Quote of the day

Cribbed from The Economist:

Inspiration for the € symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon (Є) – a reference to the cradle of European civilisation – and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to ‘certify’ the stability of the euro.

Shipwrecks in Shakespeare

I don't think they got it quite right tonight on Jeopardy, although I might not have gotten the text of the question completely straight - I thought it was something like "One of the two plays of Shakespeare where the action began with a shipwreck".  My first thought was "The Tempest", and that's the answer all three contestants got.  The second choice offered was Twelfth Night, which was not the first thing I thought of when looking for a second choice.

How about The Comedy of Errors?

From Act I, Scene I (bolding mine):

O, had the gods done so, I had not now
Worthily term'd them merciless to us!
For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,
We were encounterd by a mighty rock;
Which being violently borne upon,
Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst;
So that, in this unjust divorce of us,
Fortune had left to both of us alike
What to delight in, what to sorrow for.
Her part, poor soul! seeming as burdened
With lesser weight but not with lesser woe,
Was carried with more speed before the wind;
And in our sight they three were taken up
By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.
At length, another ship had seized on us;
And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,
Gave healthful welcome to their shipwreck'd guests;
And would have reft the fishers of their prey,
Had not their bark been very slow of sail;
And therefore homeward did they bend their course.
Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss;
That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,
To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.

Since nobody guessed that, I guess I'll never know why that was not considered a valid answer

I had to apologize last night....

Of course, it is not all that rare for me to apologize.  When I inadvertently jostle somebody, or I step on somebody's foot, a heartfelt "sorry" or "get out of my way" slips past my lips without much emotion.

But this time I was actually wrong.

One of the most likely things for me to order at a bar is "a Grand Marnier, straight up in a snifter".  I've been ordering this since the 80s without the occurrence of any disasters.  Sometimes I just say "Grand Marnier", figuring it's the most likely way for it to be served - in a brandy glass, without any ice.

Last night, before the RPO concert at Max's across the street, I ordered a "Grand Marnier" and the bartender asked "neat?" and I said "straight up".  She brought me a concoction I didn't even recognize, cloudy and cold.   After looking at her incredulously, I repeated "Grand Marnier, straight up"?  She nodded cheerfully.  I informed her what I thought "straight up" meant...she seemed dubious, but set the original glass aside and poured me a new one the way I wanted it.  As I enjoyed it, I decided to look up "straight up".

To my amazement, it was exactly the concoction she brought me in the first place....strained through ice to chill it and then served without any further ice to water it down (logical, if you want your drink cold).  For almost thirty years I've been ordering drinks "straight up" without finding out what that actually meant (OK, the article DOES say

"Straight up" means "chilled and served without ice in a cocktail glass" but is often used to mean "neat."

In retrospect, there have been times when bartenders asked  whether I wanted it chilled, but I thought they were just offering an additional unrelated service.  On this occasion, since I had just overruled her "neat" (thinking I was actually confirming it) she couldn't have asked for further clarification without seeming argumentative.

I bought the original glass as well to get an idea of what I've been ordering all these years (not bad, actually, but the temperature tempts you to pour it down the throat much faster than is wise) and apologized.  I'll be ordering it "neat in a snifter" from now on (although back in the 80s "neat", which was the first word I learned for the concept (in a Chinese cookbook, of all places), usually got the bartender to ask "You mean 'straight up'?"

Am I the victim of regional language change, or just delusional?

"Ae day whan he wis striddlin his cuddie doun the brae"

Perhaps translating Chinese into Scots is a sign that somebody has too much time on his hands, but I found myself oddly fascinated.

Personality of the week: builder and book burner

Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang

Started the (first version of the) great wall and destroyed (almost all) the literature.

Trivia of the day

Maltese is the only semitic language normally written in a Latin alphabet.
- Language Log