeteria roenbergensis because of its voracious and indiscriminate appetite after many dinner discussions in the local cafeteria.'' (C. roenbergensis mostly gorges on bacteria.) The quote is taken from the species entry at the Encyclopedia of Life, which has a lot of other interesting information, as well as a more sober comment on the name, of the sort that may be necessary to get a scientific joke accepted into the nomenclature: ``The name Cafeteria reflects the importance of this organism in marine microbial food webs.''
The family Cafeteriaceae now includes three other genera besides Cafeteria: Acronema, Discocelis, and Pseudobodo.
![[column]](images/column.gif){kind=small}
Anyway, a county gets a cut if you live in it or if you work in it, and those two cuts can be different. The county income tax calculation is part of the state income tax filing, and you add it all up and send it to the state. You also have to list which school district you live in. When a married couple that files jointly works in two or more different counties and lives together in a third, it gets so complicated that they usually get divorced to avoid the paperwork. Just kidding; they shoot themselves.
``The Committee on Ancient History desires to publish papers and short manuscripts that employ original research, critical review, and innovative methodology to promote the pedagogy of Ancient History. The Committee understands Ancient History generally to reflect all aspects of the development of societies in those areas about the Mediterranean basin and its peripheral regions before ca. AD 500. Submissions that make use of digital technology are encouraged, as are those using traditional print styles. All submissions accepted for inclusion in the Occasional Papers will be published electronically. Though English is preferred, the editors will consider submissions in any of the major instructional languages of North America.''
``Although known in Greece as the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens, the Institute is directly responsible to its mother company, the Canadian Academic Institute, which operates solely in Canada.'' So in CAIA expansions, ``in Athens'' means in Toronto, Canada, and ``at Athens'' means in Athens, Greece.
The French is no better: `L'Institut Canadien Académique à Athènes / L'Institut Canadien d'Archéologie à Athènes' (ICAA).
Also on the page quoted above, an explanation of why you might expect other such institutes at Athens (e.g.: ASCSA, BSA):
``Because the Greek government requires that archaeological work by foreigners ... be carried out under the auspices of their own national organizations with offices in Greece.''
The physical cause of the loss of [NASA space shuttle] Columbia and its crew was a breach in the Thermal Protection System on the leading edge of the left wing, caused by a piece of insulating foam which separated from the left bipod ramp section of the External Tank at 81.7 seconds after launch, and struck the wing in the vicinity of the lower half of Reinforced Carbon-Carbon panel number 8. During re-entry this breach in the Thermal Protection System allowed superheated air to penetrate through the leading edge insulation and progressively melt the aluminum structure of the left wing, resulting in a weakening of the structure until increasing aerodynamic forces caused loss of control, failure of the wing, and breakup of the Orbiter. This breakup occurred in a flight regime in which, given the current design of the Orbiter, there was no possibility for the crew to survive.
The Cairo in Egypt is a few miles west of the site of an ancient city called Heliopolis by the Greeks. It is called On in the Bible, and the Egyptian name when it flourished was Anu.
Edmund Burke, a great favorite of quote books, wrote this eulogy in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790):
It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,-glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart I must have, to comtemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.
Somehow the ideas of women and calculators seem to attract, sure. At Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, most of the calculators (calculatrices?) were women. (I think Richard Feynman described in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman how at one point, his task was to organize the human card-sorting dance that got the calculations done.) Stanislaw Ulam told a story about one calculatrix in his autobiography (p. 218; title and the rest at the 86 entry), although by the time he wrote the book he was using the anachronistic term ``programmer.''
I particularly remember one of the programmers who was really beautiful and well endowed. She would come to my office with the results of the daily computation. Large sheets of paper were filled with numbers. She would unfold them in front of her low-cut Spanish blouse and ask, ``How do they look?'' and I would exclaim ``They look marvelous!'' to the entertainment of Fermi and others in the office at the time.
There's a picture of an attractive young woman and an old mechanical calculator at the HW (for hardware) entry.
In August of 1914, Edward Grey, Viscount of Falloden, wrote an echo of Burke's words on Europe and the extinction of the light:
The lamps are going out all over Europe; we will not see them lit again in our lifetime.
He died in 1933. More on the end of the age of chivalry at the Taxasaurus entry.
Incidentally, you notice that Burke referred to the Queen of France as the Dauphiness? The King of France was called the Dauphin after the dolphins on his coat of arms.
The word calculus has continued to be used for various methods of calculation, as in ``differential calculus,'' or simply to emphasize the mathematical quality of a reasoning process, as in ``moral calculus.'' I really didn't want to write this much, but as long as I'm on this I'll mention that the words checkerboard and Exchequer are derived from the use of a table or sheet (a checker board) cross-ruled in squares to function as an abacus (for checking figures). We actually have more information on calculus at the abacus entry than at the calculus entry, and vice versa. If I'm not careful, this glossary could get to be quite odd.
``Software associated with papers published in the Transactions on Mathematical Software, as well as other ACM journals are incorporated in CALGO. This software is refereed for originality, accuracy, robustness, completeness, portability, and lasting value.''
The more recent algorithms can be downloaded from the ACM server, and used subject to the ACM Software Copyright and License Agreement.
The idea of calibration can be applied even when the measurement is qualitative rather than quantitative, and when the instrument is a person's judgment. For example, on November 21, 2008, the Wall Street Journal's Opinion page contained a column recounting an interview with Bhutan's first elected prime minister, Jigme Y. Thinley. The interviewer and author of the column gushed that Mr. Thinley ``studied in the U.S., and his English is so articulate that it borders on poetic.'' Setting aside the possible objection that poetry is not exactly the apotheosis of articulateness, one may still wonder about the accuracy of the general positive judgment of PM Thinley's English. Happily, the column contains specimens of it, so one may judge directly, and the column is written in English, so one may perform an independent calibration of the instrument herself.
Here is an example of the instrument's English: ``But the election, comprising of two parties with fairly similar agendas, was remarkably peaceful.'' The column ends by showcasing a sample of the PM's English: ``the individual himself and herself must pursue happiness.''
They can put a man on the moon, but they can't make a pill that you swallow and the next day you wake up speaking a strange language. (Not counting LSD.)
again, Because didn't he meet not obviously. or question. really talk That's the to want with you
- The claim is unpopular with the speaker, and
- the research fails to demonstrate that the claim is true or false with any degree of probability.
If the claim at first appears to be demonstrated false, but then the research is shown to be so flawed as to make any conclusion impossible, then the research is said to seriously call into question the (obviously false) claim.
The calorie was originally defined as the quantity of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. The precise pressure and temperature (interval) at which the defining measurement is supposed to be made have varied, and calorimetry itself is not such a hot (Ha-ha! Pun intended. Laugh, netsurfer, this was for you!) way to define an energy unit. Thus, over time there have been a number of different calorie definitions; it has been 4.185 ± 0.001 joule according to the most widely accepted definitions.
Okay, for you anals out there, the 4-degree calorie is 4.2045 joules, the 15-degree calorie is 4.1855 J, the mean 0-100 degree calorie is 4.1897 J. There's also the international steam calorie, 4.1868 J, and the ``thermochemical'' or ``defined'' calorie, which is simply an assigned value of 4.1840 J, the preferred value today.
[The value of a calorie, expressed in a unit such as joules or ergs is sometimes called the ``mechanical equivalent of heat,'' because it allows conversion between energy measured as heat flow to energy defined fundamentally in mechanical terms.]
Medical Calorie
The ``calorie'' used on nutritional information labels is not actually a calorie but a kilocalorie. The French, who gave us the word calorie in the first place (1787), often distinguish petit calorie (the thermochemical calorie) and the grand calorie (1000 petits). In English, there has been some effort to maintain a distinction in technical usage based on capitalization: 1 Cal. = 1 kcal. Such a case-based distinction wouldn't work in German, since all nouns are capitalized in that language. (Another interesting feature is that in German, the (stressed) finalie of
Kalorie is pronounced as the single vowel sound /i:/ (English ``long
e''), but in the plural Kalorie the ie becomes a diphthong
/i:e/. This is typical of nouns ending in -ie, all of which, so far as I know,
are loans from French.)
Other languages, such as English, used to capitalize much more extensively than they do now. Capitalization of all nouns was a feature of Danish -- a language used in Denmark, Greenland (at least theoretically), and in the more urban areas of Norway when it was the subordinate partner in a Danish-Norwegian dual kingdom. Norway gained a kind of independence, and complete political independence from Denmark, by the Treaty of Kiel of January 14, 1814. Under its terms the dual monarchy was dissolved, and Norway was ceded by the King of Denmark to the King of Sweden. Norwegian national spirit expressed itself partly as language reform, a phenomenon which I'm amazed to discover I haven't discussed at any length elsewhere in this glossary, though at the bok entry I do mention Bokmål. The latter (`book language') is very similar to Danish (called Rijksmål, `language of the empire,' at the time of independence). FWIW, Danish pronunciation is so odd that the Norwegian and Danish versions sound rather more different than Norwegian and Swedish do.
The major language reform during the period of Swedish rule (to 1905) was the establishment of Nynorsk on an equal legal footing with Bokmål (this was initially more de jure than de facto, since officials tended to be educated in Bokmål or Swedish). Nynorsk (`New Norwegian') began as a synthesis of Norwegian dialects spoken in rural areas, created by the native philologist Ivar Andreas Aasen (1813-1896) and introduced by him as Landsmaal (`Country Language') in 1853. Aasen promoted his synthesis as the authentic Norwegian language, and advocated its use as a literary language. He even wrote some original poetry in Landsmaal (whether this actually advanced the cause, I'm not sure). Anyway, around 1880, and probably mixed in with this though I don't know the details, universal noun capitalization was abolished in Norway. Denmark itself abolished universal noun capitalization in 1948. In Denmark, this capped (Another pun, netsurfer! You're helplessly ROTFLYAO!) a period during which universal noun capitalization had become increasingly uncommon. (You know, Shakespeare's Hamlet is set in Denmark. You should read our more honored in the breach entry.) Nevertheless, I note that the reform came three years after the end of WWII and the German occupation of Denmark. So whatever other factors may have been involved, two countries that formally abolished universal noun capitalization did so following the end of involuntary foreign rule. (Per tells me that back home in Denmark, nutritional information is listed in the tiny calories. It must make the food seem richer.)
The attempt to distinguish different things by different capitalization of a single word has been tried in other situations, and it has a poor record of success; among the reasons must be counted the different capitalization conventions of different languages (see previous two paragraphs), the ignorance of copyeditors (see kT entry), and the general carelessness of writers (see this sentence). A recent example of the attempt, already failed, is in the distinction between the unitary Internet and various relatively disconnected or insulated internets. The hoped-for usage was still described in the 1992 edition of the O'Reilly book on DNS and BIND, still in print as of 1997. However, at least since 1995, the lower-case kind of internet has been approximately what is now called intranet. Another example of an attempt to make a case-based distinction in informatics is in the case of gigabytes and gigabits (GB and Gb, respectively). Case is also significant in the abbreviations of many numerical prefixes in the SI.
Ultimately, the only reliable way to be sure of which calorie is meant is to observe context and to use common sense: it's hard to make a 1000X error if one is familiar with chemical quantities. Basal metabolic rate (BMR) for an adult human is on the order of a couple of thousand kilocalories a day.
In Ronald DeLorenzo's Problem Solving in General Chemistry, which had a second edition in 1993, there is a calculation of the energy needed to melt one kilogram of ice at 0°C and warm it to body temperature. Our university libraries have not seen fit to acquire this pedagogical work, but I found it excerpted in my copy of Kask and Rawn's General Chemistry, p. 439 (also neglected by our libraries), as a 2/3-page box labeled ``Applications of Chemistry 11.1''). To summarize the box, it takes about 1.2 × 105 calories. Someone must have thought this was a big deal: the box is titled ``The Dangers of Eating Snow for Emergency Water.'' I thought it was going to be about pollutants or albino dogs or something. ``Fortunately, there are several simple ways to get your water from snow and conserve valuable calories so that you do not freeze to death. As part of their car winter emergency kit, some people carry a candle and a metal container such as an empty coffee can in which they can melt and warm the snow.'' Or you could try one of the techniques enumerated in one of the earlier paragraphs of our Veep entry.
Also, for those thinking of putting emergency candles in the car this Winter, where they will be forgotten and melt next Summer (and spoil the water purification tablets), I have an alternate suggestion: emergency candies. For example, one (1) Twix-brand chocolate-covered cookie bar, about the size and shape of a candle but without the wick, provides 1.4 × 105 calories, more than canceling out the calorie cost of a liter of water and providing needed proteins as well. Okay, Twix cookies also melt, assuming you really forget them. You could substitute M&M's or something, but you'll have to do that calculation yourself. I've already done so much research for this part of the entry that I'm about to burst a button somewhere.
Look, if you haven't got the joke yet, I have another suggestion. Turn DeLorenzo's warning around and you have DeLorenzo's golden diet recommendation. If you want to lose weight, don't just eat low-calorie foods, eat negative-calorie foods: ice cubes! Yes: one barely-frozen ice cube, with a volume of, say, 8 cc, costs over 900 calories to warm and bring to room temperature. Compare this to a typical diet of 2000 or 2500 Calories, and you can see how, with just a few cubes (about 2137 or 2671, to be otiosely precise), you can wipe out your calorie Consumption as well as your ability to taste food.
Calories beyond medical help
Typical reaction energies in chemistry are in the range of 10-100 kcal/mol. Molecular weights -- well, you can figure those out. TNT has a molecular weight of 227 g/mol, and releases a bit under 250 kcal/mol when it explodes, so its explosive power is roughly 1.1 megacalories per kilogram. That's about 1 gigacalorie per short ton. You can forget the kind of ton if you're interested in the practical unit: one ``ton of TNT equivalent'' is defined as 1 Gcal. Hence, a kiloton of TNT is 1 Tcal (T for tera-, 1012) and a megaton is 1 Pcal (P for peta-, 1015).
Herschel had been observing the Sun through various colored filters, and noticed that filters of different colors passed different amounts of heat, and this led him to do interesting experiments that he reported in 1800. Using a prism-and-thermometer set-up, he measured the heating caused by different spectral colors, and found greater heating with increasing wavelength (i.e., increasing from violet to red). He found that the greatest heating occurred in the region just beyond red. [This is an accident of the exprimental set-up, in which greater heating can be caused by greater absorption or by greater concentration of the light spectrum (if the index of refraction inside the prism varies more slowly with wavelength at longer wavelengths, or by simple geometric effects); for the solar spectrum, the energy per unit wavelength actually peaks around green.]
This was the first demonstration of light not visible to the eyes. Herschel went on to demonstrate that rays of this light could be reflected, refracted, absorbed, and transmitted as visible light could. (Of course, these facts were implicitly assumed in the original experimental operation.) Just the next year, 1801, Johann Wilhelm Ritter announced the discovery of invisible light on the other side of the visible light spectrum -- what we now call ultraviolet light. These didn't seem to have a direct heating effect, but he observed that they promote certain chemical reactions.
If anything about modern European languages can go without saying, it is that their vocabularies were all enormously influenced by Latin. In the areas that were dominated by Western Christianity, the influence was widespread not only among elites but directly at all levels of society, and there was correspondingly greater wholesale direct adoption of Latin words. The German language, or more precisely the various German languages, did follow this general pattern, and German today has a large number of naturalized Latin words, particularly in the language of the intellect and the traditional crafts, trades, and agriculture.
However, German is unusual: not only did it not absorb as much Latin as, say, Slavic languages that had a weaker direct exposure to the Roman Empire, German went further and replaced a number of Latin loans with calques. (The Académie Française -- the official arbiter of the French language -- would like to do that today with the language of the American empire.) The phenomenon was driven by a movement of mystics that arose in the fourteenth century, centered in the Rhineland; most prominent among these were Meister Eckhard (Johannes Eckhard, c. 1260-1327) and his pupils. These mystics preached and wrote in Latin and in a German filled with calques of Latin words. Their innovation was influential both directly and indirectly. The indirect influence consists mainly in the fact that Luther followed their lead, using their calques in his Bible translation. In those days German (like English, Spanish, and other languages spoken over broad areas) consisted of a very variable range of dialects. The choices made by Luther in his translation of the Bible established a de facto standard for German, and played a role in German similar to the works of Shakespeare in English. A good traditional source on the history of the German language is Adolf Bach: Geschichte der deutschen Sprache.
It should be recognized that the Reformation (and Counter-Reformation) involved a number of related developments in language, government, and religion. The Roman Catholic Church had not authorized published translations of the Bible into various vernaculars, so the Reformation brought not only a reform of religion but also, with official translations of the Bible, changes in language status. The translations required increased attention to local language and began the establishment of national languages, usually based more or less closely on the prestige dialect spoken in the national capital.
(Concerning Bibles and language, it's worth noting that the King James version of the Bible was produced during the time that Shakespeare was active. This has led to speculation that he was a member of one of the mostly anonymous committees of translators, writers and editors who worked on it. There's also a place in the King James translation where some information about the bard can be ``decoded,'' but it's not statistically significant, from what I recall. Vide KJV.)
Another example of calque is the Hebrew shen-ha'ari, meaning `tooth of lion.' [The definite article ha in this position more-or-less puts the noun it determines in genitive case. A translation using an attributive noun -- `lion tooth' -- is also fair.] The Hebrew term is calqued from the French dent de lion. English, as usual, simply borrows the word with slight spelling and greater pronunciation changes, in this case to dandelion.
The Hebrew word ari in the previous paragraph should be recognizable: the Biblical name Ariel means `Lion of God.'
A more systematic and extensive, though trivial, instance of calque is the translation of organic chemistry and SI terminology.
- tiny fish: Computer-Aided Logistic Support.
- small fish: Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistic Support.
- medium fish: Continuous Acquisition and Life-cycle.
- large fish: Commerce At Light Speed.
ADsorption, not ABsorption.
The Civil Aviation Medical Association adopted its present name in 1955. CAMA later became affiliated with the Aeromedical Association, now known as the Aerospace Medical Association.''
![[Camel on bookcover]](images/www.centrum.is-unibooks-tolvufr-tolvur-o641f.gif)
The O'Reilly perl book is sometimes called ``the camel.''
The surname Oliphant might be supposed to stand for elephant, but in fact it may stand for camel. Many family names arose from locales, and some locales were most easily identified by the prominent sign of a pub. Pubs bore simple, easily identified illustrations (like ``Cock and Bull,'' at the most felicitously named public establishments) for the convenience of otherwise valued but illiterate, or possibly extremely inebriated, patrons. Some pubs were named after exotic animals like camels. However, if one accepts the premise that illiterate persons at the dawn of surnamehood might wish to patronize a pub, then the possibility must be entertained that persons with a limited education might misidentify the simple, easily identified et cetera. In this way, I've read, some persons living in the neighborhood of pubs identified by the sign of the camel came to be named Oliphant. After all, who would name a pub ``The Elephant''? (Don't answer that; it's a rhetorical question. Just shut up and lemme finish.) Anyway, se non e vero, e ben trovato.
Excavations of ancient animal bones at Tel Jemmeh
[ftnt. 34] (once a crossroads
near Gaza) indicate that camel caravans were not used in the area until around
600 BCE. On the evidence of Genesis 24 (describing
a trip by Abraham's servant) and the story of the visit of the Queen of
Sheba to Solomon, it is clear that camels visiting Palestine until that
time did not die locally, but waited until they had left.
Another book with a cheap binding is Wheelock's Latin. As with Wolfram's Mathematica book, a more expensive and durable hardcover is available.
They say that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Blended departments like this are created by university administrators to, um, achieve greater interdisciplinarity and efficiency, and maybe find a way to reduce spending on and hiring for disciplines that are no longer valued, that's the word, quite as much as they once were. Anyway, the ANU used to have a Classics Department; now mail should be directed to the Classics Program, School of Language Studies.
[Normally we wouldn't put that last comment in parentheses, but we didn't want to make this entry confusing. You know -- mathphobia. Boo!]
You think it's bad to go bald? Just imagine if you had as many as five stumpy little lumps growing out of the top of your head.
Captious lexicographers insist that since the word was originally camélopard in French, the spelling ``cameleopard'' and the ``vulgar'' pronunciation ``camel-leopard'' are wrong. Not me. It isn't wrong, it's calque.
It's not clear what was in the original material, but over the course of centuries silk, Angora goat, wool, cotton, and linen have all been used in (or claimed to be in) the imported material or the domestic (European) imitation.
Presumably the Camelot of English folk history -- the Castle of King Arthur's Court, World Class Round Table Knights Centre -- is the same word, possibly through the association with luxury. In late nineteenth-century France, the Camelots du roi were what we might today call operations people (``bodyguards'' and spies) for La Ligue d'Action Française. Man, that looks like it would be pretty tough to translate into a known language. Whatever the name meant, the group itself was the most extremely monarchialist (Bourbon restorationist) group of significance. Hey, you know what? We've got some more bits of French history in this glossary. Look under Charles Bullion. Also, some Camelot characters star in the courtly love entry.
According to Kehlogg Albran,
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.This also works with camel-twirling on the head of a pin, though it's also likelier to fall off. The trick is to use a very big pin (something a rich man could easily afford). For more on lubrication (and pins), see this aside.
You're probably on pins and needles wondering who Kehlogg Albran is. You can learn more of his work at the fate entry, which features a picture of camels.
Cf. the Japanese word kami, discussed under the kamikaze entry.
Not ``straight-jacket,'' okay?
The Durham Centre for the Study of the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East draws its membership from the Departments of Classics and Ancient History (http://www.dur.ac.uk/classics/), Archaeology (http://www.dur.ac.uk/archaeology/), and Theology and Religion (http://www.dur.ac.uk/theology.religion/). The Centre aims to promote the study of cultural encounters and exchanges in the ancient world, from India in the East to the Iberian Peninsula in the West; and to foster diverse approaches to, and perspectives on, this area. It particularly encourages projects that straddle disciplinary and/or cultural, temporal and geographical boundaries. Most of the Centre.s work focuses on the ancient world (ca. 3000BCE . 650CE), but all discussions have a strong theoretical underpinning and are based on a clear understanding of how the ancient world has been received and studied in the modern period. The Centre hosts major collaborative research projects but also maintains a broader programme of seminars, workshops and conferences. Members of the Centre are involved in teaching and research across a wide spectrum of relevant disciplines.
This just in: Jonathan Harris, the actor who played the greedy, pusillanimous, and otherwise no-good ``Dr. Zachary Smith'' on that TV series, dead at 87, Sunday, November 3, 2002. He died while receiving treatment for a chronic back problem. A death straight from central casting. The pain, the pain! Another character in that show was the robot (a Model B-9, q.v.). Harris would stay up late nights thinking up scornful, typically alliterative epithets for it. (``Bumbling bag of bolts,'' ``primitive pile of pistons,'' ``bubble-headed booby,'' etc. For a list of 378 or so of the ways he referred to or addressed the robot, see ``The `compleat' List.'') Maybe he was partly inspired by the fact that the robot didn't have a proper name. In after years, he said that he adopted his style of ``comedic villainy'' because he figured otherwise he'd be boring and soon out of a job. He stole the show.
To read about how I didn't visit Naples (or Campania) once, kindly take a trip to the ID entry.
We pass along here some news that as of 1997.7.14 had not made it into the web site, that I could see, though they were announced that day on the Classics list. Robert M. Wilhelm, Exec. Dir., announced
two Special Programs for the Blind and Visually-Impaired:
THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE IN AMERICA:Museums, Monuments, Churches, Gardens and Music
September 3 - 11, 1997
A special program designed especially for the blind and visually impaired which will include the followings sites:
- NEW YORK: Metropolitan Museum of Art, St. Patrick's Cathedral, The Cloisters, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, The Museum of Modern Art, Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty.
- BALTIMORE: Walter's Art Gallery.
- WASHINGTON: National Gallery, American Museum of History, Capitol, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, National Cathedral, Arlington Cemetery, Monticello, Library of Congress.
For details and itinerary contact:
TOUCHABLE TREASURES IN NORTHERN ITALY:
(Milan, Lugano, San Bernadino, Verona and Florence)
April 26-May 8, 1998
This program has been designed especially of the Blind and
Visually-Impaired. Tactile experiences and hands-on opportunities
are a special feature of this unique program. Family members and
friends of the Blind are welcome of participate in this program.
This program will be limited to 16 participants.
For details and itinerary contact:
I guess this is a bit out of date, but maybe they'll do it again.
CAMWS publishes The Classical Journal (CJ). You wouldn't have imagined that was a unique journal title, but it apparently is in English.
``Middle West and South'' in the organization name is taken to extend (in the North) ``east as far as Ohio, South from Virginia, West to Utah and Arizona and North into the Canadian Provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan'' (and they mean it -- the 2001 annual meeting was April 19-21 in Provo, Utah). For other, even more expansive definitions of the midwest, see the entry for MWSCAS.
Tell me when I'm ``done'' so I can roll over.
"Taking Lives" has been shooting in Montreal while "Paycheck"'s schedule was in Vancouver. Although both cities are in Canada, this is the equivalent of filming in Los Angeles and New York at the same time.
Hey, we're not going to waste your time with unimportant information! See the .se entry (Sweden) for more don't-know-much-about-geography piffle.
See the BNA entry for an earlier usage of the word Canada.
At the Nazi death camps in WWII, shoes, clothing, and other personal belongings were confiscated from the prisoners who entered the camps, whether they were selected for immediate death or for death through work. The collection was stored on-site for shipping back to Germany for, uh, Aryan use. At Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II), the storage warehouses, located near two of the crematoria, ``were called `Canada,' because the Poles regarded that country as a place of great riches.'' (Quoting here a webpage from the Holocaust Encyclopedia served by the USHMM.)
Existing treatments are pretty crude. They consist primarily in destroying the cancerous tissue by irradiation or chemical poisoning (chemotherapy or ``chemo''), and surgery. Cancerous tissue is targeted on the basis of its greater metabolic and reproductive rate, and the substances it consumes disproportionately as a result.
Many years ago, when there were no treatments and little hope of recovery, the name of ``cancer'' was spoken only in whispers; it was never mentioned on the broadcast media.
Many of the colored cause ribbons that have become popular refer to cancer or
cancers. Here are some of the cancers with their assigned ribbon colors
(according to this color
code listing from 2004):
| cancer | ribbon color | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| melanoma | black | Good choice. |
| colorectal cancer | brown | Too graphically appropriate. |
| multiple myeloma | burgundy | This is what happens when you delay. |
| childhood cancer | gold | There probably isn't any good color here. |
| brain cancer | gray | This is clever, but they should give it a slight pinkish or brownish hue. |
| ovarian cancer | green | ? |
Hey waitasecond -- isn't that French for song? Oh well, close.
Perhaps this contrariness involving heat explains another tradition, encapsulated in an English proverb that dates from the late seventeenth century:
If Candlemas day be sunny and bright,
Winter will have another flight;
If Candlemas day be cloudy with rain,
Winter is gone and won't come again.
...that year. I.e., winter won't come again that year. A Scottish version is explicit on this point, and also avoids claiming that winter could end that early:
If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year.Candlemas day falls on February 2. (Yes -- every year. No correction for the precession of the equinoxes or leap years or nuthin'.) In the US and Canada, February 2 is known as Groundhog Day, and the associated legend is that if the groundhog comes out of its hibernation burrow and sees its own shadow (something requiring a day no more than partly cloudy), it knows that six weeks of winter remain. In principle that would be good news, since the spring equinox is still almost seven weeks away. Oh yeah -- another possible reason why February 2 might be associated with a ``second winter'' is that it falls close to the half-way point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
Candlemas day is also the date of the Purification of the Virgin Mary and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Let me say that that's wonderful, because it's a sin to have only one sentence in a paragraph.
It occurs to me that by February, traditionally, one would have been done making candles for awhile. If you're not going to keep an animal into the next year, you might as well have slaughtered it before then, since it wouldn't gain much weight during winter (possibly at the cost of grain) and it's cool enough for the meat to keep well by then. So you'd have had the tallow, and the long nights (and indoor work) around the winter solstice would have depleted your supply and motivated you to use the tallow for candles. (Soap? What's that?)
And don't tell me meat doesn't keep. In the US, livestock is `fattened' in significant part by hydrating the animals. Wet meat rots fast. In all other places where my family has lived, in Europe and Latin America, meat hung and bled on a meathook is quickly dry enough to need no further preserving. In Germany in the 1920's and 1930's, my family used their small icebox (cooled by ice delivered by an iceman) for milk. The meat (which there wasn't much of by the 1930's anyway) stayed in a cupboard that was built into an exterior wall with louvres to keep it well ventilated. When my grandfather and his future second wife came to the US, they learned to store meat (transported long distances by the miracle of refrigerated train cars!) in the refrigerator. When my great grandmother followed them to the US, she threw all the meat out of the refrigerator, because it smelled rotten.
John Aristotle Phillips visited India afterwards and inspected not only the plant but the contract under which the plant was built. That included special provisions intended to prevent use of the plant for nonpeaceful purposes [Canada is a signatory of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT).] Phillips learned, however, that India had exploited a loophole in the contract: India used the reactor to enrich its own thorium (Th) material.
[John A. Phillips is best known for submitting plans for an atomic bomb as his Junior Paper -- a standard requirement for physics undergraduates at Princeton (PU). He researched the project without any security clearance, but his paper was not returned because it ended up containing information that was considered classified. I've forgotten the precise details; he tells that story in Mushroom: the Story of the A-bomb Kid. The visit to India came later. It's not in the book; I heard about it from a friend of mine at the New Delhi Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses who met him there. Around 1980, Phillips co-founded a company called Aristotle Publishing, which provides campaign-management software to political candidates. That company has been renamed Aristotle and will focus on web-based fund-raising tools. Aristotle has venture capital from the market research firm Odyssey, but it's not all ancient Greek: the Nasdaq ticker symbol VOTE has been reserved in anticipation of a public offering. In 1998, $125,000 was raised online, about $70,000 of that by Jesse Ventura. On February 4, 2000, the day after John McCain won the New Hampshire primary by nineteen points over George W. Bush, his campaign raised between a half a million and a million dollars online. As of 2008, the typical numbers have gone up by a factor of ten.]
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And because you asked: cani means `am' in Quechua. At least it does if you pronounce cani in Spanish. The preferred spelling is kani now, but since most Quechua-speakers are illiterate, that's somewhat academic.
Perhaps more relevantly, cani is the dative singular of `dog' in Latin. More straightforwardly, cani is Italian for `dogs' in any case. It's hard to know what those canny Northern Irish classicists had in mind. They could have used NICA, but see the next entry.
It is fortunate that he did something original that we can attach his name to. Specifically, he discovered that benzaldehyde reacted with potassium hydroxide in a reaction producing benzoic acid and benzyl alcohol. You can get the original article from the library -- just go to Ann. I mean, check with Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie, vol. 88, pp. 129-30 (1853), and vol. 90, pp. 252-4 (1854). This reaction is a specific case of
_ _
2RCHO + OH -----> RCOO + RCH OH
2
with a phenyl group for R.
Okay, technically, the product does not include the acid RCOOH but its conjugate base. On a quick glance, this looks like an acid-base reaction (strong base to weak base: OH- to carboxylic anion); it is actually a redox reaction (specifically a disproportionation). The name ``Cannizzaro reaction'' is now applied generally to the reaction given above (where R has no alpha hydrogen).
Historically, ordinary rapeseed oil has for the most part not been for internal consumption. Originally used for lamps in Asia and Europe, rape has been grown in Europe since the thirteenth century. In the nineteenth century it was used as a lubricant in steam engines. It was also used as a cooking oil, but it had a bitter taste. Reducing the acid and the glucosin (a toxin) have dramatically increased the economical value of rapeseed: canola is promoted as high in monounsaturated fatty acids, and the rapeseed meal is an economic livestock feed.
Check the canola entry in the alt.english.usage FAQ before you buy any of the competing dictionary etymologies for canola.
I know, I know: the capitalization raises the expectation that TEST is itself a backronym (backorpheme?) standing for as many as four or more words. This is a revelation to me. I mean, this is the first time I've ever found the ``as many as ... or more'' locution less than completely pointless. Anyway, no ulterior expansion seems to be given. There are contrary signs, moreover. A message above the quoted explanation informs the Francophone reader that ``(Les renseignements au sujet du CanTest [note dearth of caps] sont disponibles en anglais seulement).''
There is also a link to something called TESTCan that is offered by l'Institut des langues officielles et du bilinguisme (ILOB) at the (and let me say that I'm always relieved when I don't have to enter diacriticals) Université d'Ottawa. Le TESTCan est le ``Test de français ... pour les étudiant(e)s et les stagiaires au Canada administré par l'Université d'Ottawa [qui] a lieu trois fois par année.'' Never mind what this means; I doubt they managed, or even tried very hard, to make a French backronym of TEST. If I had achieved back-to-back English and French backronyms, they'd be in <font size="+10"> at the top of every webpage.
So to summarize our findings so far, CanTEST is an English-language test (remember this for later). Its name conforms to a small but representative subset of English-language naming conventions, such as that modifiers generally precede the noun they modify. TESTCan is a French-language test (remember this for later). Its name conforms to a small but representative subset of French-language naming conventions, such as that a modifier usually follows the noun it modifies. I don't doubt that this is intended to make the greatest number of people happy. It is very useful, even for a rabid Angloimperialist like me. I learned the new French word test (masc.). I think I'll remember it. This is even easier than learning Japanese garaigo. (The link isn't dead; it hasn't come to life yet. Gairaigo are words borrowed from languages like English. Especially English.)
All this symmetry is very wonderful, but confusion can result. Above the French-language description of the French-language test, there is a parenthetical phrase like the one discussed earlier. It reads ``(The information about the TestCan is available in English only).'' There are some problems with this translation. The first is that it is manifestly false, since le TestCan (or at least le TESTCan) is described in French immediately below the parenthetical. It seems that one of two bad things has happened.
- One possibility is that the supplier of the parenthetical remark thought that what the French page needed was an English translation of the French remark on the English page. This person proceeded further to treat TestCan as a translation of CanTest. I imagine that it (the test) is not, and certainly the word is not. TestCan is a French test, not the French name of the English test, and even less the English translation of the French name for the English test (i.e., the English name of the English test -- which, by assumption, would have been what was wanted). A proper translation would have been ``(Information about the CanTest is available in English only).'' This would at least have been correct, though of little use to the non-Francophone who has somehow mistakenly stumbled into the French-language page about the French language exam.
- Another possibility, and at this point I'm not prepared to dismiss it out of hand, is that the correct and relevant parenthetical was prepared in French. Its translation would have been ``(Information about the TestCan is available only in French),'' but somehow the French word français was translated into the English word `English.' Maybe it just seemed fair and symmetric, or perhaps the translator thought he was told to ``translate the `French' into `English','' or French words to that effect, and decided to go ahead and do so.
None of this would have happened if the English and French departments had simply stayed out of each other's way. If you're still reading, go on to the RevCan entry.
In Spanish, a language not unknown in the Caribbean, canto means `I sing.' In many languages, canto means `canto.'
Many words and usages common in American Spanish seem to stem from the Canary Islands, which were an important staging area for ships sailing to colonial Spanish America. For example, the word concuñado, is shortened to concuño in the Canary Islands and America. The words mean `brother-in-law.' It would be out of place, I guess, for a Spanish dictionary (the preeminent Spanish dictionary, in this case) to just define concuñado as simply the Spanish for brother-in-law, so the DRAE goes through the circumlocution of defining it with the Spanish equivalent of `a sibling's spouse or a sister-in-law's husband.' That's how it is with those boring old monolingual dictionaries. We're not subject to that restriction here, which allows us to be much more concise (if we want to be). I suppose that gay marriage (already legal in Argentina, that I know of, and probably other Spanish-speaking countries), along with other progressive change, will eventually require rewording along the lines of `sibling-in-law's male-identifying spouse' for the latter possibility.
Another change has already taken place. I should have published this entry when I first noticed the concuño, ña entry of the 21st edition. Now the localization is narrower and longer: ``Can., Am. Cen., Bol., Cuba, Méx. y R. Dom.''
Quicklime is prepared by heating limestone. (Breaking it up a bit first helps speed the process.) Limestone is essentially microcrystalline calcium carbonate (CaCO3), from the point of view of a physicist or chemist, or a sedimentary form of calcite, from the point of view of a geologist or mineralogist. The reaction to quicklime goes thus:
CaCO3 (s) + heat --> CaO + CO2 (g)