Fact of the Day : When were Christmas crackers invented? (from A Dictionary of English Folklore)
Christmas crackers. According to Tom Smith's, the leading cracker manufacturers in Britain, crackers were invented by their founder, a London confectioner, in 1847, Smith's idea was based on French bon-bons, sweets wrapped in screwed-up coloured paper, to which he added first a motto and then the characteristic snapper, inspired by a crackling log on his fire; it was an immediate success.
However, it should be noted that the OED gives two slightly earlier references (1841 and 1844) to people ‘exploding a cracker bonbon’ or ‘pulling’ one, implying a rather more complex history.
Bibliography
Tom Smith Group, A History of the Cracker (booklet c.1997).
Showing posts with label Fact of the Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fact of the Day. Show all posts
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
White House History
White House The White House is the official residence of the President of the United States. Originally called the President's Palace, the President's House, or the Executive Mansion, it was officially proclaimed the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901.
The site for the White House was determined by George Washington and Pierre L'Enfant, the French architect who developed the master plan for the capital city in 1791. The building was designed by the Irish architect James Hoban, who won a medal worth $500 in a contest judged by three commissioners of the District of Columbia.
The White House cornerstone was laid on October 13 , 1792, and the sandstone building was completed in November 1800, just in time for occupancy by John and Abigail Adams. Thomas Jefferson, one of the losers in the design competition, started construction of the East and West Wings during his Presidency, working with architect Benjamin Latrobe. He patterned them after his plantation at Monticello.
On August 24 , 1814, during the War of 1812, the British burned the White House to the ground. Only the shell—and the kitchen's ironware and stove—remained. James Hoban supervised the rebuilding of the entire structure by September 1817. Hoban built the South Portico during James Monroe's Presidency and the North Portico during Andrew Jackson's Presidency. At that time the first plumbing and sewer lines were put in. Martin Van Buren installed a furnace, James Polk installed gas lighting, and Franklin Pierce installed bathrooms with running water in the family quarters. The first telephone was put in by Rutherford Hayes, and Chester Arthur installed an elevator.
The interior was rebuilt in 1902 by architect Charles McKim. The family rooms were enlarged and each bedroom was given its own bath. The West Wing was enlarged and a Presidential office included, and the State Dining Room was enlarged by one-third for diplomatic receptions. Plumbing, heating, and electrical wiring were modernized. An East Wing to accommodate guests at official functions was built. The East Room was redecorated in a colonial revival style for the wedding of Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice to Nicholas Longworth. After the work was completed, a time capsule containing memorabilia of the period was placed under the marble floor of the Great Hall entrance.
The next major overhaul took place in Calvin Coolidge's administration in 1927. A third floor with 18 rooms for guests and servants was added, and the roof was replaced. A sun room was built on top of the South Portico. During Franklin Roosevelt's Presidency, the West Wing was rebuilt and underground office space was added. The East Wing was converted to office space for the growing Presidential staff. An indoor swimming pool was added.
From 1949 to 1950, during Harry Truman's Presidency, the entire building was gutted. It was then rebuilt and reinforced with steel beams and a new foundation. Among the improvements were a balcony on the second floor of the South Portico, a grand stairway leading from the family quarters to the first-floor state rooms, and central air-conditioning.
Starting in 1978, the exterior paint was scraped down to wood and stone, and much ornate carving was revealed. The exterior restoration and repainting was completed in 1993.
The White House contains 132 rooms, 29 bathrooms, and 29 fireplaces, all cared for by a chief usher and 96 housekeepers. The National Park Service has 36 workers who take care of its 18.7 acres. The U.S. Secret Service provides protection for White House occupants.
White House furnishings are selected by the curator of the White House (a post established by Lyndon Johnson in 1964) in consultation with the First Family. All furnishings are public property and are inventoried annually. Jacqueline Kennedy created a White House Fine Arts Committee chaired by Henry Francis Du Pont, founder of the Winterthur Museum (a decorative arts museum in Delaware) to advise on the restoration of the state rooms. She also created a Special Committee on Paintings. The White House displays selections from the 444 paintings and sculptures in its permanent collection. Most of the paintings in the collection were done by American artists, but it also includes works by the French painters Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet.
The White House Historical Association and the White House Preservation Committee are private organizations that raise money to preserve furnishings and acquire new pieces. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter created the White House Endowment Fund, which is supported by private contributions and provides financial support for the maintenance and renovation of first-floor museum rooms.
Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent more than $1 million in private donations to redecorate the second and third floors, using primarily 19th-century American furnishings. Since 1925 Congress has appropriated $50, 000 for Presidents to paint and decorate the living quarters at the start of each term.
The first floor contains five state rooms, and Congress requires that it be maintained in “museum character.” Patricia Nixon, working with White House curator Clement Conger and the restoration architect Edward Vason Jones, redid the entire first floor in early 18th-century styles.
The state rooms include the East Room ballroom, 80 feet long and 40 feet wide, where press conferences are held. Seven deceased Presidents lay in state there. President Grover Cleveland was married in the East Room. For his daughter Nellie's wedding Ulysses Grant decorated it in a neoclassical style, with Corinthian columns, heavy wooden mantels, and gilt carved framed mirrors. Today it has a polished oak floor, carved wood paneling, and golden drapes.
The State Dining Room, where official state dinners are held, contains a long centerpiece for the table from the Monroe administration. It has wooden paneling and golden silk draperies. Dinners in the State Dining Room may seat as many as 140 guests. Nancy Reagan created a complete dinnerware set executed by Lenox, which includes 220 place settings of 19 pieces each. (Along with the other White House china, it is displayed in the China Room on the ground floor. The White House silver is located in the Vermeil Room, also on the ground floor.) The Family Dining Room has rarely been used for meals since Jacqueline Kennedy installed a President's Dining Room and kitchen on the second floor in 1961. It serves as a pantry during state dinners.
The Blue Room, a small oval room facing onto the South Portico, is used for small formal dinners and entertaining. It has the original French furniture used in Monroe's day.
The Red Room is used by First Ladies to entertain after dinners and for teas, and Dolley Madison held receptions there. Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as President in the Red Room before his public inauguration ceremony. Eleanor Roosevelt held press conferences there for women reporters.
The Green Room was used by Thomas Jefferson for meals and by James Monroe for card games. It became a drawing room for small receptions, teas, or dinners. The carpet is green, as are the silk wall coverings.
The second floor contains the family living quarters. It has 13 rooms, including the Yellow Oval Room, where Presidents receive visitors and entertain guests. It opens onto the balcony and looks over the Mall. Next to it is the President's study, and at the end of the hall is the President's bedroom and dressing room. On the other side is the Treaty Room (which served as the cabinet room in the 19th century), then the Lincoln Bedroom and sitting room (once the Presidential office). The “Queen's Bedroom,” which has been occupied by Queen Elizabeth (the queen mother) and Elizabeth II, both of Great Britain, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and sitting room are on the opposite side of the hall. There are three other bedrooms for personal guests. There are no bedrooms for foreign heads of state or other official guests; they stay at Blair House, across the street.
Jacqueline Kennedy did the key restoration of the family quarters. She commissioned New York decorator Sister Parish to design a “country home in the city” on the second floor. An important change was to install a kitchen and dining room opposite the President's bedroom, so the First Family would not have to eat on the first floor.
The third floor contains the White House solarium. It is used as a nursery when the First Family has small children. Teenage children have used it for parties and to entertain their friends—without Secret Service intrusion.
On the lower level are offices for some of the staff of the National Security Council. The White House Communications Agency, also located in the basement, operates the Signal Board, which connects the President with senior staff members, top military commanders, and national security officials.
There are two annexes off the main mansion. The West Wing, containing Presidential offices, was destroyed in a fire in 1929. It was completely rebuilt and now contains the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and offices for the President's principal aides. Three dining rooms on the lower level of the West Wing, known as the White House Mess, can serve almost 100 staffers at a time. The Rose Garden, outside the President's office, was created during the Kennedy Presidency.
The East Wing contains staff offices, the Visitors' Office (which coordinates public tours), and the Family Theater. The President's doctor and nurses have a medical suite in the White House residence. The White House garage has military chauffeurs to drive the Presidential limousine and cars for senior aides on official business.
The public may visit the state rooms of the White House on most weekdays. There are also annual spring and fall garden tours, an annual Easter egg roll for children, the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, and three nights of candlelight tours to see Christmas decorations. More than 1.2 million people tour the White House each year. On February 14 , 1962, “A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy,” a television program broadcast by CBS, had an estimated audience of 80 million people. See also Children of Presidents; Executive Office Buildings; First Lady; Kennedy, Jacqueline; Madison, Dolley; Oval Office; Secret Service, U.S.
Sources
Lonnelle Aikman, The Living White House (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1982).
William Seale, The White House: The History of an American Idea (Washington, D.C.: The American Institute of Architects Press, 1992).
How to cite this entry:
"White House" The Oxford Guide to the United States Government. John J. Patrick, Richard M. Pious, and Donald A. Ritchie. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 24 August 2011
The site for the White House was determined by George Washington and Pierre L'Enfant, the French architect who developed the master plan for the capital city in 1791. The building was designed by the Irish architect James Hoban, who won a medal worth $500 in a contest judged by three commissioners of the District of Columbia.
The White House cornerstone was laid on October 13 , 1792, and the sandstone building was completed in November 1800, just in time for occupancy by John and Abigail Adams. Thomas Jefferson, one of the losers in the design competition, started construction of the East and West Wings during his Presidency, working with architect Benjamin Latrobe. He patterned them after his plantation at Monticello.
On August 24 , 1814, during the War of 1812, the British burned the White House to the ground. Only the shell—and the kitchen's ironware and stove—remained. James Hoban supervised the rebuilding of the entire structure by September 1817. Hoban built the South Portico during James Monroe's Presidency and the North Portico during Andrew Jackson's Presidency. At that time the first plumbing and sewer lines were put in. Martin Van Buren installed a furnace, James Polk installed gas lighting, and Franklin Pierce installed bathrooms with running water in the family quarters. The first telephone was put in by Rutherford Hayes, and Chester Arthur installed an elevator.
The interior was rebuilt in 1902 by architect Charles McKim. The family rooms were enlarged and each bedroom was given its own bath. The West Wing was enlarged and a Presidential office included, and the State Dining Room was enlarged by one-third for diplomatic receptions. Plumbing, heating, and electrical wiring were modernized. An East Wing to accommodate guests at official functions was built. The East Room was redecorated in a colonial revival style for the wedding of Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice to Nicholas Longworth. After the work was completed, a time capsule containing memorabilia of the period was placed under the marble floor of the Great Hall entrance.
The next major overhaul took place in Calvin Coolidge's administration in 1927. A third floor with 18 rooms for guests and servants was added, and the roof was replaced. A sun room was built on top of the South Portico. During Franklin Roosevelt's Presidency, the West Wing was rebuilt and underground office space was added. The East Wing was converted to office space for the growing Presidential staff. An indoor swimming pool was added.
From 1949 to 1950, during Harry Truman's Presidency, the entire building was gutted. It was then rebuilt and reinforced with steel beams and a new foundation. Among the improvements were a balcony on the second floor of the South Portico, a grand stairway leading from the family quarters to the first-floor state rooms, and central air-conditioning.
Starting in 1978, the exterior paint was scraped down to wood and stone, and much ornate carving was revealed. The exterior restoration and repainting was completed in 1993.
The White House contains 132 rooms, 29 bathrooms, and 29 fireplaces, all cared for by a chief usher and 96 housekeepers. The National Park Service has 36 workers who take care of its 18.7 acres. The U.S. Secret Service provides protection for White House occupants.
White House furnishings are selected by the curator of the White House (a post established by Lyndon Johnson in 1964) in consultation with the First Family. All furnishings are public property and are inventoried annually. Jacqueline Kennedy created a White House Fine Arts Committee chaired by Henry Francis Du Pont, founder of the Winterthur Museum (a decorative arts museum in Delaware) to advise on the restoration of the state rooms. She also created a Special Committee on Paintings. The White House displays selections from the 444 paintings and sculptures in its permanent collection. Most of the paintings in the collection were done by American artists, but it also includes works by the French painters Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet.
The White House Historical Association and the White House Preservation Committee are private organizations that raise money to preserve furnishings and acquire new pieces. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter created the White House Endowment Fund, which is supported by private contributions and provides financial support for the maintenance and renovation of first-floor museum rooms.
Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent more than $1 million in private donations to redecorate the second and third floors, using primarily 19th-century American furnishings. Since 1925 Congress has appropriated $50, 000 for Presidents to paint and decorate the living quarters at the start of each term.
The first floor contains five state rooms, and Congress requires that it be maintained in “museum character.” Patricia Nixon, working with White House curator Clement Conger and the restoration architect Edward Vason Jones, redid the entire first floor in early 18th-century styles.
The state rooms include the East Room ballroom, 80 feet long and 40 feet wide, where press conferences are held. Seven deceased Presidents lay in state there. President Grover Cleveland was married in the East Room. For his daughter Nellie's wedding Ulysses Grant decorated it in a neoclassical style, with Corinthian columns, heavy wooden mantels, and gilt carved framed mirrors. Today it has a polished oak floor, carved wood paneling, and golden drapes.
The State Dining Room, where official state dinners are held, contains a long centerpiece for the table from the Monroe administration. It has wooden paneling and golden silk draperies. Dinners in the State Dining Room may seat as many as 140 guests. Nancy Reagan created a complete dinnerware set executed by Lenox, which includes 220 place settings of 19 pieces each. (Along with the other White House china, it is displayed in the China Room on the ground floor. The White House silver is located in the Vermeil Room, also on the ground floor.) The Family Dining Room has rarely been used for meals since Jacqueline Kennedy installed a President's Dining Room and kitchen on the second floor in 1961. It serves as a pantry during state dinners.
The Blue Room, a small oval room facing onto the South Portico, is used for small formal dinners and entertaining. It has the original French furniture used in Monroe's day.
The Red Room is used by First Ladies to entertain after dinners and for teas, and Dolley Madison held receptions there. Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as President in the Red Room before his public inauguration ceremony. Eleanor Roosevelt held press conferences there for women reporters.
The Green Room was used by Thomas Jefferson for meals and by James Monroe for card games. It became a drawing room for small receptions, teas, or dinners. The carpet is green, as are the silk wall coverings.
The second floor contains the family living quarters. It has 13 rooms, including the Yellow Oval Room, where Presidents receive visitors and entertain guests. It opens onto the balcony and looks over the Mall. Next to it is the President's study, and at the end of the hall is the President's bedroom and dressing room. On the other side is the Treaty Room (which served as the cabinet room in the 19th century), then the Lincoln Bedroom and sitting room (once the Presidential office). The “Queen's Bedroom,” which has been occupied by Queen Elizabeth (the queen mother) and Elizabeth II, both of Great Britain, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and sitting room are on the opposite side of the hall. There are three other bedrooms for personal guests. There are no bedrooms for foreign heads of state or other official guests; they stay at Blair House, across the street.
Jacqueline Kennedy did the key restoration of the family quarters. She commissioned New York decorator Sister Parish to design a “country home in the city” on the second floor. An important change was to install a kitchen and dining room opposite the President's bedroom, so the First Family would not have to eat on the first floor.
The third floor contains the White House solarium. It is used as a nursery when the First Family has small children. Teenage children have used it for parties and to entertain their friends—without Secret Service intrusion.
On the lower level are offices for some of the staff of the National Security Council. The White House Communications Agency, also located in the basement, operates the Signal Board, which connects the President with senior staff members, top military commanders, and national security officials.
There are two annexes off the main mansion. The West Wing, containing Presidential offices, was destroyed in a fire in 1929. It was completely rebuilt and now contains the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, and offices for the President's principal aides. Three dining rooms on the lower level of the West Wing, known as the White House Mess, can serve almost 100 staffers at a time. The Rose Garden, outside the President's office, was created during the Kennedy Presidency.
The East Wing contains staff offices, the Visitors' Office (which coordinates public tours), and the Family Theater. The President's doctor and nurses have a medical suite in the White House residence. The White House garage has military chauffeurs to drive the Presidential limousine and cars for senior aides on official business.
The public may visit the state rooms of the White House on most weekdays. There are also annual spring and fall garden tours, an annual Easter egg roll for children, the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, and three nights of candlelight tours to see Christmas decorations. More than 1.2 million people tour the White House each year. On February 14 , 1962, “A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy,” a television program broadcast by CBS, had an estimated audience of 80 million people. See also Children of Presidents; Executive Office Buildings; First Lady; Kennedy, Jacqueline; Madison, Dolley; Oval Office; Secret Service, U.S.
Sources
Lonnelle Aikman, The Living White House (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1982).
William Seale, The White House: The History of an American Idea (Washington, D.C.: The American Institute of Architects Press, 1992).
How to cite this entry:
"White House" The Oxford Guide to the United States Government. John J. Patrick, Richard M. Pious, and Donald A. Ritchie. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 24 August 2011
Monday, July 21, 2014
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : Who agreed the Corfu Pact on this day in 1917? (from A Dictionary of Contemporary World History )
Corfu Pact (20 July 1917) An agreement between the Serbian Prime Minister, Nicola Pasic (b. 1846, d. 1926), and the leader of South Slav refugees, Ante Trumbic (b. 1868, d. 1938). Concluded at the seat of the Serbian government‐in‐exile on the island of Corfu, at a time when Serbia was overrun by the troops of the Central Powers, it provided for a unified state of Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, and Montenegrins after the war. It became the basis of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes set up after 1918, which became Yugoslavia in 1929.
How to cite this entry:
"Corfu Pact" A Dictionary of Contemporary World History. Jan Palmowski. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 20 July 2011
Corfu Pact (20 July 1917) An agreement between the Serbian Prime Minister, Nicola Pasic (b. 1846, d. 1926), and the leader of South Slav refugees, Ante Trumbic (b. 1868, d. 1938). Concluded at the seat of the Serbian government‐in‐exile on the island of Corfu, at a time when Serbia was overrun by the troops of the Central Powers, it provided for a unified state of Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, and Montenegrins after the war. It became the basis of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes set up after 1918, which became Yugoslavia in 1929.
How to cite this entry:
"Corfu Pact" A Dictionary of Contemporary World History. Jan Palmowski. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 20 July 2011
Friday, February 14, 2014
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : Why was the 14th of February chosen as Valentine's Day? (from A Dictionary of English Folklore)
Valentine's Day (14 February). For today's adolescents and young adults, this is a highly popular festival, bolstered by the powerful greetings-card industry and huge media coverage. The custom of choosing sweethearts on Valentine's Day arose in court circles in France and England in the 14th century, supposedly because birds began mating on this date.
Poems were composed for the event, the earliest being Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (c.1381), about rival bird-suitors quarrelling on Valentine's Day. Some 30 years later, the poet John Lydgate used the word ‘valentine’ both for the person loved and the poem sent, as in modern English (‘A Valantine to Her That Excelleth All’, and ‘A Kalendare’); in 1477, Margery Brews wrote to her fiancé John Paston as her ‘right wellbelovyd Voluntyn’. Why this particular date was chosen is uncertain. Most likely, it counted as the first day of spring in whichever French region invented the custom (many medieval calendars reckoned spring began in February, either on the 7th or the 22nd).
There is nothing in legends about St Valentine to link him with birds or lovers, nor any evidence supporting an 18th-century theory deriving the festival from the Roman Lupercalia (15 February). Upper-class Valentine customs are well documented, but there is little information about the rest of society before 19th-century folklore collections; it is quite feasible that most people took little notice of the day until quite late on.
Emphasis has changed over time, but the main elements have been: (1) choosing someone to be your ‘Valentine’ by lot, by accident, or deliberately; (2) gifts; (3) letters or cards, signed or anonymous; (4) love divinations. Pepys gives excellent descriptions of 17th-century Valentines, rarely failing to mention the day; the details varied from year to year, showing the custom was fluid. His entries for 1666, for example, include references to drawing Valentines by lot, and complaints about the expense of several presents he felt obliged to give the lady who had drawn him, for example ‘a dozen pairs of gloves and a pair of silk stockings’ as late as 10 March.
More modest gifts, sometimes anonymous, are mentioned in 19th-century accounts; thus, at Norwich, people laid packages on doorsteps, banged the knocker, and rushed away (Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. 137–8). Besides genuine presents there was a tradition of sending joky ones, or worthless items grandly wrapped. Sending special letters probably dates from the mid-18th century, and grew steadily more popular. Special writing paper was available in the 1820s; the commercially produced card appeared around 1840, and by the 1860s was big business. Early examples are exquisite, expensive confections in lace and satin, but more down-market printed cards gradually became the norm—along with joke parodies and spiteful anti-Valentines.
These are often held responsible for the decline of the custom around the turn of the century; it began to pick up again in the late 1920s, and mushroomed after the Second World War. Currently Valentine's Day is going from strength to strength; a recent development has been whole pages of messages in newspapers and magazines. Other customs and beliefs include, naturally, girls' love charms and divinations, for example putting yarrow under one's pillow or turning stockings inside out (Porter, 1969: 106).
It was widely said that the first person seen would be one's future spouse, and various strategies were adopted to manipulate this omen; in 1662, Mrs Pepys spent the day with her hands over her eyes to avoid seeing some painters working in her house. Children in many areas took occasion to go from door to door in the early morning, singing ‘Good morrow, Valentine’, and expecting cakes, fruit, or money (Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. 147).
Bibliography Jack B. Oruch, ‘ ‘St Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February’ , Speculum 56:3 (1981), pp.534–65; Hutton, 1966: pp.146–50; Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. pp.136–57; Folklore Society Cuttings File.
How to cite this entry: "Valentine's Day" A Dictionary of English Folklore. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 14 February 2012
http://www.oxfordreference.com/pub/views/fact-of-the-day.html?date=2012-02-14
Valentine's Day (14 February). For today's adolescents and young adults, this is a highly popular festival, bolstered by the powerful greetings-card industry and huge media coverage. The custom of choosing sweethearts on Valentine's Day arose in court circles in France and England in the 14th century, supposedly because birds began mating on this date.
Poems were composed for the event, the earliest being Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (c.1381), about rival bird-suitors quarrelling on Valentine's Day. Some 30 years later, the poet John Lydgate used the word ‘valentine’ both for the person loved and the poem sent, as in modern English (‘A Valantine to Her That Excelleth All’, and ‘A Kalendare’); in 1477, Margery Brews wrote to her fiancé John Paston as her ‘right wellbelovyd Voluntyn’. Why this particular date was chosen is uncertain. Most likely, it counted as the first day of spring in whichever French region invented the custom (many medieval calendars reckoned spring began in February, either on the 7th or the 22nd).
There is nothing in legends about St Valentine to link him with birds or lovers, nor any evidence supporting an 18th-century theory deriving the festival from the Roman Lupercalia (15 February). Upper-class Valentine customs are well documented, but there is little information about the rest of society before 19th-century folklore collections; it is quite feasible that most people took little notice of the day until quite late on.
Emphasis has changed over time, but the main elements have been: (1) choosing someone to be your ‘Valentine’ by lot, by accident, or deliberately; (2) gifts; (3) letters or cards, signed or anonymous; (4) love divinations. Pepys gives excellent descriptions of 17th-century Valentines, rarely failing to mention the day; the details varied from year to year, showing the custom was fluid. His entries for 1666, for example, include references to drawing Valentines by lot, and complaints about the expense of several presents he felt obliged to give the lady who had drawn him, for example ‘a dozen pairs of gloves and a pair of silk stockings’ as late as 10 March.
More modest gifts, sometimes anonymous, are mentioned in 19th-century accounts; thus, at Norwich, people laid packages on doorsteps, banged the knocker, and rushed away (Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. 137–8). Besides genuine presents there was a tradition of sending joky ones, or worthless items grandly wrapped. Sending special letters probably dates from the mid-18th century, and grew steadily more popular. Special writing paper was available in the 1820s; the commercially produced card appeared around 1840, and by the 1860s was big business. Early examples are exquisite, expensive confections in lace and satin, but more down-market printed cards gradually became the norm—along with joke parodies and spiteful anti-Valentines.
These are often held responsible for the decline of the custom around the turn of the century; it began to pick up again in the late 1920s, and mushroomed after the Second World War. Currently Valentine's Day is going from strength to strength; a recent development has been whole pages of messages in newspapers and magazines. Other customs and beliefs include, naturally, girls' love charms and divinations, for example putting yarrow under one's pillow or turning stockings inside out (Porter, 1969: 106).
It was widely said that the first person seen would be one's future spouse, and various strategies were adopted to manipulate this omen; in 1662, Mrs Pepys spent the day with her hands over her eyes to avoid seeing some painters working in her house. Children in many areas took occasion to go from door to door in the early morning, singing ‘Good morrow, Valentine’, and expecting cakes, fruit, or money (Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. 147).
Bibliography Jack B. Oruch, ‘ ‘St Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February’ , Speculum 56:3 (1981), pp.534–65; Hutton, 1966: pp.146–50; Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. pp.136–57; Folklore Society Cuttings File.
How to cite this entry: "Valentine's Day" A Dictionary of English Folklore. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 14 February 2012
http://www.oxfordreference.com/pub/views/fact-of-the-day.html?date=2012-02-14
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : In days gone by how was a holystone used on board a ship? (from The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea)
holystone, a piece of sandstone used for scrubbing wooden decks on board ship. Opinions differ as to how it received its name: because it was used originally for scrubbing the decks on Sundays, because the easiest method of supply was by robbing churchyards of their tombstones, or because seamen had to use it on their hands and knees to get a good result.
holystone, a piece of sandstone used for scrubbing wooden decks on board ship. Opinions differ as to how it received its name: because it was used originally for scrubbing the decks on Sundays, because the easiest method of supply was by robbing churchyards of their tombstones, or because seamen had to use it on their hands and knees to get a good result.
Large holystones were known as ‘bibles’, smaller ones, for use in difficult corners, were ‘prayer books’, and these names certainly came into use because seamen had to get down on their knees when using them.
How to cite this entry:
"holystone" The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. Ed. I. C. B. Dear and Peter Kemp. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 7 November 2011
How to cite this entry:
"holystone" The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. Ed. I. C. B. Dear and Peter Kemp. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 7 November 2011
Monday, December 16, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : What is the main active ingredient of catnip? (from A Dictionary of Psychology)
catnip n. A herb belonging to the family Lamiaceae (the mint family), the smell of which has the effect on cats of a euphoriant and intoxicant. Its main active ingredient is nepetalactone, whose structure resembles a sex pheromone in the urine of female cats and happens to fit the neuroreceptors for this pheromone in the cat's vomeronasal organ.
catnip n. A herb belonging to the family Lamiaceae (the mint family), the smell of which has the effect on cats of a euphoriant and intoxicant. Its main active ingredient is nepetalactone, whose structure resembles a sex pheromone in the urine of female cats and happens to fit the neuroreceptors for this pheromone in the cat's vomeronasal organ.
In the presence of catnip, most cats roll around in it, paw it, lick and chew it, purr, and meow for several minutes. The response is genetically determined, approximately a quarter of cats being unaffected. When consumed by humans, usually in the form of an infusion, it can occasionally produce mild sedative effects. Also called catmint or catnep. [From Latin Nepeta cataria, its botanical name]
How to cite this entry:
"catnip n." A Dictionary of Psychology. Edited by Andrew M. Colman. Oxford University Press 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 13 November 2011
How to cite this entry:
"catnip n." A Dictionary of Psychology. Edited by Andrew M. Colman. Oxford University Press 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 13 November 2011
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : What is the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth
(recorded on this day in 1983)? (from A Dictionary of Ecology)
cold pole - The place in each hemisphere that records the lowest mean temperature. The southern hemisphere cold pole is at Vostok Station, Antarctica, where the mean temperature in the coldest month (August) is -67.6°C and the annual mean temperature is -55.1°C, but where a temperature of -89.2°C was recorded on 21 July 1983.
cold pole - The place in each hemisphere that records the lowest mean temperature. The southern hemisphere cold pole is at Vostok Station, Antarctica, where the mean temperature in the coldest month (August) is -67.6°C and the annual mean temperature is -55.1°C, but where a temperature of -89.2°C was recorded on 21 July 1983.
This is the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth. There are two cold poles in the northern hemisphere. One is at Verkhoyansk, Siberia, where the mean temperature in the coldest month (January) is -50.3°C, the mean annual temperature is -17.2°C, and the lowest temperature ever recorded was -67°C. The other cold pole is at Snag, Yukon, where the mean temperature in the coldest month (January) is -28.1°C, the mean annual temperature is -5.8°C, and the lowest recorded temperature is -63°C.
How to cite this entry:"cold pole" A Dictionary of Ecology. by Michael Allaby. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 21 July 2011
How to cite this entry:"cold pole" A Dictionary of Ecology. by Michael Allaby. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 21 July 2011
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : How much was paid for the Gospels of Henry the Lion, an illuminated manuscript, at auction in 1983? (from The Oxford Dictionary of Art)
Gospels of Henry the Lion. An illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels made c.1175–80 for Henry the Lion (c.1129–95), Duke of Brunswick and Saxony. The ruler of vast territories in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Scandinavia, ‘He was by far the most important man of his time and was recognised as such not only in Germany but throughout the civilised world’ (A. L. Poole, Henry the Lion, 1912).
Gospels of Henry the Lion. An illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels made c.1175–80 for Henry the Lion (c.1129–95), Duke of Brunswick and Saxony. The ruler of vast territories in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Scandinavia, ‘He was by far the most important man of his time and was recognised as such not only in Germany but throughout the civilised world’ (A. L. Poole, Henry the Lion, 1912).
The manuscript was made at Helmarshausen Abbey, which was a famous centre of artistic production (see Theophilus), for presentation to Brunswick Cathedral. It is an extraordinarily lavish book, with abundant use of gold, and was intended to symbolize Henry's wealth and power and to set forth his claim (which remained unfulfilled) to the title of Holy Roman Emperor; the dedication page justifies this claim on the basis of his descent from Charlemagne.
The provenance of the manuscript is obscure in some places, but it was for centuries in Prague Cathedral until sold to the King of Hanover in 1861. In 1983 it came on the open market for the first time and was sold at Sotheby's, London, which justifiably described it as ‘the finest illuminated manuscript remaining in private hands’.
It was bought by the West German government for £8,140,000—at the time the highest price paid for any work of art, and more than ten times the price ever realized by an illuminated manuscript. It is held jointly by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, and the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, alternating between the two locations.
How to cite this entry:
"Gospels of Henry the Lion" The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Ed. Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 23 August 2011
How to cite this entry:
"Gospels of Henry the Lion" The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Ed. Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 23 August 2011
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : Which novelist created the Scarlet Pimpernel? (from The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion)
Scarlet Pimpernel [Lit.] The name assumed by the English nobleman Sir Percy Blakeney, the hero of a series of novels by Baroness Orczy, including The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905). Apparently a lazy fop, Blakeney uses ingenious disguises to outwit his opponents and rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution. He reveals his true identity to no one, not even to those he rescues, but leaves the sign of a small red flower, the scarlet pimpernel, as his calling-card whenever he has effected a rescue.
The Scarlet Pimpernel's exploits inspire the famous rhyme
We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?
Someone who is difficult to find or catch; someone who rescues others in a clandestine way
I'm asking Wilson, but he's gone away—to Lagos for a week or two. The damned elusive Pimpernel. Just when I wanted him. Graham Greene "The Heart of the Matter" 1948
One fifteen-year-old was kept isolated for three years in her bedroom. Sometimes all they want is higher education. Legends keep them going. Like the true story of a runaway who is now a graduate and successful businesswoman. Philip Balmforth, Bradford Police's community officer, is the indefatigable local scarlet pimpernel who rescues these girls and who arranges new lives, new identities. "The Independent" 1998
How to cite this entry: "Scarlet Pimpernel" The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion. by Andrew Delahunty and Sheila Dignen. Oxford University Press Inc. The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion. Oxford University Press. 13 January 2012
Scarlet Pimpernel [Lit.] The name assumed by the English nobleman Sir Percy Blakeney, the hero of a series of novels by Baroness Orczy, including The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905). Apparently a lazy fop, Blakeney uses ingenious disguises to outwit his opponents and rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution. He reveals his true identity to no one, not even to those he rescues, but leaves the sign of a small red flower, the scarlet pimpernel, as his calling-card whenever he has effected a rescue.
The Scarlet Pimpernel's exploits inspire the famous rhyme
We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?
Someone who is difficult to find or catch; someone who rescues others in a clandestine way
I'm asking Wilson, but he's gone away—to Lagos for a week or two. The damned elusive Pimpernel. Just when I wanted him. Graham Greene "The Heart of the Matter" 1948
One fifteen-year-old was kept isolated for three years in her bedroom. Sometimes all they want is higher education. Legends keep them going. Like the true story of a runaway who is now a graduate and successful businesswoman. Philip Balmforth, Bradford Police's community officer, is the indefatigable local scarlet pimpernel who rescues these girls and who arranges new lives, new identities. "The Independent" 1998
How to cite this entry: "Scarlet Pimpernel" The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion. by Andrew Delahunty and Sheila Dignen. Oxford University Press Inc. The Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion. Oxford University Press. 13 January 2012
Monday, December 2, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : Which famous magician was born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest in 1874? (from A New Dictionary of Eponyms)
"Houdini" The master magician, the great illusionist, the stellar escape artist Harry Houdini (1874–1926), was born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary. When he came to America and became an American citizen, he adopted his stage name, after Jean Eugène Robert Houdin (1805–1871), who had been considered the foremost French magician.
Houdini became world-famous in 1900 after a performance in London at which he demonstrated an unusual talent of freeing himself from “impossible traps,” such as handcuffs, locks, and straitjackets, even when suspended in the air or submerged in water. No lock could hold him, not even that of the condemned cell at the Washington jail.
In October 1926, some students were invited by Houdini to his dressing room. Houdini sat on his couch to check his mail at which time a J. Gordon Whitehead, an amateur boxer, asked whether it was true that Houdini could withstand any body blow not below the belt or on his face. When Houdini agreed, Whitehead, while Houdini was rising from the couch, struck him three times on the stomach. Houdini had not tensed his muscles. He fell back on his couch, subsequently developing gangrene in his appendix and then peritonitis. In the 1920s that latter affliction was a virtual sentence of death.
The cultlike adoration, almost worship, of necromancers followed him to his grave. Because he once said that if anyone can break the shackles of death, he can, his devotees hold an annual séance at his gravesite in the Machpelah Cemetery, in Glendale, Long Island.
The Houdini Room in the Library of Congress houses the extensive library that Houdini donated.
To “pull a Houdini” is to make an amazing escape, and a Houdini is anyone with seemingly magical powers in any field.
How to cite this entry:
"Houdini" A New Dictionary of Eponyms. Morton S. Freeman. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 17 October 2011
"Houdini" The master magician, the great illusionist, the stellar escape artist Harry Houdini (1874–1926), was born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary. When he came to America and became an American citizen, he adopted his stage name, after Jean Eugène Robert Houdin (1805–1871), who had been considered the foremost French magician.
Houdini became world-famous in 1900 after a performance in London at which he demonstrated an unusual talent of freeing himself from “impossible traps,” such as handcuffs, locks, and straitjackets, even when suspended in the air or submerged in water. No lock could hold him, not even that of the condemned cell at the Washington jail.
In October 1926, some students were invited by Houdini to his dressing room. Houdini sat on his couch to check his mail at which time a J. Gordon Whitehead, an amateur boxer, asked whether it was true that Houdini could withstand any body blow not below the belt or on his face. When Houdini agreed, Whitehead, while Houdini was rising from the couch, struck him three times on the stomach. Houdini had not tensed his muscles. He fell back on his couch, subsequently developing gangrene in his appendix and then peritonitis. In the 1920s that latter affliction was a virtual sentence of death.
The cultlike adoration, almost worship, of necromancers followed him to his grave. Because he once said that if anyone can break the shackles of death, he can, his devotees hold an annual séance at his gravesite in the Machpelah Cemetery, in Glendale, Long Island.
The Houdini Room in the Library of Congress houses the extensive library that Houdini donated.
To “pull a Houdini” is to make an amazing escape, and a Houdini is anyone with seemingly magical powers in any field.
How to cite this entry:
"Houdini" A New Dictionary of Eponyms. Morton S. Freeman. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 17 October 2011
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Why Do People Laugh When They are Tickled?
Fact of the Day : Why do people laugh when they are tickled? (from The Oxford Companion to the Body)
Tickling is a common, perhaps universal, human experience. Depictions of people engaged in some kind of tickling activity, whether between siblings, parents and children, or lovers, can be found in the art of many countries and cultures. Tickling someone often causes them to smile and laugh in a way that is indistinguishable from the reaction to other forms of pleasure or even intense amusement.
Tickling is a common, perhaps universal, human experience. Depictions of people engaged in some kind of tickling activity, whether between siblings, parents and children, or lovers, can be found in the art of many countries and cultures. Tickling someone often causes them to smile and laugh in a way that is indistinguishable from the reaction to other forms of pleasure or even intense amusement.
However, tickling is a curious, paradoxical phenomenon. Particularly ‘ticklish’ individuals wriggle and writhe in apparent agony, as well as laughing hysterically, when being tickled. Francis Bacon in 1677 commented that: ‘[when tickled] men even in a grieved state of mind … cannot sometimes forbear laughing.’
Tickling usually occurs only between people who know each other well: children are likely to be tickled by their parents and siblings, adults may be tickled by their lovers. Normally the tickler is someone who desires to express intimacy, emotion, and affection through their tickling — in other words the tickle is intended as a friendly gesture.
Tickling usually occurs only between people who know each other well: children are likely to be tickled by their parents and siblings, adults may be tickled by their lovers. Normally the tickler is someone who desires to express intimacy, emotion, and affection through their tickling — in other words the tickle is intended as a friendly gesture.
The degree of ‘ticklishness’ increases if the ‘ticklee’ feels that he or she cannot escape from the tickler. Although there is often such inequality of power during tickling, it normally occurs in situations that are entirely non-threatening. Charles Darwin in 1872 claimed that if a stranger tried to tickle a child the child would scream with fear rather than squeal with laughter.
But tickling is a pleasure that ‘cannot be reproduced in the absence of another’ as Adam Phillips wrote. The inability to tickle oneself seems to be hard-wired in the central nervous system: the brain reacts differently when people tickle themselves compared with when someone else does the tickling.
But tickling is a pleasure that ‘cannot be reproduced in the absence of another’ as Adam Phillips wrote. The inability to tickle oneself seems to be hard-wired in the central nervous system: the brain reacts differently when people tickle themselves compared with when someone else does the tickling.
The areas of the cerebral cortex associated with the sensation of touch (the somatosensory cortex) and pleasure (the anterior cingulate cortex) react much more strongly to a tickling stimulus delivered by an external agent than to a self-tickle. This hard-wired mechanism suggests that tickling is useful in social bonding — there is little point in social bonding with oneself.
This view was argued by Charles Darwin over a century ago. He wrote that tickling is an important aspect of social and sexual bond-ing, and prominent in the development of communication between mothers and babies. Tickle-induced laughter, he argued, is socially stimulated and results from close physical contact with another person. An alternative claim is that the laughter is purely reflexive — something that happens without our voluntary control, similar to the reflex muscle contraction induced when a doctor taps the tendon of your knee.
This view was argued by Charles Darwin over a century ago. He wrote that tickling is an important aspect of social and sexual bond-ing, and prominent in the development of communication between mothers and babies. Tickle-induced laughter, he argued, is socially stimulated and results from close physical contact with another person. An alternative claim is that the laughter is purely reflexive — something that happens without our voluntary control, similar to the reflex muscle contraction induced when a doctor taps the tendon of your knee.
Just as people laugh when they read an amusing story on their own, so they will laugh out loud when they are being tickled by a robotic hand, even when no other person is around to hear them.
Some animals seem to be ticklish. Great apes (chimpanzees and gorillas) react with what is believed to be an analog of laughter — a panting sound — when tickled. Recent research shows that even baby rats squeal with apparent pleasure when tickled, although you need an ultrasound detector to hear the sounds because they are at frequencies too high for human ears to detect.
Some animals seem to be ticklish. Great apes (chimpanzees and gorillas) react with what is believed to be an analog of laughter — a panting sound — when tickled. Recent research shows that even baby rats squeal with apparent pleasure when tickled, although you need an ultrasound detector to hear the sounds because they are at frequencies too high for human ears to detect.
They are interpreted as sounds of joy because they differ markedly from distress calls, being similar to the sounds made by a male rat while courting a female. The possibility that tickling behaviour is widespread among mammals suggests that it may lie at the heart of the evolution of complex social behaviour.
Why then do we laugh when tickled? Laughing might not simply be a social expression of happiness. Some have suggested that the components of laughter — convulsion of the abdomen, production of sniggering noises, tears streaming from the eyes — all serve the general purpose of releasing tension in a social situation. Nervous laughter often occurs during tense situations, and there are striking similarities between laughing and crying hysterically. Being tickled certainly causes the body to become tense, through increased muscle tone.
An alternative view is that of Vilayanur Ramachandran of the University of California, San Diego, who claims that we laugh to tell other people that a potentially threatening situation is not serious. ‘You approach a child, hand stretched out menacingly … But no, your fingers make light, intermittent contact with her belly,’ he writes.
Why then do we laugh when tickled? Laughing might not simply be a social expression of happiness. Some have suggested that the components of laughter — convulsion of the abdomen, production of sniggering noises, tears streaming from the eyes — all serve the general purpose of releasing tension in a social situation. Nervous laughter often occurs during tense situations, and there are striking similarities between laughing and crying hysterically. Being tickled certainly causes the body to become tense, through increased muscle tone.
An alternative view is that of Vilayanur Ramachandran of the University of California, San Diego, who claims that we laugh to tell other people that a potentially threatening situation is not serious. ‘You approach a child, hand stretched out menacingly … But no, your fingers make light, intermittent contact with her belly,’ he writes.
As a result of being tickled the child laughs, as if to inform other children, ‘He doesn't mean harm. He's only playing.’ Some psychologists have suggested that the sense of humour evolves during individual development, starting with the baby's giggling in response to being tickled, later maturing into a tendency to laugh at unusual faces and situations, and finally maturing into an appreciation of jokes, subtle wit, and irony.
It all starts, though, with that first tickle. Without tickling, some suggest, there might be no humour at all.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
Bibliography
Darwin, C. (1872). The expressions of the emotions in man and animals. John Murray, London.
Ramachandran, V. S. (1998). Phantoms in the brain. Fourth Estate, London.
How to cite this entry:
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore "tickling" The Oxford Companion to the Body. Ed. Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 28 November 2011
It all starts, though, with that first tickle. Without tickling, some suggest, there might be no humour at all.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
Bibliography
Darwin, C. (1872). The expressions of the emotions in man and animals. John Murray, London.
Ramachandran, V. S. (1998). Phantoms in the brain. Fourth Estate, London.
How to cite this entry:
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore "tickling" The Oxford Companion to the Body. Ed. Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 28 November 2011
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : In which country was Greenpeace founded? (from A Dictionary of Contemporary World History )
Greenpeace The world's largest environmental campaign organization, with 2.8 million supporters registered in forty countries worldwide. It was founded in 1971 in British Columbia (Canada) to organize protests against US nuclear testing at Amchitka Island, Alaska. It has campaigned against nuclear testing, whaling, and the dumping of toxic and radioactive waste. Its methods have been direct and spectacular to attract maximum media attention, but always non-violent. Despite this, in 1985 its ship Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French intelligence agents off New Zealand.
http:\\www.greenpeace.org The official website of Greenpeace.
How to cite this entry: "Greenpeace" A Dictionary of Contemporary World History. Jan Palmowski. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 8 January 2012
Greenpeace The world's largest environmental campaign organization, with 2.8 million supporters registered in forty countries worldwide. It was founded in 1971 in British Columbia (Canada) to organize protests against US nuclear testing at Amchitka Island, Alaska. It has campaigned against nuclear testing, whaling, and the dumping of toxic and radioactive waste. Its methods have been direct and spectacular to attract maximum media attention, but always non-violent. Despite this, in 1985 its ship Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French intelligence agents off New Zealand.
http:\\www.greenpeace.org The official website of Greenpeace.
How to cite this entry: "Greenpeace" A Dictionary of Contemporary World History. Jan Palmowski. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 8 January 2012
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : In the world of theatre what is a slote? (from The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre)
Slote or Sloat (Hoist in America, Cassette in France), form of trap for raising a long narrow piece of scenery-a groundrow, for example-from below to stage level, or for carrying an actor up or down from the stage. It appears that the slote was already standard equipment at Drury Lane as early as 1843, and in The Orange Girl, by H. T. Leslie and N. Rowe, produced at the Surrey Theatre in 1864, there are elaborate stage directions for the conveyance of the heroine by a slote from a height downwards to a trap.
Since the slote is also referred to as a ‘slide’ one of its variants may have been the Corsican Trap (see TRAPS). To allow free passage to the slote the floor-board above it was divided vertically, each half dropping and being pulled to the side of the stage by ropes, leaving an opening in the stage floor.
On occasion a cloth might be attached to the base of a groundrow and be drawn up from its rolled position in a Slote Box below by means of lines from the grid. It would thus unroll as the groundrow rose in the air, for instance during a transformation scene. With two slotes set in each of three sections of the stage, the elements of six separate scenes could be raised from below to stage level.
How to cite this entry: "Slote" The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 17 February 2012
Slote or Sloat (Hoist in America, Cassette in France), form of trap for raising a long narrow piece of scenery-a groundrow, for example-from below to stage level, or for carrying an actor up or down from the stage. It appears that the slote was already standard equipment at Drury Lane as early as 1843, and in The Orange Girl, by H. T. Leslie and N. Rowe, produced at the Surrey Theatre in 1864, there are elaborate stage directions for the conveyance of the heroine by a slote from a height downwards to a trap.
Since the slote is also referred to as a ‘slide’ one of its variants may have been the Corsican Trap (see TRAPS). To allow free passage to the slote the floor-board above it was divided vertically, each half dropping and being pulled to the side of the stage by ropes, leaving an opening in the stage floor.
On occasion a cloth might be attached to the base of a groundrow and be drawn up from its rolled position in a Slote Box below by means of lines from the grid. It would thus unroll as the groundrow rose in the air, for instance during a transformation scene. With two slotes set in each of three sections of the stage, the elements of six separate scenes could be raised from below to stage level.
How to cite this entry: "Slote" The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 17 February 2012
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : From which port did the 17th-century Sallee pirates operate? (from The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea)
Sallee pirates, Barbary pirates, mostly Muslims expelled from Spain, but also European renegades. They operated from the Moroccan port of Salli (now part of Rabat) from the early decades of the 17th century. They harassed Christian trade, and raided the coast of Spain, a particular focus of their hatred, to acquire victims for the slave trade. Salli was nominally under the control of the Emperor of Morocco but in 1627 it broke away and established a self-governing corsair republic.
So successful were they that they later extended their activities into the English Channel and the Atlantic, and even as far as Newfoundland, and they could put as many as 60 ships—vessels developed from the Mediterranean tartan and xebec—to sea.
These ‘were all very fast sailers and nearly always equipped with oars as well as sails, so fast indeed that the French Admiral Tourville believed that a Sallee rover could only be caught at sea by a former Sallee rover taken as a prize into French service’ (P. Earle, The Pirate Wars (2003), 44–5). Uncoordinated expeditions were mounted against them by the British, Dutch, French, and Spanish. These sometimes achieved temporary success, but piracy always broke out again when the expeditions withdrew, and lack of a concerted effort to crush them allowed their depredations to continue well into the 18th century.
How to cite this entry: "Sallee pirates" The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. Ed. I. C. B. Dear and Peter Kemp. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 27 February 2012
Sallee pirates, Barbary pirates, mostly Muslims expelled from Spain, but also European renegades. They operated from the Moroccan port of Salli (now part of Rabat) from the early decades of the 17th century. They harassed Christian trade, and raided the coast of Spain, a particular focus of their hatred, to acquire victims for the slave trade. Salli was nominally under the control of the Emperor of Morocco but in 1627 it broke away and established a self-governing corsair republic.
So successful were they that they later extended their activities into the English Channel and the Atlantic, and even as far as Newfoundland, and they could put as many as 60 ships—vessels developed from the Mediterranean tartan and xebec—to sea.
These ‘were all very fast sailers and nearly always equipped with oars as well as sails, so fast indeed that the French Admiral Tourville believed that a Sallee rover could only be caught at sea by a former Sallee rover taken as a prize into French service’ (P. Earle, The Pirate Wars (2003), 44–5). Uncoordinated expeditions were mounted against them by the British, Dutch, French, and Spanish. These sometimes achieved temporary success, but piracy always broke out again when the expeditions withdrew, and lack of a concerted effort to crush them allowed their depredations to continue well into the 18th century.
How to cite this entry: "Sallee pirates" The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. Ed. I. C. B. Dear and Peter Kemp. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 27 February 2012
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : In which year was the Bunsen burner developed? (from The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science)
Bunsen burner. Robert Bunsen (1811–1899) was one of the finest and most versatile chemists of the nineteenth century. When hired by the University of Heidelberg in 1852, he was promised a new laboratory building, which was ready for occupancy in the spring of 1855. Coincidentally, Heidelberg had just begun to light city streets by coal gas, and Bunsen specified that his laboratory should be similarly equipped.
At this time, chemists used a variety of fuels for heating: “spirit” (alcohol) lamps, oils, coal, and charcoal. Coal gas had been tried as well, but incomplete combustion produced a flame more notable for its luminosity than its heat. In the fall of 1854, Bunsen suggested to the university's mechanic, Peter Desaga, a way to obtain a very hot, sootless, nonluminous flame by mixing the gas with air in a controlled fashion before combustion.
The flow of the gas could pull in air through apertures at the bottom of a cylindrical burner, the flame igniting at the top. Given this concept, Desaga developed a workable design and had produced fifty burners by the time the new lab opened for business. Bunsen published a description of the burner two years later.
It was rapidly and widely adopted. He never sought a patent, in effect donating this important invention to the world of science. The Bunsen burner, simple, inexpensive, and effective, immediately displaced its predecessors. The easily adjusted flame burned hot and clean, and was perfectly suited to laboratory operations. The present form of the Bunsen burner, familiar to every science student today, has scarcely changed from the original of 1855.
Bibliography G. Lockemann, The Centenary of the Bunsen Burner , Journal of Chemical Education 33 (1956): pp.20–21. A. J. Rocke
How to cite this entry: A. J. Rocke "Bunsen burner" The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science. J. L. Heilbron, ed., Oxford University Press 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 25 January 2012
Bunsen burner. Robert Bunsen (1811–1899) was one of the finest and most versatile chemists of the nineteenth century. When hired by the University of Heidelberg in 1852, he was promised a new laboratory building, which was ready for occupancy in the spring of 1855. Coincidentally, Heidelberg had just begun to light city streets by coal gas, and Bunsen specified that his laboratory should be similarly equipped.
At this time, chemists used a variety of fuels for heating: “spirit” (alcohol) lamps, oils, coal, and charcoal. Coal gas had been tried as well, but incomplete combustion produced a flame more notable for its luminosity than its heat. In the fall of 1854, Bunsen suggested to the university's mechanic, Peter Desaga, a way to obtain a very hot, sootless, nonluminous flame by mixing the gas with air in a controlled fashion before combustion.
The flow of the gas could pull in air through apertures at the bottom of a cylindrical burner, the flame igniting at the top. Given this concept, Desaga developed a workable design and had produced fifty burners by the time the new lab opened for business. Bunsen published a description of the burner two years later.
It was rapidly and widely adopted. He never sought a patent, in effect donating this important invention to the world of science. The Bunsen burner, simple, inexpensive, and effective, immediately displaced its predecessors. The easily adjusted flame burned hot and clean, and was perfectly suited to laboratory operations. The present form of the Bunsen burner, familiar to every science student today, has scarcely changed from the original of 1855.
Bibliography G. Lockemann, The Centenary of the Bunsen Burner , Journal of Chemical Education 33 (1956): pp.20–21. A. J. Rocke
How to cite this entry: A. J. Rocke "Bunsen burner" The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science. J. L. Heilbron, ed., Oxford University Press 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 25 January 2012
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : What did 19th-century sailors make from the feet of albatrosses? (from The New Encyclopedia of Birds )
Albatrosses Superstitious sailors once regarded the albatross as the repository of the souls of drowned comrades, and believed that to kill one was to court terrible misfortune. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner recounts how disaster befalls a ship after an albatross is shot. Even so, many 19th-century sailors were happy to catch and eat these birds to vary their monotonous diet on long voyages, and to turn their feet into tobacco pouches and their wing bones into pipes.
The name “albatross” comes from the Portuguese alcatraz, used originally for any large seabird and apparently derived from al-cadous, the Arabic term for pelican. Albatrosses are distinguished from other families of their order (Procellariiformes) by the position of their tubular external nostrils, which lie at each side of the base of the bill rather than being fused on its top. They can be split into four genera: the “great” albatrosses, comprising six Diomedea species, which have wingspans averaging 3m (about 10ft); nine smaller species in the genus Thalassarche , which are often called “mollymauks” (from the Dutch mollemok , a name originally given to the fulmar); four North or tropical Pacific species in the genus Phoebastria ; and the all-dark Sooty and Light-mantled sooty albatrosses of the genus Phoebetria , which have relatively long wings. Recent molecular analysis has increased the number of recognized species from 14 to 21.
Champion Gliders Form and Function Albatrosses are renowned for their effortless flight, as they follow ships for hours with barely a wing-beat. One adaptation to reduce the muscular energy expended during gliding is a special sheet of tendon that locks the extended wing in position. Another is the sheer length of the wing, in which the forearm bones are much longer in relation to the hand than in other procellariiforms. To it are attached 25–34 secondaries, as compared to just 10–12 in storm petrels.
MORE..http://www.oxfordreference.com/pub/views/fact-of-the-day.html?date=2012-02-15
How to cite this entry: Michael de L. Brooke , Robert W. Burton , Peter A. Prince "Albatrosses" The New Encyclopedia of Birds. Ed. Christopher Perrins. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 15 February 2012
Albatrosses Superstitious sailors once regarded the albatross as the repository of the souls of drowned comrades, and believed that to kill one was to court terrible misfortune. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner recounts how disaster befalls a ship after an albatross is shot. Even so, many 19th-century sailors were happy to catch and eat these birds to vary their monotonous diet on long voyages, and to turn their feet into tobacco pouches and their wing bones into pipes.
The name “albatross” comes from the Portuguese alcatraz, used originally for any large seabird and apparently derived from al-cadous, the Arabic term for pelican. Albatrosses are distinguished from other families of their order (Procellariiformes) by the position of their tubular external nostrils, which lie at each side of the base of the bill rather than being fused on its top. They can be split into four genera: the “great” albatrosses, comprising six Diomedea species, which have wingspans averaging 3m (about 10ft); nine smaller species in the genus Thalassarche , which are often called “mollymauks” (from the Dutch mollemok , a name originally given to the fulmar); four North or tropical Pacific species in the genus Phoebastria ; and the all-dark Sooty and Light-mantled sooty albatrosses of the genus Phoebetria , which have relatively long wings. Recent molecular analysis has increased the number of recognized species from 14 to 21.
Champion Gliders Form and Function Albatrosses are renowned for their effortless flight, as they follow ships for hours with barely a wing-beat. One adaptation to reduce the muscular energy expended during gliding is a special sheet of tendon that locks the extended wing in position. Another is the sheer length of the wing, in which the forearm bones are much longer in relation to the hand than in other procellariiforms. To it are attached 25–34 secondaries, as compared to just 10–12 in storm petrels.
MORE..http://www.oxfordreference.com/pub/views/fact-of-the-day.html?date=2012-02-15
How to cite this entry: Michael de L. Brooke , Robert W. Burton , Peter A. Prince "Albatrosses" The New Encyclopedia of Birds. Ed. Christopher Perrins. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 15 February 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : Which famous US artist died on this day 40 years ago? (from The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists)
Moses, Grandma (Anna Mary Robertson) (b nr. Greenwich, Washington County, NY, 7 Sept. 1860; d Hoosick Falls, NY, 13 Dec. 1961). The most famous of American naive painters. She took up painting in her seventies (initially copying postcards and Currier and Ives prints) after arthritis made her unable to continue with embroidery, with which she had regularly won prizes at country fairs. Her first exhibition was held in a drugstore at Hoosick Falls, NY, in 1938. She was then ‘discovered’ by a collector, Louis J. Caldor, and had a one-woman show in New York in 1940 at the age of 80.
Thereafter she rapidly became famous and something of a national institution, her work being widely reproduced, notably on Christmas cards. In 1949 she was received at the White House by President Harry Truman and in 1960 Governor Nelson Rockefeller proclaimed her 100th birthday ‘Grandma Moses Day’ in New York State.
She produced more than a thousand pictures (working on a sort of production-line system, three or four at a time, painting first the skies and last the figures), her favourite subjects being scenes of what she called the ‘old-timey’ farm life she had known in her younger days. Examples are in many American collections, notably the Bennington Museum, Vermont.
How to cite this entry:
"Moses, Grandma" The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Ed Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press 2009Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 13 December 2011
Moses, Grandma (Anna Mary Robertson) (b nr. Greenwich, Washington County, NY, 7 Sept. 1860; d Hoosick Falls, NY, 13 Dec. 1961). The most famous of American naive painters. She took up painting in her seventies (initially copying postcards and Currier and Ives prints) after arthritis made her unable to continue with embroidery, with which she had regularly won prizes at country fairs. Her first exhibition was held in a drugstore at Hoosick Falls, NY, in 1938. She was then ‘discovered’ by a collector, Louis J. Caldor, and had a one-woman show in New York in 1940 at the age of 80.
Thereafter she rapidly became famous and something of a national institution, her work being widely reproduced, notably on Christmas cards. In 1949 she was received at the White House by President Harry Truman and in 1960 Governor Nelson Rockefeller proclaimed her 100th birthday ‘Grandma Moses Day’ in New York State.
She produced more than a thousand pictures (working on a sort of production-line system, three or four at a time, painting first the skies and last the figures), her favourite subjects being scenes of what she called the ‘old-timey’ farm life she had known in her younger days. Examples are in many American collections, notably the Bennington Museum, Vermont.
How to cite this entry:
"Moses, Grandma" The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Ed Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press 2009Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 13 December 2011
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : What part did St Bridget possibly play in the leap year tradition of the Ladies' Privilege? (from A Dictionary of English Folklore)
leap year. The dominant belief about leap year is that it is the only time that a woman may propose marriage to a man, rather than what was considered to be the natural order of things: the other way round. This was often called ‘The Ladies' Privilege’. At the time of writing, it is probably true to say that younger English people would not be aware of the belief if the media did not run features on the subject every fourth February. In previous times, when relationships between the sexes were more rigid and formal, there were a number of subsidiary beliefs surrounding the Ladies’ Privilege.
Some said that it was only on Leap Year day, that is 29 February, that it was valid, while others believed that a man proposed to in this way could not refuse, except on substantial payment—a silk gown, or £ 100, and so on. Indeed, it was widely reported (erroneously) that there had been a Scottish Act of Parliament in the 13th century making this legally binding (see N&Q 7s:10 (1890), 188), or that it had passed into English Common Law (Courtship, Love and Matrimony (1606), quoted in N&Q 4s:8 (1871), 505).
One story about the origin of the Ladies’ Privilege is set in Ireland: St Bridget met St Patrick one day and complained that women did not have the right to propose. He offered the opportunity once in every seven years, but she bargained him down to one in four (quoted in Word-Lore 3 (1928), 51–2).
How to cite this entry: "leap year" A Dictionary of English Folklore. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 29 February 2012
leap year. The dominant belief about leap year is that it is the only time that a woman may propose marriage to a man, rather than what was considered to be the natural order of things: the other way round. This was often called ‘The Ladies' Privilege’. At the time of writing, it is probably true to say that younger English people would not be aware of the belief if the media did not run features on the subject every fourth February. In previous times, when relationships between the sexes were more rigid and formal, there were a number of subsidiary beliefs surrounding the Ladies’ Privilege.
Some said that it was only on Leap Year day, that is 29 February, that it was valid, while others believed that a man proposed to in this way could not refuse, except on substantial payment—a silk gown, or £ 100, and so on. Indeed, it was widely reported (erroneously) that there had been a Scottish Act of Parliament in the 13th century making this legally binding (see N&Q 7s:10 (1890), 188), or that it had passed into English Common Law (Courtship, Love and Matrimony (1606), quoted in N&Q 4s:8 (1871), 505).
One story about the origin of the Ladies’ Privilege is set in Ireland: St Bridget met St Patrick one day and complained that women did not have the right to propose. He offered the opportunity once in every seven years, but she bargained him down to one in four (quoted in Word-Lore 3 (1928), 51–2).
How to cite this entry: "leap year" A Dictionary of English Folklore. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 29 February 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : What did the researchers who carried out the Iowa gambling task prove? (from A Dictionary of Psychology)
Iowa gambling task n. A decision task designed to simulate real-life decision-making. On each trial the decision maker chooses a card from one of four decks, each choice resulting in a fixed gain of $100 for any card from two of the decks or $50 for any card from the other two, although the decision maker is not told this. For some cards, the decision maker also suffers a loss. Losses total $1,250 for every ten cards in two of the decks and $250 for every ten cards in the other two.
These gains and losses are arranged so that two of the decks yield substantial expected losses and the other two substantial expected gains over every run of 10 cards, but there are sharp differences between short-term and long-term payoffs, small losses occurring relatively frequently in some decks and larger but less frequent losses occurring in others.
The task was introduced by the Canadian neuroscientist Antoine Bechara (born 1961) and published with three colleagues in the journal Cognition in 1994, where it was shown that people with damage to the prefrontal cortex, in contrast to neurologically undamaged participants in their control group, performed badly, failing to consider the future consequences of their actions and being guided only by immediate prospects. See also somatic marker hypothesis. IGT abbrev. [So-called because the researchers who developed it were at the University of Iowa at the time]
How to cite this entry: "Iowa gambling task n." A Dictionary of Psychology. Edited by Andrew M. Colman. Oxford University Press 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 28 February 2012
Iowa gambling task n. A decision task designed to simulate real-life decision-making. On each trial the decision maker chooses a card from one of four decks, each choice resulting in a fixed gain of $100 for any card from two of the decks or $50 for any card from the other two, although the decision maker is not told this. For some cards, the decision maker also suffers a loss. Losses total $1,250 for every ten cards in two of the decks and $250 for every ten cards in the other two.
These gains and losses are arranged so that two of the decks yield substantial expected losses and the other two substantial expected gains over every run of 10 cards, but there are sharp differences between short-term and long-term payoffs, small losses occurring relatively frequently in some decks and larger but less frequent losses occurring in others.
The task was introduced by the Canadian neuroscientist Antoine Bechara (born 1961) and published with three colleagues in the journal Cognition in 1994, where it was shown that people with damage to the prefrontal cortex, in contrast to neurologically undamaged participants in their control group, performed badly, failing to consider the future consequences of their actions and being guided only by immediate prospects. See also somatic marker hypothesis. IGT abbrev. [So-called because the researchers who developed it were at the University of Iowa at the time]
How to cite this entry: "Iowa gambling task n." A Dictionary of Psychology. Edited by Andrew M. Colman. Oxford University Press 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 28 February 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Fact of the Day
Fact of the Day : What does the Hay-Pauncefote treaty promise? (from World Encyclopedia)
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901) Agreement promising equal rates through the PANAMA CANAL to all nations and all vessels. It also granted the USA the full right to build and manage the canal. John HAY and Lord Pauncefote, British ambassador to the USA, negotiated the treaty.
How to cite this entry: "Hay-Pauncefote Treaty" World Encyclopedia. Philip's, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 26 February 2012
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901) Agreement promising equal rates through the PANAMA CANAL to all nations and all vessels. It also granted the USA the full right to build and manage the canal. John HAY and Lord Pauncefote, British ambassador to the USA, negotiated the treaty.
How to cite this entry: "Hay-Pauncefote Treaty" World Encyclopedia. Philip's, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 26 February 2012
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