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Fact of the Day - ORIGIN OF "WITH A GRAIN OF SALT" Did you know... ‘Take it with a grain of salt’ all (probably) started with Pliny the Elder, but he was talking about literal poison. If an unverified gossip account on Instagram posts that your favorite celebrity couple just broke up, you might take that rumor with a grain of salt. In other words, you’ll exercise a healthy bit of skepticism and wait for more evidence. The (Likely) Origin of Take It With a Grain of Salt Though no literal salt is involved, it was when the phrase was first mentioned (that we know of) in ancient Rome. In his Natural History, written around 77 CE, Pliny the Elder recounted the story of how Pompey—best known for warring with Julius Caesar—found directions for the concoction that Mithridates VI used to inoculate himself against certain poisons. Mithridates VI famously ingested small doses of poison to build up his immunity, but according to Pliny, the recipe called for other ingredients, too: dried nuts, figs, and rue leaves. Everything should be minced together and taken after having added a grain of salt: addito salis grano. The Meaning of Take It With a Grain of Salt It’s not totally clear how the phrase ended up with its modern meaning—“a skeptical attitude,” per Merriam-Webster—after that. According to Michael Quinion’s blog World Wide Words, some people who read Pliny’s Natural History later on may have mistaken his mention of salt as a figurative warning. As in: “Be skeptical about this recipe, since I’m not sold on its efficacy and you might accidentally poison yourself to death,” or something to that effect. But without any evidence that other ancient Romans used grain of salt as an idiom, it seems more likely that salt was part of the actual recipe. It’s also possible that the idea of using salt to make poison easier to swallow just seemed like an apt description for adding a little skepticism when consuming questionable information. In any case, grain of salt showed up again in John Trapp’s 1647 A commentary or exposition upon all the Epistles and the Revelation of John the Divine, but didn’t really catch on until the 20th century. As HowStuffWorks reports, the literary journal The Athenaeum mentioned it in a 1908 issue that read, “Our reasons for not accepting the author’s pictures of early Ireland without many grains of salt … ” By that point, the idiom was presumably common enough for readers to understand its meaning. But considering the large gaps in the history of the phrase, this rundown can’t exactly be called a comprehensive origin story. In other words: take it with a grain of salt. Source: Why Do We Tell People to Take Something “With a Grain of Salt”?

What's the Word: SYNECDOCHE pronunciation: [sə-NEK-də-kee] Part of speech: noun Origin: Late Middle English, 1350s Meaning: 1. A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa. Examples: "The team's full name is the Jacksonville Jaguars, but they are often referred to by the synecdoche 'Jaguars.'" "The tourism campaign was pushing for 'Maple Town' to be the synecdoche for the village known for its maple syrup festival." About Synecdoche While synecdoche became used through Late Middle English, it originated from the Greek word "sunekdokhē" — a combination of the words "sun" ("together") and "ekdekhesthai" ("to take up"). Did you Know? Despite the complicated spelling and pronunciation of the word "synecdoche" (suh-NEK-duh-kee), you likely use this type of figure of speech every day. If your favorite sports team is the Oakland Athletics baseball team and you call them the "A's," that's synecdoche. Referring to the United States as "America" or saying a statement has been put out by the company when it was actually a single spokesperson are both examples of synecdoche. To clarify, anytime you use a simplified term as a part to represent a whole, or vice versa, that's synecdoche.

Fact of the Day - WHY ARE THEY NAMED THAT? Did you know... Certain generational names are well-known, but how exactly did they come to be in the first place? Discover the origins behind a few of them here. Wondering how different generation names came to be? While the Pew Research Center has revamped their definitions for who gets counted under what generation, who actually decides what those generations are called can be a much hazier thing. Surprisingly, there isn’t one single clearinghouse where these generational names are chosen. Instead, generations frequently receive multiple monikers that then battle it out until only one remains—a process that was being fought between the likes of iGen, Generation Z, and Post-Millennials. Although Gen Z won out as the name for the current generation, older group names generally involve one writer picking a term and then a bunch of other writers all coming to some crude form of consensus—with a couple of failures along the way. Baby Boomers (1946-1964) Calling a dramatic increase in the number of children born a “baby boom” dates to the 19th century. In 1941, an issue of LIFE magazine—discussing the increasing birthrate due to older couples having children after the Great Depression and the many marriages that came about because of the peacetime draft of 1940—proclaimed that “the U.S. baby boom is bad news for Hitler.” The children who would come to be known as Baby Boomers, however, wouldn’t be born for a few more years as soldiers returned home from the war and the economy “boomed.” Although the children born from 1946 to 1964 are referred to by Baby Boomer now, the phrase wouldn’t appear until near the end of that period. In January 1963, the Newport News Daily Press warned of a tidal wave of college enrollment coming as the “Baby Boomers” were growing up. That same year, the Oxford English Dictionary quoted the Salt Lake Tribune as saying “Statistics show that ... long hours of television viewing put an extra strain on chairs, causing upholstered seating pieces to wear out three to four times faster than in the days before television and the baby-boomers.” Oddly, an alternate moniker for people born during this time was Generation X; as London’s The Observer noted in 1964, “Like most generations, ‘Generation X’—as the editors tag today’s under 25s—show a notable lack of faith in the Old Ones.” Generation X (1965-1980) That comment in The Observer was in reference to a then-recently published book called Generation X by Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett. A few years later, Joan Broad bought a copy at a garage sale, her son found it, and he fell in love with the name. That son was Billy Idol, and according to his memoir, “We immediately thought it could be a great name for this new band, since we both felt part of a youth movement bereft of a future, that we were completely misunderstood by and detached from the present social and cultural spectrum. We also felt the name projected the many possibilities that came with presenting our generation’s feelings and thoughts.” The band Generation X would begin Billy Idol’s career. But the name Generation X wouldn’t become associated with a wide group of people until 1991. That’s the year Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture was released. The book became a sensation for its ability to capture early ’90s culture and, although it didn’t coin the words, helped popularize a range of terms as diverse as McJob and pamphleting—and a name for an entire generation. Millennials (1981-1996) What comes after Generation X? Generation Y, obviously. That was the logic behind several newspaper columns that proclaimed the coming of Generation Y in the early ’90s. (While the magazine Advertising Age traditionally gets credit for coining the term in 1993, it was actually in use in 1992.) But as psychologist Jean Twenge explained to NPR regarding the failure of baby busters as a term to describe Generation X, “Labels that derive from the previous generation don’t tend to stick.” Instead, in 1991 authors Neil Howe and William Strauss wrote Generations, which included a discussion about the Millennials. According to Forbes, they felt that as the oldest members of this generation were graduating high school in 2000—and everyone was focusing on the coming date—Millennials seemed a natural fit. Source: How Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials Got Their Names

What's the Word: FETTLE pronunciation: [fedl] Part of speech: noun Origin: Late Middle English, 1300s Meaning: 1. Condition. Examples: "Despite being over a decade old, the biplane remained in fine fettle." "Mark had experience with repairing manual vehicles from keeping his own vintage cars in good fettle." About Fettle While the word "fettle" developed as a verb meaning "to prepare oneself or get ready" in Late Middle English, it originated from the Old English word "fetel" (referring to a strip of material) and the Germanic word "fessel" (meaning "chain, band"). In English, it can still be used as a verb meaning "to make or repair" or in a specific pottery usage, but its most common usage is as a noun, meaning "condition." It's often paired idiomatically with "fine," as in "fine fettle." Did you Know? Old vehicles displayed in museums and in classic car shows may seem to naturally remain in fine fettle, but a lot of care goes into maintaining their condition. A vintage Mustang or classic roadster can't go to just any mechanic. People who make classic cars their hobby either learn the skills to maintain the vehicles themselves, or pay an expert in the specific model of car to keep it in good fettle.

Fact of the Day - I WANT IT THAT WAY Did you know... When “I Want It That Way” comes on, everyone sings along—even if they don’t understand what, exactly, the song means. Musically, it’s neither a grand romantic ballad nor a propulsive dance banger, and lyrically, it’s semi-coherent at best. Technically, it’s not even the group’s highest-charting U.S. single. And yet, the Backstreet Boys’ 1999 smash “I Want It That Way,” which celebrates its 25th anniversary in April 2024, is among the definitive songs—if not the definitive song—of the ’90s teen-pop explosion. More than just a sign of the times, “I Want It That Way” is a ridiculously catchy, expertly crafted piece of music that transcends eras and defies criticism. When it comes on the radio, everyone in the car sings along—period. “I Want It That Way” is largely the handiwork of Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin, a melodic genius who has penned hits for everyone from NSYNC to The Weeknd—and who’s arguably done more than anyone to shape the sound of popular music over the last quarter-century. The story of how the song and its iconic music video came together is filled with little twists and strange artistic choices that make it seem like the universe wanted “I Want It That Way” to happen. And you really can’t blame the universe. Orlando Origins To fully appreciate the significance of “I Want It That Way,” one must first know some Backstreet Boys history. The quintessential ’90s American boy band comprises A.J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, and cousins Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell. They came together in Orlando, Florida, in 1993, after a secretly shady (more on that later) blimp magnate named Lou Pearlman placed an ad in the Orlando Sentinel. Pearlman was looking to start a group like New Kids on the Block, who’d achieved massive success earlier in the decade, and soon, his photogenic fivesome had signed a deal with Jive Records. Their name derives from the Backstreet Market, an outdoor flea market in Orlando. When the Backstreet Boys debuted in 1995, America wasn’t quite ready for a teen-pop takeover. Their debut single, “We Got It Goin’ On,” went no higher than No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100. Over in Europe, however, it became a bonafide smash, reaching the Top 10 in numerous countries. The group’s 1996 self-titled debut album didn’t even come out in America, but it topped the charts in places like Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. On August 12, 1997, America finally got its own version of Backstreet Boys. It contains songs from the international edition of the album and its follow-up, Backstreet’s Back, which came out globally (though not in the U.S.) on August 11, 1997. The singles “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” and “All I Have to Give” cracked the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100—the former peaking at a career-best No. 2—and by August 31, 1998, the album had gone sextuple platinum. (It was certified 14x platinum in April 2001.) Seven years after Nirvana had instigated the angsty grunge rebellion with 1991’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a new revolution was underway. This time, it would be clean-cut model-types and former Mouseketeers leading the charge, presenting America’s youth with a decidedly peppier vision of adolescence. Melodies to the Max Two of the biggest songs on the American edition of Backstreet Boys, “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” and “As Long As You Love Me,” were written or co-written by one Karl Martin Sandberg, a.k.a. Max Martin. A product of Sweden’s famed state-sponsored music education programs, Martin started off playing the recorder before graduating to French horn, drums, and keyboards. In addition to being an ace musician, Martin was a huge music fan. Growing up in suburban Stockholm in the ’70s and early ’80s, Martin absorbed his parents’ records—the Beatles, Elton John, Vivaldi—before latching onto theatrical hard rockers Kiss, whom he discovered through his older brother. In the mid-’80s, Martin began fronting the glam-metal outfit It’s Alive. When he wasn’t rocking out with the band, he was sneaking listens to pop songs like The Bangles’s “Eternal Flame,” a harbinger of things to come. Martin’s life changed in 1994, when he met producer Dag Krister Volle, otherwise known as Denniz PoP. As co-founder of the now-legendary Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, PoP had produced a string of memorable hits for the Swedish electro-pop foursome Ace of Base. PoP became Martin’s mentor and gave him his stage name. Whereas PoP was an untrained musician who trusted his gut, Martin had a deep knowledge of music theory. He was able to synthesize new sounds and textures into funky, hooky music that left his collaborators floored. PoP and Martin co-wrote and co-produced “We’ve Got It Goin’ On,” Backstreet Boys’s debut single. Around the same time of those early Backstreet Boys hits, the world received another Max Martin pop gem, “...Baby One More Time,” the 1998 debut single by a then-unknown Louisiana hopeful named Britney Spears. Written and co-produced by Martin, that song topped the Billboard Hot 100 and shook the Earth off its axis. Teen pop had fully arrived. “Abstract” Lyrics Despite their heightened profile, Backstreet Boys didn’t have an easy road to their third album (second in America), 1999’s Millennium. In 1998, four of the five members sued Lou Pearlman; among the issues was the accusation that Pearlman pocketed $10 million from a European tour, while they’d only made $300,000. After a court case that involved 20 judges and lawyers spread across three states, they wound up settling in October 1998 (the terms were not disclosed). That same year, BSB member Brian Littrell underwent surgery to fix a hole in his heart. Amid all this drama, Backstreet Boys hit the studio in the fall of 1998 and started work on Millennium, an album that would be loaded with songs written and produced by Martin and his Cheiron collaborators. (PoP was not among them—he died of cancer in August 1998 at age 35.) Among them was a mid-tempo number called “I Want It That Way.” Martin wrote it with help from Andreas Carlsson, a relative newcomer at Cheiron who’d given up his pop-star dreams after opening for Backstreet Boys in Sweden in 1996. “All I understood after that was that I was a waste of time as an artist—because they were so good!” Carlsson told Billboard. Martin came up with the bulk of “I Want It That Way” himself. He had the opening line, “You are my fire/The one desire,” but he enlisted Carlsson—whom he’d recently discovered was his next door neighbor—to help him complete the lyrics. They tried a “million different variations” for the second verse, Carlsson told HitQuarters, before they ultimately used the “fire/desire” rhyme again, albeit with a slight tweak: “Am I your fire / Your one desire?” They capped the song off with a guitar lick that, according to numerous online sources, was inspired by Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters.” (Remember: Martin was a metal guy.) When it was finished, everyone loved it. There was just one little problem. “The band and the record company heard it and they immediately said, ‘This is a classic,’” Carlsson told Billboard. “But they weren’t sure about the lyrics because they thought they were too abstract—and rightfully so!” “Abstract” is a nice way of putting it. “I Want It That Way” is sung from the perspective of a guy who doesn’t want to break up with his significant other. He begins by telling this person they’re his “fire” and “one desire.” “Believe me when I say/I want it that way,” he adds. Simple enough so far. But then comes this section: “But we are two worlds apart Can’t reach to your heart When you say That I want it that way” Those lines are confusing unless you throw quotation marks around the phrase I want it that way, thereby indicating that the narrator’s love interest is the one saying those words. It’s worth noting that there are no quotation marks in the lyrics printed in the original CD booklet, so it’s unclear whether Martin and Carlsson intended them to be there. But quotation marks around I want it that way would also come in handy on the chorus: “Tell me why Ain’t nothin’ but a heartache Tell me why Ain’t nothing but a mistake Tell me why I never wanna hear you say I want it that way” With quotation marks, this reads like the narrator telling his partner that he never wants to hear them say that this relationship is a heartache and a mistake. (Though even if you add quotation marks, the lyrics are pretty confusing—people aren’t wrong to scratch their heads.) The Backstreet Boys themselves seemed to support this interpretation when they responded to a tweet from Chrissy Teigen in 2018. Teigen was puzzled by the lyrics that end the song—“I never wanna hear you say/I want it that way/Cause I want it that way.” In particular, she wanted to know what “it” means—and BSB offered this response: “Don’t wanna hear you say that you want heartaches and mistakes... or to be 2 worlds apart. We don’t want you to want ‘it’ that way - that’s the way we want it... for you to not want it that way.” This wasn’t the first time the Backstreet Boys had weighed in on the song’s cryptic lyrics. “Ultimately the song really doesn't really make much sense,” BSB member Kevin Richardson told LA Weekly in 2011. Richardson chalked it up to Martin’s limited command of the English language. “His English has gotten much better,” he said, “but at the time …” Melodic Math Martin’s limited English skills might have actually been a blessing. In a 2015 article for The New Yorker, John Seabrook argues that Swedish songwriters like Martin are liberated from the demands of having to be witty and clever. Instead, they can focus on what Martin has called “melodic math,” the notion that words should function mostly in service of a song’s melody. The hook is everything—meaning is secondary. “I Want It That Way” is far from the only example of questionable English in Martin’s oeuvre. When he wrote the line “Hit me, baby, one more time” for Britney Spears’s breakthrough, he thought hit was slang for call, and that the line meant “call me one more time.” But people didn’t get it. As Seabrook puts it, “It was hard to imagine that anyone for whom English is a first language would write the phrase ‘Hit me, baby’ without intending it as an allusion to domestic violence or S & M. That was the furthest thing from the minds of the gentle Swedes, who were only trying to use up-to-the-minute lingo.” Martin originally offered the song to TLC, and they turned it down partially due to that lyric. “I was like, I like the song but do I think it’s a hit? Do I think it’s TLC?” group member T-Boz told MTV. “I'm not saying ‘hit me baby.’ No disrespect to Britney. It's good for her. But was I going to say ‘hit me baby one more time'? Hell no!” Justin Timberlake was more accommodating when Martin asked him to pronounce the word me as “may” on the 2000 *NSYNC smash “It’s Gonna Be Me.” “I don’t remember if the specifics were a ‘meaner me,’ but I sang, ‘It’s gonna be me,’ and he was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no,’” Timberlake said on the YouTube series Hot Ones. “He was like, ‘It’s may.’ … The parts of their English that were broken actually made them catchier songwriters because they would put words a way that almost didn’t make sense, but when you sang them, they were more memorable.” Slightly more recently, Martin made headlines for the grammatical liberties he took in writing Ariana Grande’s 2014 song “Break Free,” featuring Zedd. Martin’s lyrics required Grande to sing lines like “Now that I’ve become who I really are” and “I only wanna die alive,” and that didn’t sit right with the pop star. “I fought [Martin] on it the whole time,” Grande told TIME magazine. “‘I am not going to sing a grammatically incorrect lyric, help me God!’ Max was like, ‘It’s funny—just do it!’ I know it’s funny and silly, but grammatically incorrect things make me cringe sometimes.” She sang the lyrics as written anyway, and the song peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. “No Goodbyes” Jive ultimately released “I Want It That Way” with Martin’s convoluted lyrics, but only after the label commissioned an alternate version co-written by South African superproducer and songwriter Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the man behind hits for Def Leppard, AC/DC, and Shania Twain. Now known as “No Goodbyes” by Backstreet Boys superfans, the alternate version includes the following chorus, which completely flips the meaning of the original. (It could also use quotation marks around “I want it that way,” but maybe that’s nitpicking.) “No goodbyes Ain’t nothing but a heartache No more lies Ain’t nothing but a mistake That is why I love it when I hear you say I want it that way” So why isn’t this the version that’s burned into the brain of every ’90s kid on the planet? The Backstreet Boys vetoed the rewrite and stuck with Martin and Carlsson’s lyrics. “I don’t think that it would have ended up the way that it did had we gone with the proper version,” McLean told HuffPost. “I guess you could say, you know, the one that made sense.” “Sometimes you overthink things,” Richardson said. “I think the newer version or the second version that we did that was more of a literal context didn’t ... it was the rhyming scheme that didn’t feel right. Yeah, it just didn’t feel as good, so sometimes you just got to go with what feels right.” Richardson believes that “I Want It That Way” makes perfect sense to most fans, since “everyone interprets lyrics differently and every song moves people differently.” The song certainly spoke to people somehow. Released as the lead single off Millennium, “I Want It That Way” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary, Mainstream Top 40, and Top 40 Tracks charts. It stalled at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, but only because no physical CD single was available for purchase. Millennium debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and the 1.1 million copies it sold in its first week broke a record previously held by Garth Brooks. Dancing at LAX Upon hearing “I Want It That Way,” anyone old enough to remember MTV’s TRL will naturally picture the music video, which features the group dancing in all-white outfits in an airport terminal and serenading fans on a tarmac. The Backstreet Boys shot the clip at Los Angeles International Airport, and according to McLean, it was the “first and only time” such a thing was allowed, as the tragedies of 9/11 a couple years later made filming at airports impossible. While the costumes and choreography would become iconic—pop-punkers Blink-182 famously lampooned the video in their “All the Small Things” music video—none of the Backstreet Boys were particularly impressed at the time. “I just remember having to film the music video in between doing a lot of stuff,” Carter told Us Weekly in 2017. “I don’t remember traveling but I remember coming in and working up a choreography routine at the last minute. I think we felt that it was super cheesy and it was something that was unnecessary. It was kind of like we didn’t want to do it.” Legacy of a Bop In 2012, Rolling Stone readers voted Backstreet Boys the No. 1 boy band of all time, and the accompanying article refers to “I Want It That Way” as a “genre-transcending classic.” VH1 ranked “I Want It That Way” as the No. 3 song of the ’90s, right behind Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and U2’s “One.” “I Want It That Way” has been covered by everyone from goofy ’80s hair-metal revivalists Steel Panther to ’70s-era psych rockers Vanilla Fudge to YouTuber Billy Cobb, who created a popular emo version. “I Want It That Way” has also appeared in commercials for Geico, Chipotle, Downey, and Doritos—the latter was a high-profile Super Bowl spot starring Chance the Rapper, who gave the song a hip-hop update. All the while, fans have continued listening to the original. In November 2021, the “I Want It That Way” music video reached a billion views on YouTube. As of 2023, Backstreet Boys are still together. They’ve released seven albums (not counting compilations) since Millennium, the most recent being 2022’s A Very Backstreet Christmas. That collection of holiday tunes includes a cover of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. The group was set to star in an ABC special titled A Very Backstreet Holiday in December 2022, but those plans were scrapped due to rape allegations against Nick Carter. Carter has denied the claims, and earlier this year, he filed a defamation suit against another rape accuser. Legal troubles also haunt the legacy of Lou Pearlman. It turns out he was running a massive Ponzi scheme that he used to steal more than $317 million from investors, many of whom were retirees. (Some former associates have also accused Pearlman of sexual misconduct.) After fleeing the U.S., Pearlman was arrested in Indonesia in 2007. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy, money laundering, and making a false claim in a bankruptcy, and he was sentenced to 25 years behind bars. He died of a heart infection in 2016 at the age of 62. The biggest winner of this story is Max Martin, who has remained pop’s go-to collaborator and reigning chart champion for decades. In the last 10 years alone, he’s written and produced blockbuster singles for Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, and Ariana Grande, among many, many others. The man has more than two dozen No. 1 pop hits to his credit, including “My Universe,” Coldplay’s 2021 team-up with the K-pop band BTS. Martin’s list of chart-toppers contains bangers galore, but few will get you screaming along in the car quite like “I Want It That Way.” Source: How Max Martin’s ‘Melodic Math’ Led to This Enduring (and Confusing) Backstreet Boys Hit

What's the Word: NODUS pronunciation: [NO-dəs] Part of speech: noun Origin: Late Middle English, late 14th century Meaning: 1. A problem, difficulty, or complication. Examples: "The team hadn’t expected to encounter a nodus this early in the project." "Despite the nodus of the car not starting, they both managed to get to work on time." About Nodus Nodus developed in Late Middle English as a way to describe a knotty swelling; it originated in Latin as the literal translation for "knot." Over time, it evolved to describe a knotty problem or conundrum. Did you Know? Escape rooms are a novel way to spend some time with friends. A group of people is locked in a room filled with puzzles and clues. They must solve each nodus within a set period of time to win.

Fact of the Day - CATS & VOICES Did you know... While dogs are often touted as man’s best friend, cats can be so aloof that they seem like little more than a passing acquaintance. However, there is more going on between felines and their human owners than a cat’s sometimes steely exterior may suggest. In October 2022, researchers from France published results from an experiment examining the relationship cats have with their owners’ voices. In the study, cats responded more positively to a familiar human voice (swishing tails, pivoting ears, pausing grooming) than when they heard the voice of a stranger. This builds on previous research from 2013 that found a similar connection between a familiar voice and its effects on a cat — though none of the felines in that study even bothered to get up in response to the voices they recognized. Unlike dogs, cats were never domesticated to follow a human’s orders, and instead were the product of a more symbiotic relationship, as the rise of agriculture also gave rise to rodents and other pests for cats to hunt. The French researchers also studied how owners spoke with their pets; specifically, if they used cat-directed speech — aka baby talk — which is known to positively impact both babies and canines. (In fact, babies learn words more quickly when listening to baby talk.) Owners’ voices were recorded asking questions such as “do you want to play?” and “do you want a treat?” using both cat-directed speech and human-to-human conversational speech. Like dogs and babies, cats reacted more positively to cat-directed speech than to an owner’s normal speaking voice. There’s a scientific reason why you hate listening to your own voice. Hearing a recording of your voice can be an unpleasant experience, as the sound isn’t usually what you expect. To put it simply, hearing works by something called “air conduction,” in which sound waves travel to our ears’ cochleas, which in turn stimulate nerve axons that send signals to the brain — but that’s not what happens when we speak. While some air conduction occurs when we hear ourselves talking, most sound is translated through “bone conduction,” particularly our skull bones. This blend of both air and bone conduction gives our voice a deeper, richer low end, which explains why most people perceive their voices as higher pitched when listening to a recording. Source: Cats can recognize their owners’ voices.

What's the Word: SHEEPSHANK pronunciation: [SHEEP-shangk] Part of speech: noun Origin: Unknown, mid-17th century Meaning: 1. A kind of knot used to shorten a rope temporarily. Examples: "Killian was glad he remembered how to tie a sheepshank from his Boy Scout days." "The sailor quickly tied some sheepshanks to keep the rope out of the way." About Sheepshank While we know that this noun first originated in the 17th century as a type of temporary knot used to shorten a rope quickly, its literal origins are largely unknown. Did you Know? A sheepshank is a knot that can quickly be tied to take up slack on a rope. It’s not very stable, so it shouldn’t be used in situations that require a secure hold.

Fact of the Day - TONIC WATER Did you know... Tonic water is best known for adding a little bite to cocktails, though it has a hidden talent: It glows when exposed to ultraviolet light. While modern tonic waters often include citrus flavors or sweeteners to ease their bitter taste, the mix is traditionally crafted from just two ingredients — carbonated water and quinine, the second of which is capable of illumination. Quinine’s ability to glow, technically called fluorescence, only occurs when the substance is exposed to the right conditions, particularly when its molecules absorb invisible ultraviolet light (such as that projected by a black light). The excited molecules then quickly release that energy, which appears as a blue hue to the human eye in a darkened room. Though tonic water is now a bar cart staple, its initial purpose wasn’t enjoyment — it was to prevent and treat malaria. Quinine, which comes from the bark of the South American cinchona tree, was first used by the Indigenous Quechua people as a cure-all for stomach ailments; by the 1600s, Europeans had documented its fever-reducing properties. In the 1700s, Scottish doctor George Cleghorn discovered it could also effectively treat malaria. As the only known treatment for nearly 300 years, quinine’s bitter flavor was paired with water to create a “tonic,” and distributed to British soldiers stationed in India and other malaria-prone regions. Some historians believe soldiers began adding the medication to gin and other alcohols to make the bitter flavor more palatable, eventually creating the “gin and tonic” drink we know today. However, other researchers suggest it wasn’t until the 1860s that the classic drink emerged, served to victorious patrons at horse racing tracks in India. The search for a quinine alternative created the first synthetic dye. Quinine’s legacy isn’t just in the beverages we drink, but also in the clothes we wear. The medicine led one scientist to discover mauveine, a synthetic dye that lends its name to the shade of purple we call mauve. In the 19th century, getting ahold of quinine was costly, since the compound was only created from cinchona tree bark imported from South America. Some researchers, like chemist William Perkin, attempted to create bark-free synthetic versions. One of Perkin’s attempts, using a chemical called aniline, resulted in a goopy dark substance that didn’t easily wash away. Realizing its staining abilities, Perkin patented the substance as the world’s first synthetic dye — easier to use than natural dyes, and with the benefit of being more colorfast. Shortly after his discovery, Perkin opened his own textile dyeing factory, helping to launch a fashion craze that featured his newly created hue. Even Queen Victoria got into the act, wearing a mauve-colored dress at the International Exhibition of 1862. Source: Tonic Water Can Glow in the Dark

What's the Word: CHARTREUSE pronunciation: [shar-TROOS] Part of speech: noun Origin: French, late 19th century Meaning: 1. A pale green or yellow liqueur made from brandy and aromatic herbs. 2. A pale yellow or green color resembling the liqueur chartreuse. Examples: "To celebrate the project’s success, the team leader brought in some chartreuse to share." "I forgot it was St. Patrick’s Day until I noticed folks wearing every shade of green from chartreuse to kelly." About Chartreuse Chartreuse originated in French, specifically from La Grande Chartreuse, a monastery that produced the liquor of the same name. Did you Know? The specific shade of green now recognized as chartreuse comes from an alcoholic beverage of the same name. Chartreuse — a pale yellow-green liquor made from brandy and a blend of aromatic herbs — is named for La Grande Chartreuse, the French monastery where it was first made. This beverage can be imbibed on its own, but is best appreciated as an addition to a cocktail.

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What to do...

Ein (Phantom)

Fact of the Day - SOME SING SOME CAW Did you know.... Birds vocalize using their syrinx, and these specialized organs vary in capability. That's why some birds produce melodic songs, and others can only squawk. Ever wonder why some birds tweet, some sing, some quack, and the ones outside our bedroom windows at 5:00 in the morning caw? A bird’s “voice” comes from the syrinx, which is the avian variety of the human voice box. The syrinx contains membranes that vibrate when air from the bird’s lungs is passed over them. But while the human larynx is positioned high in the throat, birds’ syringes (that’s the plural of syrinx) are located down closer to the chest, where the bronchial tubes branch off into each lung. That means that the syrinx has two sources of sound, one from each bronchus, which gives birds a wider range of vocal sounds than humans. But even in the bird kingdom, life isn’t fair. The melodiousness and versatility of a bird’s voice is a product of evolution—the more and higher-developed muscles a bird has around its syrinx, the sweeter its song. Birds that don’t have to rely on conversing with others to find a food source, like ostriches and vultures, have no syringeal muscles. Ducks spend their days paddling around lakes and waddling along the shore, in clear view of one another, so they don’t need elaborate songs to attract a mate. A simple “quack!” and the shake of a tail feather is sufficient. But birds that spend most of their time in trees need voices that carry, since all those leaves act as sound dampeners. And they also need distinctive sounds, so that sparrows can communicate with other sparrows. As a result, songbirds have from five to nine pairs of muscles around their syringes that squeeze out the tunes that serve as everything from a danger signal to a dinner bell to a love song. Source: Why Do Some Birds Sing, While Others Caw?

What's the Word: HOROLOGY pronunciation: [hə-RAH-lə-jee] Part of speech: noun Origin: Greek, early 19th century Meaning: 1. The study and measurement of time. 2. The art of making clocks and watches. Examples: "Modern technology, such as the invention of an atomic clock, has increased the precision of horology." "The Victorian museum had an entire exhibit dedicated to the craft of horology." About Horology This word originates from a combination of the Greek word "hōra" (which means "time") and the suffix "-logy" ("a subject of study or interest"). Did you Know? Horology, the art of making clocks and watches, is a skilled process. All components of the clock must work together in harmony to deliver the correct time, but there is an artistic element as well. Cuckoo clocks, for example, include mechanisms for sounds and decorations to pop out and announce a new hour. The distinctive "cuckoo" sound is produced by "gedackt" pipes, a type of stop in organ pipes.

Ukitake, Jūshirō (Bleach)

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I was thinking about picking up where an existing thread left off, but I am also up try a new one (ᵔ◡ᵔ)

Kurisu "Christina" Makise (Steins;Gate)

Fact of the Day - HIGH HEELS Did you know.... For something that’s almost as ubiquitous as sneakers, high heels are pretty controversial. A staple of feminine business wardrobes and club wear alike, heels are beloved by many, although maybe not by podiatrists. They’re now largely considered fashion statements, yet they have surprisingly practical — and masculine — origins. How did high heels come to be? What then-cutting-edge technology made stiletto heels possible? Where did the most iconic designers of high heels get their inspiration? These nine facts about high heels might give you a newfound appreciation for one of the most storied styles of footwear. 1. The First High Heels Were Designed for Men While they’re typically considered feminine today, high heels started as functional footwear for men. In the 10th century, Persian men wore heeled shoes on horseback because they clicked into stirrups, which helped them stay steady when firing arrows in battle. The extra height didn’t hurt, either. The style spread to Europe in the 17th century, after Persian Shah Abbas I went on a diplomatic tour to Spain, Germany, and Russia. In Europe, they were considered a sign of masculinity; women began wearing them because adopting masculine styles was trendy at the time. Practical riding heels — for example, cowboy boots — are still in use today for all genders, although they’re not typically advertised as high heels. 2. Early High Heels Were a Sign of Status At first, Europeans adopted high heels in much the same way Persians did — for stability in horseback riding. As the 17th century went on, however, heels started to rise in usage among the aristocracy, particularly in France. There’s no way you could do manual labor, or even walk very far, in ornate 5-inch heels, so only people of leisure would wear them. 3. Louis XIV Loved a Signature Heel French monarch Louis XIV was pretty short, and wore heels — 4-inch red ones, specifically — as a symbol of his authority. Sometimes, his heels were even decorated with battle scenes. Red dye was expensive, which made what was already a status symbol even more glaring. In 1670, the king issued a decree that only members of his court were allowed to wear red heels, which meant that (theoretically) you could tell who was in royal favor just by looking at their shoes. 4. 16th-Century Venetian Women Wore Bizarre Platforms In early 16th-century Venice, women wore a strange precursor to the heel: the chopine, a high platform shoe designed to protect feet from muddy streets. The height of the shoes may have been associated with the level of nobility of the wearer. One pair at a Venetian museum is a full 20 inches high — imagine the prestige! Even at shorter heights, chopines were a luxury item, and usually required an attendant to walk next to the wearer to help them stay steady. 5. Stilettos Required Cutting-Edge Tech Images of what would later be called stiletto heels, named for a small Italian style of dagger, appeared in erotic art in the early 20th century, but engineering hadn’t come far enough at that point to make actual stilettos that people could walk on. After World War II, new materials and techniques, some designed for aircraft carriers, made ultra-thin heels possible. High heels had previously often been made of wood, which can only support so much weight without cracking, but in the postwar era, shoe designers increasingly turned to steel for its incredible tensile strength. Designers figured out steel shanks, a load-bearing part of the sole that supports the foot and takes the pressure off the toe and heel. Multiple designers released stiletto heels in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and fashion historians are still divided on which designer actually came first. As plastic technology improved in the 1960s, designers were able to make lightweight heels with plastic shanks instead. 6. Louboutin’s Red Soles Were Inspired by Nail Polish One of the most sought-after makers of high heels is Christian Louboutin, known for his signature red soles; his wares are sometimes called “red bottoms.” It may seem like a nod to Louis XIV’s luxurious color preference, but according to the brand, it was more of a fortunate accident. The story goes that Louboutin was working on prototypes in the early 1990s, but was unhappy with the black soles on the shoes, which he thought made them look clunky. As he was having that thought, his assistant was painting her nails red — so he snagged the bottle and painted the bottom of the shoe. The rest is history. 7. High Heels Change Your Posture — Short- and Long-Term One reason for the popularity of high heels is the way the wearer stands and walks in them. With the feet at an angle and body weight pitching toward the toes, different muscle groups have to fire to stay upright. The back arches, the chest puffs forward, the bottom sticks out, and calf muscles tighten. This creates what some consider an attractive shape, but staying in that position for too long too regularly can have serious consequences. Regular use can result in foot injuries, including bunions and hammertoe, as well as long-term changes to hip muscles, the lumbar spine, and even leg bones. 8. Coco Chanel Was in Her 70s When She Released Her Iconic Slingback One of the best-known creations to come from the Chanel fashion house is the two-tone slingback heel with a beige body, black toe, and sturdy 2-inch heel. Coco Chanel designed the black toes, inspired by the black toes of sailors’ shoes and sturdy sporting sandals, to help hide scuffs, minimize the foot, and elongate the leg. They’re a mainstay for the brand even years after Chanel’s death — but they were released in 1957 during a second act for the designer, who was 73 or 74 at the time. 9. Manolo Blahnik’s Hangisi Shoe Was Inspired by Josephine Bonaparte Designer Manolo Blahnik’s most sought-after footwear is the Hangisi shoe, a luxurious-looking heel with a decorative buckle on the toe. The shoe hit the market in 2008, and was popularized by the Sex and the City film that came out the same year. Blahnik designed the shoe after seeing portraits of Empress Josephine Bonaparte and her sister-in-law Pauline and noting their opulent footwear, likely designed by the House of Leroy, Josephine’s preferred fashion house. White the style comes in many fabrics, each bejeweled buckle contains exactly 144 Swarovski crystals. Fittingly, the shoe is now in a royal portrait of its own: Catherine, Princess of Wales, wore an emerald green pair posing for a painting alongside her husband, Prince William. Source: Towering Facts About High Heels

What's the Word: CYNOSURE pronunciation: [SY-nə-shur] Part of speech: noun Origin: French, late 16th century Meaning: 1. A person or thing that is the center of attention or admiration. Examples: "The prince was the cynosure of the coronation." "The song 'Dancing Queen' describes a teenager who is the cynosure of the dance floor." About Cynosure This word developed from a combination of French, Latin, and Greek words — specifically the Latin word “cynosura” and the Greek word “kunosoura,” or “dog’s tail,” as taken from the words “kun” ("dog") and “oura” ("tail"). Did you Know? Cynosure was originally used to describe the center of attention in the sky — the constellation Ursa Major (aka the Big Dipper). The pole star in this constellation was used as a guide by navigators on land and at sea, allowing them to both explore and return safely home.