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A real nice clambake
If you like American musical theater, you must know the name Oscar Hammerstein, who, as part of the duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, contributed many of the classic musicals to the genre. What you might not know is that Hammerstein was Oscar Hammerstein II. His grandfather was Oscar Hammerstein I, who founded the multigenerational Hammerstein musical Continue reading
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Jerkwater
If you watch cowboy movies, and sometimes other genres as well, you might hear about a “jerkwater town.” Such a town was a small, provincial, inconsequential village that nobody (who wasn’t, for example, hiding out after robbing the stagecoach) would ever want to visit. The term “jerkwater” is still in occasional use, and it’s applied Continue reading
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The terrifying territory of terrior
In France, the characteristics of the regional environment where a food or wine is produced has a word: “terrior.” It’s not just the region, climate, soil, and topography, but the flavor and related characteristics of the food as well. The word “terroir” comes from the Latin word “territorium,” which is also the source of ‘territory.’ Continue reading
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It’s 5 o’clock somewhere
From the roaring twenties to at least the 1960s, a common trope in the US was to declare “cocktail hour,” which was usually about five pm. It was also pretty common for the average home to include some of the gadgets and accessories for making “cocktails:” pitchers, shakers, various measuring cups, stirrers, and the like. Continue reading
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Edwin H. Land
Now that we’re in the digital age, it can be hard to remember that a great many of the things we enjoy because of digital circuitry were available in the past, in analog form. For instance, we take it for granted that we can snap a picture and see the results right away. There’s nothing Continue reading
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A semi-serious topic
The message for to-day (which is the way “today” used to be written) is about hyphens. Using hyphens is a bit of a black art in English, and people have written many e-mails to publications criticizing this or that bit of hyphenation. There aren’t any rules. Or, really, there are rules, but they’re often contradictory. Continue reading
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Back in 1914
1914 was a remarkable year. Although World War I began then, which is notable but really can’t be considered a credit to its time, 1914 also saw the introduction of the first commercial airplane passenger service in the world — between Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. That doesn’t sound like much today, particularly since those Continue reading
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Johann Becher
If you had been a resident of Speyer in the mid 1600s, you would probably have known about Johann Joachim Becher, who was the leading intellectual of that area. The city of Speyer is still around, and now it’s in Germany. When Becher was born, on May 6, 1635, it was in the Holy Roman Continue reading
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“You’ve got a pink kink in your think”
When you’re feeling “in the pink”, that means you’re in excellent health and feeling fine. In his 1923 novel Inimitable Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse used it this way: “‘I am in excellent health, I thank you. And you?’ ‘In the pink. Just been over to America.’” The first one to use “pink” in this sense was Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity.
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