Gris's Journal

Wangling Woodpeckers

Alright, I probably could've picked a more fortunate title, there....

Just a couple of quick discoveries.....

I found myself wondering where the word wangle came from, and... a voila. Sometimes I really love the Internet.

And another little tidbit I came across in the news today... after 60 years of no reliable sightings by humans, with many fearing the species had been rendered extinct, a group headed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has caught the Lord God Bird live on tape!

Snail mail

Recent cover of a catalog for computer books:

Overheard...

...as a mother was escorting her small son into the handicapped/unisex restroom (between the two gendered restrooms):

Child: "Mommy, there's a wheelchair on this door. We don't have a wheelchair! Why are we going in here?"

Mother: "Because when I'm with you, I'm disabled."

Amusing review

From Choice, Feb 2005, p. 1006-7:

42-3185 TX653 2004-18161 CIP
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Encyclopedia of Kitchen History. Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004. 694p bibl index afp ISBN 1579583806, $175.00

Taking for its subject the entire history of kitchens and anything that might have happened in them, this encyclopedia contains 300 entries on topics as diverse as cannibalism and brooms. Entries range in length from a few paragraphs to several pages, and each has a brief list of further readings. The volume has a general bibliography and a detailed index. The book is fascinating to browse. Curious about coffee filters? They were invented by Melitta Bentz of Dresden, Germany, who first marketed them from her kitchen. The book's usefulness as a reference source, however, seems limited. Although it covers subjects difficult to find elsewhere (e.g., logging camp kitchens), the range of topics is highly selective and arbitrary. Why an entry on bananas and not apples, or military kitchens but not farm kitchens? Snodgrass does not reveal why particular topics were chosen. A narrower focus covered more exhaustively might have been more useful, and the price is excessive.
Summing Up: Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries.
-D. Richards Minnesota State University--Mankato

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Personally, I want to know how she worked "cannibalism" into kitchens. I always thought of that more as campfire cookery, personally. :D

Good Galli

I've come across more odd G-words today...

Have you ever heard the radio commercials for Corona, where the legalese guy comes on at the very end and says very quickly that it's "imported by the Gambrinus Company, San Antonio, Texas"? Well, I ran across that name today, in looking up another word... did you know that the word "" gambrinous means "full of beer" (after Gambrinus of Brabant, the semi-mythical Flemish king who reputedly invented hopped beer)? ^_^

And a couple of others, for your delectation and delight... I think "gallimaufry" is a simply galumptious word, don't you?