Diapers for your chickens

These are real, offered by My Pet Chicken in a variety of styles for your indoor chickens, which according to the elves at No Such Thing as a Fish, are very hip household pets in Silicon Valley. 

Thought-provoking

YouTube link.

I have blogged in the past my dissatisfaction with the pomp and majesty of an increasingly "imperial" presidency.  This PBS video goes one step further to suggest rethinking the very existence of the office.

"Fatal Descent," "The Emperor's Snuff Box," and "The Nine Wrong Answers"

Today we finish the "non-series" works of detection.

Fatal Descent (1939) (aka Drop to his Death)
This novel fits the "locked room" genre.  A man enters his private elevator on the fourth floor of his office building.  When the elevator door is opened in the lobby, he is found shot dead.  There is nobody else in the elevator (and no gun).

Written in collaboration with John Rhode (pen name for Cecil Street, a novelist and mystery writer), perhaps to take advantage of the latter's well-known penchant for incorporating science into puzzles of detection.  None of the principal characters are employed in Carr's other novels, but the language and style seem to be that of Carr.  The text presents four or five possible solutions to the impossible crime, before debunking all of them and revealing the true answer.  Herewith some of the non-plot items that I found interesting:

Carr's sense of humor is more evident in the Gideon Fell series, but crops up in this exchange between the chief inspector and the police surgeon:

(discussing another case) "I knew the butler was guilty all along.  So did everybody else.  But would you have that?  Oh, no! You showed, with your fishing line and your putty, that the Countess of Daimler was really guilty; and the things you said about that lady's past--"

Glass was annoyed.  "I said nothing about her past.  I merely pointed out that the influences of her childhood showed a tendency toward nymphomania--"

"That's fine," said Hornbeam bitterly.  "And what do you think the Count thought about that?  You didn't even tell me what the blasted word meant.  I thought it was some kind of stealing, and I told her husband it might be dangerous to turn her loose in a large department store."

"The murderer fastens a revolver to the concrete roof of the shaft--"  "How?" asked Hornbeam practically.  "Don't be so blasted footling," said Glass.  "I'm an artist; not an artisan.  I leave you to work out the vulgar details." Footling = "foolish, trivial, irritating" rel to footy = poor, worthless.

[a suspect had hidden a whiskey bottle]  "Haviland, in fact, kept the City of Refuge behind a picture hooked against the wall."  Possibly a brand?? (capitalized

"It wasn't bad, was it?  As a flight of imagination, I am proud of it; and I accept the meed of applause that my genius deserves."  Meed = payment for services rendered (directly from the Middle English).

"I will not descant on the tragic irony of the matter." Descant = lengthy discourse (or
counterpoint melody), via French and Latin.  Emphasis on the first syllable, btw.

"I don't see anything bourgeois about it.  What's got into you?  There was a time when nothing in skirts was safe from you.  Why this anchorite attitude all of a sudden?"  Anchorite = one who lives in isolation (from Greek, via Latin).

"Anybody who is triple-dyed ass enough to conduct practical experiments with Dave Hornbeam can think himself lucky if he gets off with a couple broken legs and irreparable damage to the coccyx."  I found other uses of this term, including "Triple-dyed and quadruple-dyed idiot, to have allowed yourself to be caught..." "Do you, O triple-dyed scoundrel, dare to speak disrespectfully to me?" but haven't found how it applies to an insult.  My best guess is that it means "total," as a fabric gets stronger color when it is double-dyed or triple-dyed etc.  Anyone know?

"The first person he saw, urbanely talking to Sergeant Biggs..." "From the city", obviously, apparently with connotations of courteous and polite.

"You're now in control.  The whole show is yours, with the power and the fullness thereof.  You can do as you like here..."  Repurposing a Biblical phrase.

"Let's cut the cackle and get down to horses." I found this I think definitive explanation in a 1929 issue of The Spectator:

I think I can enlighten your correspondent " H. M. W.," who asks for the origin of the slogan, " Cut the cackle and get to the 'osses." The words were originally "Cut the dialect and come to the 'oases," and were a favourite saying of Andrew Ducrow, one of the most famous circus-riders of the early nineteenth century.

"He thought he was safe as houses."  World Wide Words has a post about this phrase.

The Emperor's Snuff Box (1942)
Begins with an uncharacteristic bit of melodrama.  It has been suggested that this was done to counter the criticism that his other novels are pure logic puzzles.  The amateur detective is Dr. Dermot Kinross.  Not a locked-room mystery and not an "impossible crime."  Instead, the victim has his head  bashed in with a fireplace poker in his unlocked study (while examining a snuff box said to have belonged to the emperor Napoleon).   The murderer was - and this is the maddening and endearing aspect of JDC's novels - totally unexpected.  As always, I defer discussing the plot to avoid spoilers and focus instead on language curiosities and things-you-wouldn't-know:

"Taking cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket, he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The flame of the lighter wabbled in his hand before he snapped it out."  Not a typo - just a less-common spelling of "wobble."

"For one horrible second she thought he was going to laugh in her face.  But even Ned Atwood was not ironist enough for this."  If a person using satire is a satirist, then a person using irony is logically an ironist - but I have to say I've never seen this word before.

"But, by the Lord Harry! - for a gal of your age and presumed experience, you've got more dewy-eyed illusions about the sweet simplicity of the world than anybody I ever did see!"  "Old Harry" has been euphemism for the Devil since the 18th century.  "the phrase was popular with 19th century writers, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Fenimore Cooper, Stevenson, etc."  Wikisource has an extensive review of English expletives.

"Janice at twenty-three was small and round, trim and trig, bouncing and assertive..."  The phrase refers to something "neat and tidy, in good order, immaculate."  Convoluted origins dating back prior to 1600, explained at the World Wide Words link.

"Fifteen years on the island: that is most probable.  Ten years perhaps, or even five, if she has a clever lawyer... Of course, you understand, even five years on the island is not a bag of shells."  In context the "on the island" refers to someone being in prison; this novel is set in France, so Alcatraz not the reference - perhaps Elba or Devil's island being referenced figuratively.  "Bag of shells" I presume is a humorous corruption of "bagatelle."

"The prefect of police wore a bowler hat which accentuated his bulbousness, and carried a malacca stick."  A walking stick made of rattan palms.

"Dear doctor, I am not a detective.  No, no, no!  But as for zizipompom, that is different.  Any form of zizipompom I can detect at a distance of three kilometres and in the dark."  I wasn't able to track down any precise definition, though I did find the word used in a book about French people.

"And how, in the name of a small green cabbage, should I know?"  Carr has a propensity to pepper his narratives with idioms and local phrases.  The intent here is clear; not sure if the phrase has a backstory.

"Then why, in the name of a name, doesn't she speak out?"  Another euphemism, apparently the equivalent of "wtf."


"Some of the exhibits stood in lonely splendor, others were ticketed with neat cards in the same tiny copperplate writing."  A style of calligraphy (illustrated at the link).

"That damned maid of yours is behind all this, or I'm a Dutchman."  I found this: "The phrase '...or I'm a Dutchman' (meaning x is true, and if it is not true then I am something I am not), comes from a George Elliot novel, 'The Mill on the Floss'... This phrase was in fairly common use, and then was partly replaced by '.... or I'm a Chinaman'.

"The effect of his swinging the carriage round was like one of those  newsreel effects by which the film is speeded up, and a whole street suddenly becomes galvanized."  In this instance I think the author is using the term to mean "covered with zinc, as a protection against rust."  It can also mean to startle or to stimulate, as a muscle of a dead frog with electricity.

"What would you do, if you'd been handed the mitten in that suave and gracious way?  I was properly jilted, wasn't I?"  A curious phrase which essentially means "given marching orders." Discussed at considerable length at World Wide Words.  Used frequently by P.G. Wodehouse.  "probable that it derives from a French tradition by which a young lady who wished to decline a marriage proposal sent her suitor a pair of mittens."  This novel is set in France, so this fits in well.

"The person who planned it deserves no mercy, and is going to get none.  I shall see you tonight.  And then, heaven willing, we are going to settle somebody's hash."  The dictionary definition is "to get rid of; to subdue." Origin of the phrase is discussed here.

"As to what she may have told you, that's another pair of sleeves.  I can't say."  Obviously equivalent to "a different kettle of fish," but the origin is interesting: "... a colorful expression that we use in Italian to describe something that is about a completely different thing with no connection to a previous one. The expression comes from the Medieval and Renaissance use of interchangeable sleeves in men's and women's dress in particular."  Very interesting.  I'll blog that separately.  You learn something every day.

"These last couple of days," she continued, "everything hasn't been exactly gas and gaiters."  Wiktionary defines it simply as "a pleasant situation," quoting Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby): "'Aha!' cried the old gentleman, folding his hands, and squeezing them with great force against each other. 'I see her now; I see her now! My love, my life, my bride, my peerless beauty. She is come at last--at last--and all is gas and gaiters!'  But why this pairing??

The Nine Wrong Answers (1952)
Carr described this work as a novel of "character" and "fast action" without "police investigation."  There is no detective; the protagonist has to solve the problem of why an old man is trying to murder him.  I was so pleased with myself for having deduced the plot twist near the beginning of the story - only to find myself (as usual) totally wrong. 

"Bill snatched up the brief case."  Not a typo - the item is described in this way on multiple occasions.

"Cheero," Bill said without enthusiasm."  I always thought the word was "Cheerio," but that's probably a bastardization from movies and TV.  The Oxford dictionaries indicate that it can also be spelled cheeroh and cheer ho.

"Many streets away he found a dog-wagon.  Ordering bacon and eggs, pie, and coffee, he held the brief case on his knees..."  I found the term used to refer to a short-order or fast-food restaurant.  Not sure why.

"Satan's teeth!"  I found nothing relevant.

"Everything was flung in, including Larry's shaving tackle..."  Obvious in context; apparently from Middle English takel (“gear, apparatus”).

"Damn this arm rest between us!  It's like the wall between Pyramus and Thisbe."  Ill-fated lovers in Ovid's Metamorphoses.  Details at Wikipedia.  My education fell short on this one, so I'll write it up for a blog post.

Several references to Heath Row airport - always written as two words.  The airport was built at the site of the hamlet sometimes spelled as two words; I don't see any other reference to the airport thus written.

RAF written as Raf.  Suspect this must be a typesetter's error.

"His doctors' and nurses' fees, the estimated correctly at about a hundred quid." (for a week in hospital.  How times change.)

"He might greet you with the cry of the old clo'man, or Sir Laurence Olivier playing Richard the Third."  I found nothing - anywhere - until this YouTube video, where the word is written the same way, with an apostrophe.  In the video it may refer to a banjo player.  ???  And a Google-listed book has this sentence: "Othello became a Christy Minstrel, Shylock an old clo'man from Hounsditch..."  I'm guessing (and it's only that) that the apostrophe shortens "clothing man," maybe referring to a rag-and-bone man.  Maybe the nature of Hounsditch offers a clue.  Some reader may know...

"Tonight, [I] dropped into a newsreel theater for a time..."  I'm old enough to remember newsreels preceding movies.  Not old enough to remember theaters devoted entirely to newsreels and other short features.

This was my second or third - and at my age final - read of these books, so I've combined them with the other four non-series detective novels (The Bowstring Murders, Below Suspicion, Patrick Butler for the Defense, and Poison in Jest) and have listed all seven on eBay (as a lot of three and a lot of four books), starting at nominal opening bids.  Domestic shipping only at Media Mail rate.

Next I'll move on to the Henry Merrivale and Gideon Fell mysteries.

They could be called "oxterpeckers"

As reported by National Geographic:

Scientists have long known that yellow-billed oxpeckers hang out on massive African mammals like giraffe, water buffalo, and eland during the day—an often beneficial relationship that provides hosts with cleaner, healthier skin. These small brown birds can often be seen perched on top or hanging off the animals, picking through their hair in search of tasty parasites like ticks.

But a series of rare photos from a large multi-year camera trap study in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park have revealed that the birds actually roost on some of their hosts overnight...

"You look at them on the giraffe and they're just right up in there," says Meredith Palmer, a Ph.D. candidate in behavioral ecology at the University of Minnesota. "It's a very safe, comfortable place for the birds."..

Yellow-billed oxpeckers nest in trees or other vegetation when it's time to lay their eggs. But the rest of the time they're perfectly happy dangling from a giraffe—sometimes, seven birds are seen clustered in a single armpit. 

Re my tongue-in-cheek title for the post:

Definition of "oxter" - chiefly Scotland and Ireland : armpit. (etymology: Middle English (Scots), alteration of Old English ōxta; akin to Old English eax axis, axle).

Photo credit Meredith Palmer. 

Take that, Governor Walker!

On the left (literally and figuratively), Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton.  In the opposite corner (politically), Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.  They each took office in 2010 in demographically-similar states; their performance since that time has been analyzed in detail by David Cooper (Georgetown University) and published by the Economic Policy Institute.  Herewith a summary -

Since the 2010 election of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Governor Mark Dayton in Minnesota, lawmakers in these two neighboring states have enacted vastly different policy agendas. Governor Walker and the Wisconsin state legislature have pursued a highly conservative agenda centered on cutting taxes, shrinking government, and weakening unions. In contrast, Minnesota under Governor Dayton has enacted a slate of progressive priorities: raising the minimum wage, strengthening safety net programs and labor standards, and boosting public investments in infrastructure and education, financed through higher taxes (largely on the wealthy).

Because of the proximity and many similarities of these two states, comparing economic performance in the Badger State (WI) versus the Gopher State (MN) provides a compelling case study for assessing which agenda leads to better outcomes for working people and their families. Now, seven years removed from when each governor took office, there is ample data to assess which state’s economy—and by extension, which set of policies—delivered more for the welfare of its residents. The results could not be more clear: by virtually every available measure, Minnesota’s recovery has outperformed Wisconsin’s...

Key findings include:

• Job growth since December 2010 has been markedly stronger in Minnesota than Wisconsin, with Minnesota experiencing 11.0 percent growth in total nonfarm employment, compared with only 7.9 percent growth in Wisconsin. Minnesota’s job growth was better than Wisconsin’s in the overall private sector (12.5 percent vs. 9.7 percent) and in higher-wage industries, such as construction (38.6 percent vs. 26.0 percent) and education and health care (17.3 percent vs. 11.0 percent).
• From 2010 to 2017, wages grew faster in Minnesota than in Wisconsin at every decile in the wage distribution. Low-wage workers experienced much stronger growth in Minnesota than Wisconsin, with inflation-adjusted wages at the 10th and 20th percentile rising by 8.6 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively, in Minnesota vs. 6.3 percent and 6.4 percent in Wisconsin.
• Gender wage gaps also shrank more in Minnesota than in Wisconsin. From 2010 to 2017, women’s median wage as a share of men’s median wage rose by 3.0 percentage points in Minnesota, and by 1.5 percentage points in Wisconsin.
• Median household income in Minnesota grew by 7.2 percent from 2010 to 2016. In Wisconsin, it grew by 5.1 percent over the same period. Median family income exhibited a similar pattern, growing 8.5 percent in Minnesota compared with 6.4 percent in Wisconsin.
• Minnesota made greater progress than Wisconsin in reducing overall poverty, child poverty, and poverty as measured under the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure. As of 2016, the overall poverty rate in Wisconsin as measured in the American Community Survey (11.8 percent) was still roughly as high as the poverty rate in Minnesota at its peak in the wake of the Great Recession (11.9 percent, in 2011).
• Minnesota residents were more likely to have health insurance than their counterparts in Wisconsin, with stronger insurance take-up of both public and private health insurance since 2010.
• From 2010 to 2017, Minnesota has had stronger overall economic growth (12.8 percent vs. 10.1 percent), stronger growth per worker (3.4 percent vs. 2.7 percent), and stronger population growth (5.1 percent vs. 1.9 percent) than Wisconsin. In fact, over the whole period—as well as in the most recent year—more people have been moving out of Wisconsin to other states than have been moving in from elsewhere in the U.S. The same is not true of Minnesota.

Way more information, with charts, in this longread.  Kudos to my old friend and schoolmate, Mark Dayton.

Photo via Urban Milwaukee.

Woodpile

Click the photo to enlarge and appreciate.  Credit uncertain - probably Alastair Heseltine (or someone who copied him).  Via.

The first use of "O.M.G." was in 1917

Credit to Anorak at Flashbak for finding a letter from Lord Fisher to Winston Churchill, written in 1917.

Via Smithsonian.  Image cropped for size and contrast-enhanced from the original.

Reconsidering grape scissors

I was unaware of the existence of grape scissors/shears until I heard them mentioned in passing on a podcast of No Such Thing As A Fish.  Found the image and the text below at AC Silver in the UK:

Grape shears and grape scissors are an instrument specifically designed for cutting grape stalks, and are smaller and designed especially for the purpose. Grape shears were invented in the 19th century, and the earliest examples were from the Regency period, although very few have survived and these early examples are extraordinarily rare now.

These shears or scissors are about 6 to 7 inches (15 to 18 cm) long. The handles are much longer than the blades, so that you can insert the blades deeply into a cluster of grapes. Most of the scissor ends have blunt tips, so that they won’t puncture the fruit.

The grape shears would sometimes be found as part of a set with a grapestand, and the earlier grape shears from the late Georgian period were more like scissors, with equally long blades and handles. These were often gold-gilt, demonstrating the high value that the grape shears had been imbued with as an item of cutlery, and as part of a dinner service. Later though, grape shears were usually made of sterling silver, as with most high quality dinnerware, so as to avoid tarnishing and to stand the test of time.

After the 1850s, most of the shears produced included a flange which had been added to one of the blades, so that once the grapes had been cut, they could then be elegantly placed on to the diner’s plate while still holding the shears...

More at the link (along with other interesting silver info).  My knee-jerk reaction was to mock the scissors (especially with silver plate and the velvet-lined custom container), but as I think about serving grapes, it is difficult to separate a cluster from a large bunch without placing the other hand on the bunch, so if grapes are shared with a larger group, the last person gets some much-handled fruit.  At a picnic or with family, such considerations are insignificant, but I'm wondering if I were to serve grapes at a party whether passing around a pair of ordinary kitchen scissors would be appropriate, or would that be considered posh?

Atrocity

Minnesota Public Radio provided the story:

[In 2015] Asma Jama sat chatting with her family in a booth at the Coon Rapids  [Minnesota] Applebee's, a glass of cranberry juice just set before her. A few minutes later, she was in an ambulance and bleeding, her lower lip split in two... As Jama waited for her pasta alfredo, a woman at a nearby booth smashed a beer mug in her face.

The reason? Jama had been speaking Swahili with her family.

Jodie Burchard-Risch, 43, and her husband had been sitting in the booth next to Jama, who was with her cousins and nieces. The couple became upset when they heard Jama and her family conversing in a foreign language, according to a criminal complaint.

Jama said the couple told them to "go home." They said that "when you're in America you should speak English."

Jama, an ethnic Somali, came to Minnesota in 2000 from Kenya. She speaks three languages: English, Swahili and Somali.

"I'm home," she told Burchard-Risch at the Applebee's. "I can speak English, but we choose to speak whatever language we want."

Authorities say that's when Burchard-Risch hit Jama in the face with the glass mug. 

A reader at BoingBoing provides a Biblical counterpart:

Judges 12:5-6 King James Version (KJV)

5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;

6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

This wasn't intended to be a Venn diagram

Via the Crappy Design subreddit.

This is called the "Toenail Hoard"

The story dates back to 2015, but I just heard about it in a podcast of No Such Thing As A Fish, and thought it worth posting.

Hundreds of 16th Century coin clippings have been discovered in a Gloucestershire field. The 500 silver clippings, dubbed the Toenail Hoard, were unearthed by Gavin Warren using a metal detector in the Forest of Dean. Shaved from the edges of coins dating back to 1560, the precious metal would have been melted down and sold... Mr Adams, from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, said the hoard, currently being catalogued at the British Museum, was not only "one of the biggest" but a "fantastic bit of social history"... The earliest clippings date from the reign of Elizabeth I, so 1560s to 1570s, and the latest from 1645," he said.

This is of course why coins made of precious metal are milled on the edges. (These appear to have embossed edges, which apparently didn't deter a determined thief).

"Microblading" for cosmetic eyebrow enhancement

In microblading, a practitioner uses tiny needles to make shallow cuts in and around the eyebrow, which are filled in with ink. It's similar to a tattoo, but it's only semi-permanent. That means it will fade over time, sometimes lasting up to three years, although the results can vary.

The dye placement is meant to mimic individual hairs, so it can make overplucked eyebrows look full and defined. It only takes a quick Google search to find a salon or spa offering the service. But microblading is largely unregulated and carries risks, as Jennifer found out.

The rest of the story is here.

Skiers? Or musical notes?

Cross-country skiers (image cropped for size from the original).  But here they are "transcribed" as musical notes...

And you can listen to the score HERE (credit to Redditor K8hoxie).

"That's another pair of sleeves" explained

I encountered the phrase in a John Dickson Carr mystery, and decided the explanation was worthy of a separate post.  Herewith an excerpt from Friends of Cama's Blog.

"That's another pair of sleeves" is a colorful expression that we use in Italian to describe something that is about a completely different thing with no connection to a previous one. 

The expression comes from the Medieval and Renaissance use of interchangeable sleeves in men's and women's dress...

The interchangeable sleeve tradition in the Renaissance was also part of the lover's cup tradition of giving an engagement token of love to one's beloved for their wedding. Interchangeable sleeves could be so valuable that they were kept in safes.

So the next time I'm tempted to say "another ballgame" or "another kettle of fish" I'll substitute this phrase.

This sign at the party for Jana...

Via the Funny subreddit.