Showing posts with label lauren collins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lauren collins. Show all posts

Friday, April 01, 2016

Word of the day: colza

The word of the day is colza:
  1. a plant, Brassica napus, of the mustard family, whose leaves are used for food for hogs, sheep, etc., and whose seeds yield rape oil.


"There is the information overload. One is occasionally reminded of the Yonville agricultural fair in 'Madame Bovary,' as detailed by M. Lieuvain, from the prefecture: 'Here it is the vine, elsewhere the apple tree for cider, there colza, farther on cheeses and flax.'" 

 - Lauren Collins, "Come to the fair: the food-and-booze fest that is France's national agricultural exhibition", 4 April 2016 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/inside-the-salon-international-de-lagriculture)

Word of the day: ikat

The word of the day is ikat:
  1. a method of printing woven fabric by tie-dyeing the warp yarns (warp ikat)the weft yarns (weft ikat) or both(double ikat) before weaving.
  2. a fabric made by this method.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ikat)


"'Hearing the aspirants to the Presidential nomination who traversed the corridors of the exposition halls in Paris yesterday, one could sometimes find oneself in doubt that it was indeed the Salon de l’Agriculture 2016 that they were visiting, and not the 2017 edition,' Le Figaro asserted. The politicians knew that things would be tense. It was interesting to imagine them waking up at dawn on the mornings of their Salon visits, steeling themselves to walk the gantlet of éleveurs—of eye-patched Abondances and woolly Salers; of Basque pigs with their ikat hides—certain that they were in for abuse, the only question being how much, and whether they could withstand it."

 - Lauren Collins, "Come to the fair: the food-and-booze fest that is France's national agricultural exhibition", 4 April 2016 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/inside-the-salon-international-de-lagriculture)

Word of the day: demonym

The word of the day is demonym:

the name used for the people who live in a particular country, state, or other locality

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/demonym)


"One Sunday morning, my husband and I caught the seven-forty-two train to Paris. By eleven-thirty (from Switzerland, it was maybe a mesotour), we were sampling what would become my favorite delicacy in all the land, the tourteau fromagé of Poitou-Charentes. (Giving Mancunians and Arkansawyers a run for their money in the demonym stakes, the area’s residents are known as the Picto-Charentais.)"

 - Lauren Collins, "Come to the fair: the food-and-booze fest that is France's national agricultural exhibition", 4 April 2016 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/inside-the-salon-international-de-lagriculture)

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Word of the day: Ti' Punch

The word of the day is Ti' Punch:

Down in Martinique and Guadeloupe, rhum agricole country, the preferred way of absorbing the daily ration is in a Ti' Punch -- ti' being how you say petit in the Creole they speak down there. Any drink that has "little" in its name, watch out -- it's like the guy they call Tiny, the one standing over by the keg whom you mistook for a piece of earthmoving equipment. Like the Cuban daiquiri or the Brazilian caipirinha, this do-it-yourself classic (a lot of joints just put the ingredients out and let you have at 'em) uses lime and a cane-based sweetener to take the edge off the hooch. The difference is in the form of the sweetener: For a true Ti' Punch, you need cane syrup, the raw juice of the cane boiled down until thick. This is richer and mellower (and less sweet) than the refined white sugar usually used in drinks, yet not as heavy and sulfurous as molasses; in any case, it's the perfect foil for the rhum. Also -- you're supposed to knock it back in one shot. In the morning.

(http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/recipes/a3856/ti-punch-drink-recipe/)


"Each of the country’s eighteen regions sponsors an area highlighting its gastronomy. Slurp down some oysters in Arcachon, grab some choucroute in Alsace, and then turn a corner and you’re in Martinique, drinking Ti’ Punch."

 - Lauren Collins, "Come to the fair: the food-and-booze fest that is France's national agricultural exhibition", 4 April 2016 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/inside-the-salon-international-de-lagriculture)

Word of the day: bleisure

The word of the day is bleisure:

It is a portmanteau of business and leisure, and is used to describe what some people claim is a new type of business traveller: one who fits in leisure travel while on the road.

(http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2015/03/mixing-business-and-leisure)


"Microtourism is not glamping (no yurt) or bleisure (no work) or minimooning (no wedding)."

 - Lauren Collins, "Come to the fair: the food-and-booze fest that is France's national agricultural exhibition", 4 April 2016 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/inside-the-salon-international-de-lagriculture)

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

word of the day: Taylorism

The word of the day is Taylorism:

"System of scientific management advocated by Fred W. Taylor. In Taylor’s view, the task of factory management was to determine the best way for the worker to do the job, to provide the proper tools and training, and to provide incentives for good performance. He broke each job down into its individual motions, analyzed these to determine which were essential, and timed the workers with a stopwatch. With unnecessary motion eliminated, the worker, following a machinelike routine, became far more productive." (Encyclopaedia Britannica)


"Gardner said that a wearable computer terminal (Motorola, 2013) had made her and her colleagues think about Taylorism and scientific management."

 - Lauren Collins, "Very important objects", 28 July 2014 The New Yorker


And here I thought Frank Gilbreth invented that.

Monday, September 01, 2014

word of the day: concertina

The word of the day is concertina:

noun
1. a musical instrument resembling an accordion but having buttonlike keys, hexagonal bellows and ends, and a more limited range.
 
verb (used without object)
3. to fold, crush together, or collapse in the manner of a concertina:

verb (used with object)
4. to cause to fold or collapse in the manner of a concertina.
 
adjective
5. of, pertaining to, or resembling a concertina (dictionary.com)

"She is one of the four curators in the museum's Contemporary Architecture, Design, and Digital Department, which this month launched a project called Rapid Response Collecting.  Its stated goal is to demonstrate 'how design reflects and defines how we live together today.'  In practical terms, this means that the curators have been given carte blanche to scour the streets - in a global sense - for items of interest and get them into the museum as quickly as possible.  'It concertinas the amount of time that it takes to make an acquisition,' Gardner said, leading a visitor up the marble stairs of the 20th Century wing, where a gallery had been set up to display the Rapid Response unit's finds."

 - Lauren Collins, "Very important objects", 28 July 2014 The New Yorker

Sunday, May 26, 2013

word of the day: diamanté

The word of the day is diamanté:


Etymology:  French, past participle of diamanter to set with diamonds, to make shine like diamonds.
Material to which a sparkling effect is given by the use of paste brilliants, powdered glass or crystal, etc. Also attrib. (OED)


"In 'Country Girl', O'Brien uses the frame of memory to crop the commonplace out of life.  She loses her virginity in a field outside Dublin, but recalls 'the damp of the grass, a diamanté hair slide that I had lost, the peas that kept slipping off his fork.'"

 - Lauren Collins, "Ink: where she was from", 20 May 2013 The New Yorker

Sunday, November 18, 2012

word of the day: appurtenance

The word of the day is appurtenance:

Etymology:  < Anglo-Norman apurtenance (12th cent. in Littré), Old French aper- and, regularly, apartenance (compare Provençal apartenensa , Italian appartenenza ) < late Latin appertinēntia , < appertinēre : see appertain v. and -ance suffix. The second vowel has varied, as a , e , o , u , but the last is now the accepted spelling. For instances assimilated to appertain , see appertainance n. Formerly often used unchanged in the plural. 
 
1. Law and gen. A thing that belongs to another, a ‘belonging’; a minor property, right, or privilege, belonging to another more important, and passing in possession with it; an appendage.
2. A thing which naturally and fitly forms a subordinate part of, or belongs to, a whole system; a contributory adjunct, an accessory. 
3. esp. in pl. The mechanical accessories employed in any function or complex scheme; apparatus, gear. Also fig. 
4. The fact or state of appertaining.  (OED)


"Sibyl Hathaway, the indomitable Dame of Sark, had ruled the island for forty-seven years, after inheriting the title from her father, whose grandmother bought it off the Le Pelley family, which had acquired it in 1730 from creditors of the descendants of the nobleman Hélier de Carteret, to whom Elizabeth I, in 1565, first granted the fief 'with all its rights, members, liberties, and appurtenances, and all and each of its castles, fortresses, houses, buildings, structures, ruined or collapsed with age, lands, meadows, pastures, commons, wastes, woods, waters... vicarages, chapels and churches of every kind,' on the condition that he insure its continuous habitation by forty armed men."

 - Lauren Collins, "Sark Spring: a feudal feud in the Channel Islands", 29 October & 5 November 2012 The New Yorker

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

word of the day: ceilidh

The word of the day is ceilidh:

Etymology:  < Irish céilidhe, Scottish Gaelic cēilidh, < Old Irish céile companion.
  In Scotland and Ireland:
a. An evening visit, a friendly social call.
b. A session of traditional music, storytelling, or dancing. Also attrib. and fig.  (OED)



"Nearby, on the premises of the Army & Navy Club, Scotland was running what the Glasgow Herald had deemed a 'macschmoozathon.'  It was a blur of whiskey tastings and ceilidhs."

 - Lauren Collins, "Olympics postcard: Globe-trotter", 13 & 20 August 2012 The New Yorker

Monday, September 10, 2012

word of the day: raclette

The word of the day is raclette:

Etymology:  < French raclette (small) scraper (1788), traditional melted cheese dish, (also) type of cheese used in preparing the dish (1896), (in archaeology) stone tool of the scraper type discovered in the valley of the Vézère in south-west France
1.a. A scraper, a strigil. (Now only in sense 1b). 
b. Archaeol. A stone tool of the scraper type discovered in the valley of the Vézère in south-west France, and dating from the early Magdalenian period. 
2. Cookery. A dish traditionally made in parts of Switzerland and France, consisting of melted cheese served with potatoes, pickled onions, and gherkins; cheese of the type used in this dish. (OED)


"France, at Old Billingsgate, the former fish market, was a corporate scene.  But Switzerland had erected a climbing wall in the shadow of Southwark Cathedral.  Nice spread.  Appenzeller on tap, the air funky with the smell of raclette."

 - Lauren Collins, "Olympics postcard: Globe-trotter", 13 & 20 August 2012 The New Yorker

Sunday, September 09, 2012

word of the day: Tyrolean

The word of the day is Tyrolean:

Etymology:  < Tyrol (see def.) + -ean suffix.
A. adj.Belonging to Tyrol (often called ‘the Tyrol’), a former crown land of Austria-Hungary, embracing the present Austrian province of Tyrol and parts of northern Italy. 
B. n.A native or inhabitant of Tyrol. (OED)


"On a deck with a view of the Tower of London, some non-Austrian-looking office workers stood drinking pints of Steigl.  They had already got their pictures taken on the ski lift - there were goggles and everything - against a painted Tyrolean backdrop."

 - Lauren Collins, "Olympics postcard: Globe-trotter", 13 & 20 August 2012 The New Yorker

Friday, September 02, 2011

Word of the day: precise

The word of the day is precise:



Etymology:  < French préciser to make precise, to determine exactly (c1350 in Middle French in an isolated attestation; subsequently from 1788) < précisprecise adj. 
trans. To make precise or definite; to define precisely or exactly; to particularize. Now rare. (OED)



"I wrote a piece for the T.L.S., so I'm just précising it."

 - Judith Flanders, as quoted by Lauren Collins, "Nerd Out", 29 August 2011 The New Yorker

Not entirely sure why The New Yorker is choosing to go with the French spelling while the OED doesn't: perhaps it's just one more of its eccentricities, like the way it spells "coöperate" (which I first saw in my edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, and have enthusiastically adopted ever since).

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Word of the day: omertà

The word of the day is omertà:
< Italian omertà (1865 or earlier), further origin uncertain and disputed.

The Italian word is probably not of Sicilian origin, as shown by its phonology (unstressed e and o do not normally occur in Sicilian dialects). Most scholars interpret it as an alteration of Spanish hombredad manliness (13th cent., now rare; < hombre man (see hombre n.) + -edad-ity suffix) after Italian regional (Sicily) omu man (see homo n.1). The alternative explanation as a regional variant (compare Italian regional (Naples) umertà) of Italian umiltàhumility n. (with allusion to the Mafia code which enjoins submission of the group to the leader as well as silence on all Mafia concerns) is not well supported by the geographical distribution of the word.
 
1. A Mafia code of honour which demands absolute loyalty to the organization and silence about its activities, esp. refusal to give evidence of criminal activity to the police.
2. In extended use: a code of silence, esp. about clandestine or criminal activity; a refusal to talk openly about something. (OED)


"Bryant continued to flout the omertà... He made a largely ignored speech about phonehacking in 2010. In March, he called upon a nearly deserted Commons chamber to investigate the allegations."

 - Lauren Collins, "Early birds", 25 July 2011 The New Yorker

Monday, August 01, 2011

Words of the day: pants, bumptious, and berk

The words of the day are pants, bumptious, and berk:

pants.  Shortened < pantaloons, plural of pantaloon n.
orig. U.S. 
4. Brit. slang. Rubbish; nonsense. Freq. in pile (also load) of pants .The use of the noun in this sense is often difficult to distinguish from a predicative adjectival use. (OED)


bumptious.  A humorous formation, suggested perhaps by bump n.1 or bump v.1, and words in -tious, like fractious. (Not in Craig 1847, nor in any earlier Dict.)
Offensively self-conceited; self-assertive. (colloq. and undignified.) (OED)


berk.  Abbrev. of Berkeley (or Berkshire) Hunt, rhyming slang for [an obscenity].
slang.
A fool. (OED)


"The Times (also Murdoch-owned) published a profile of Bryant titled 'BLAIR’S ATTACK POODLE SAYS PANTS TO THE LOT OF YOU,' which included a blind quote calling Bryant a 'bumptious little berk.'"

 - Lauren Collins, "Early birds", 25 July 2011 The New Yorker


Firstly, I'm not convinced that the use of the word pants here is quite the same as in the dictionary.  Secondly, given berk's etymology, I wonder if it doesn't have a bit more bite and mysogyny to it than merely "fool".

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Word of the day: roger

The word of the day is roger:

coarse slang (chiefly Brit.).
 trans. Usually of a man: to have sexual intercourse with (a person, esp. a woman). Also intr. (OED)


"Over the years, the tabloids continued to give Bryant hell: 'VOTERS MUST GIVE CHRIS BRYANT A RHONDDA ROGERING,' read a typical headline in Murdoch’s Sun."

 - Lauren Collins, "Early birds", 25 July 2011 The New Yorker

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Word of the day: complected

The word of the day is complected:

apparently < complexion n. (complect-ion) + -ed suffix1.
U.S. dial. or colloq.
= complexioned adj. (OED)


"'I think David Cameron is in much bigger doo-doo than he's owning up to,' Chris Bryant, the strawberry-complected Labour M.P. for the district of Rhondda, was saying last week, as he sat on a bench under the soaring hammer-beam roof of Westminster Hall."

 - Lauren Collins, "Early birds", 25 July 2011 The New Yorker

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The word of the day is integument:


 Latin integument-um covering, integĕre to cover.
  That with which anything is covered, enclosed, or clothed; a covering, investment, coating. 
a. In general sense.
b. spec. The natural covering or investment of the body, or of some part or organ, of an animal or plant; a skin, shell, husk, rind, etc. (OED)


"In the eighteen-hundreds, people called men's underwear 'nether integuments'."

 - Lauren Collins, Dept. of Foundations, "Skivvies 101", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

Friday, December 03, 2010

The word of the day is publican:


< Anglo-Norman pupplican, Anglo-Norman and Old French publican, Old French, Middle French publicain (French publicain) tax-gatherer (end of the 12th cent. in Old French) and its etymon classical Latin pūblicānus contractor for the collection of taxes and dues, tax-gatherer
 
1.a. Roman Hist. A person who farms the public taxes; a tax-gatherer, esp. any of those in Judaea and Galilee in the New Testament period, who were generally regarded as traitorous and impious on account of their service of Rome and their extortion.The word is freq. in biblical quotations or allusions, esp. with reference to the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:10–11).

 b. gen. Any collector of toll, tribute, customs, etc. Also fig. Now rare.
 
  2. A person regarded as a heathen; a person cut off from the Church, an excommunicated person. Also in extended use.With reference to Jesus's injunction to treat an excommunicated person as ‘a heathen and publican’ (Matthew 18:17).
  3. A person who owns or manages a public house or tavern.  (OED)


"If Bloomfield and Friedman wanted to be taken seriously as businesspeople, the oyster bar had to be a hit. Its success is critical to establishing their credibility as big-time restaurateurs, rather than twice-lucky publicans."


 - Lauren Collins, "Burger Queen: April Bloomfield's gastropub revolution", The New Yorker, 22 November 2010

Thursday, December 02, 2010

The word of the day is crudo:

"Crudo" actually doesn't appear in the Oxford English Dictionary, so I had to turn to NPR: "The dish consists of raw fish dressed with olive oil, sea salt, acidic juices such as lemon or lime and sometimes vinegar."

Sounds like ceviche to me (i.e., fish that has been cured with acid), but I guess that while ceviche is likely to have Latin American seasonings (chili, cilantro), crudo is more likely to have Italian seasonings (olive oil, basil).

"In the fall of 2008, Friedman and Bloomfield decided to add fish to the meat-and-veg rotation, opening an ambitious seafood restaurant called the John Dory... There were five types of crudo...  When a small space became available in the Ace Hotel, this spring, Bloomfield and Friedman decided to open an oyster bar there... Bloomfield could revive some of her crudo recipes."

 - Lauren Collins, "Burger Queen: April Bloomfield's gastropub revolution", The New Yorker, 22 November 2010