Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 20 Mar 2021, 22:38
Unless you use one of the blanks, LIR!
Caro Censura
Posts : 1517 Join date : 2012-01-09
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 20 Mar 2021, 22:41
Should have added that my husband and I have generally an annual game of Scrabble at Easter. he trouble with playing Scrabble with my husband is he can take a couple of hours to have a turn, so you need a lot of patience and time to have a game. Gives me time to read a few pages of my book, or do a puzzle or consider my time (though his turn usually messes up what I had planned anyway).
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 20 Apr 2021, 08:43
Caro, I'm not very knowledgeable about Scrabble.
Anyway TROLLING - apparently I've been wrong in my understanding of this word in its internet (as an internet tease or bully). I read that it comes from a fishing term rather than the entities from Scandinavian folklore. "The word trolling is a word commonly used to describe a method of fishing. In trolling, a fisherman casts a line out into the water, usually several, and pulls them behind a boat, hoping that he will catch something. A troller or someone that trolls is someone that casts a line out in the Internet world in hopes of hooking someone into an argument, pretty straight forward right?" This is the internet article if anyone is interested:- https://www.thomasvan.com/random-philosophy/internet-slang-where-did-the-word-troll-come-from I've checked online and there is a method of fishing called 'trolling' which is a different method to 'trawling'.
Temperance Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Posts : 6895 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : UK
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sun 25 Apr 2021, 10:04
TUROPHILE
One who is reading the cheese thread with great interest!
Vizzer Censura
Posts : 1818 Join date : 2012-05-12
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sun 09 May 2021, 13:34
SUPERAMODALITY
The illusion that everyone of whatever age or gender looks better or even sexy in a mask.
SUBMODALITY
The realisation that superamodality is just an illusion when the mask is subsequently removed to reveal the ugly truth.
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 11 May 2021, 11:42
The last few days it has tended to
OBNUBILATE*
near where I live.
* to cloud over; becloud; obscure.
Priscilla Censura
Posts : 2769 Join date : 2012-01-16
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 11 May 2021, 13:31
Ah! Just the word I needed to describe some of my family.... Obnubilations... in fact permanently obnubilated is as relevant. As a verb it also describes much of my own reasoning too; useful word.
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 29 Jul 2021, 17:13
CABOOSE
I knew of the meaning as a railway waggon but didn't know it could also be a ship's galley or the backside.
From Merriam-Webster "1 [size=16]: a ship's galley
2: a freight-train car attached usually to the rear mainly for the use of the train crew
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 31 Jul 2021, 21:08
HALCYON DAYS
The Halcyon is a bird of Greek legend and the name is now commonly given to the European Kingfisher. The ancients believed that the bird made a floating nest in the Aegean Sea and had the power to calm the waves while brooding her eggs. Fourteen days of calm weather were to be expected when the Halcyon was nesting - around the winter solstice, usually 21st or 22nd of December. The Halcyon days are generally regarded as beginning on the 14th or 15th of December. Aeolus calmed the winds because Alcedo, his daughter, cast herself into the sea on losing her husband and was metamorphosed into the kingfisher.
Priscilla Censura
Posts : 2769 Join date : 2012-01-16
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Wed 04 Aug 2021, 16:05
Yips
New word to me but not the condition.... said to be the moment that the well honed knowledge of a skill suddenly blanks out in mid use. For gymnasts very dangerous and for golfers very embarrassing.... not so hot for divers either. Someone else may be able to define it better As a dyslexic, it happens to me. I recall how in an exam I totally blanked about how to spell 'our' and many other words so that my text was often convoluted to avoid the gaps; now it is just convoluted.
Caro Censura
Posts : 1517 Join date : 2012-01-09
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 05 Aug 2021, 01:50
These Olympics have brought up several new words especially in regard to mental attitudes in sport: "twisties" is another one, and must be very frightening.
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5083 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 25 Jan 2022, 09:33
Kunlangeta
Confirming that he had given written evidence to Sue Gray (heading the government inquiry into lockdown breaches in Downing Street during 2020), Dominic Cummings yesterday said he believed yet more damaging stories would emerge, saying "many officials are desperate to shove the kunlangeta off the ice this week."
The term kunlangeta originates from the Yupik people of northwest Alaska who use it to describe a man who "repeatedly lies and cheats and steals things and does not go hunting, and, when the other men are out of the village, takes sexual advantage of many women." The Yupik tacitly assume that the kunlangeta is irremediable and so the traditional approach to such a man was "to insist he go hunting, and then, in the absence of witnesses, push him off the edge of the ice." ('The Sociopath Next Door' by Martha Stout, 2006).
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 25 Jan 2022, 20:58
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 15:15
JUBILEE
From the Hebrew Yobel, a special year in the Jewish calendar which occurred every 50 years. During this year, slaves were freed and the land allowed to lie fallow.
Yobel means a ram, and the year was announced by shofar, a rams-horn trumpet.
There is a Latinized version annus jubilaeus
ACW song, Year of Jubilo
Green George Censura
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 16:33
Our local council is having a Climate Change Festival. I wonder what they think the name actually means.
Green George Censura
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 16:47
Priscilla wrote:
Yips
New word to me but not the condition.... said to be the moment that the well honed knowledge of a skill suddenly blanks out in mid use. For gymnasts very dangerous and for golfers very embarrassing.... not so hot for divers either. Someone else may be able to define it better As a dyslexic, it happens to me. I recall how in an exam I totally blanked about how to spell 'our' and many other words so that my text was often convoluted to avoid the gaps; now it is just convoluted.
Originally a golfing term for sudden involuntary muscular contraction. There are "golfing Jonahs" who can cause yips in others. One of the golfing comedians was notorious for this (can't recall which one).
Nielsen Triumviratus Rei Publicae Constituendae
Posts : 595 Join date : 2011-12-31 Location : Denmark
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 16:54
A question from one who doesn't have English as first nor second language: During the last few years I've frequently met the term 'efficacy' and during what I saw as the context understood this as synonymous with 'effeciently.'
Am I wrong, or are there variations - evolutions - in this language?
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5083 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 17:11
Efficacy surely means that it is efficacious, ie effective or with the capacity of producing the intended effect ... this is not the same as doing so efficiently, ie with the least expenditure of time and effort etc.
Nielsen Triumviratus Rei Publicae Constituendae
Posts : 595 Join date : 2011-12-31 Location : Denmark
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 17:14
Thank you MM, this needs thinking on before I begin interchanging these words.
Temperance Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Posts : 6895 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : UK
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 18:00
Lily the Pink invented a medicinal compound that was "efficacious in every case". Listen to the song here here - with lyrics.
Green George Censura
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Tue 01 Mar 2022, 21:46
Temperance wrote:
Lily the Pink invented a medicinal compound that was "efficacious in every case". Listen to the song here here - with lyrics
Originally "Lily Pinkerton's medicinal compound." Sold under the slogan "A baby in every bottle".
Temperance Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Posts : 6895 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : UK
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Wed 02 Mar 2022, 08:10
It was Lydia E. Pinkham whose 19th century remedy was claimed to be so efficacious. According to Wiki, her vegetable-based compound was used for period pains and menopausal symptoms, so not sure about its efficacy for producing babies! Odd picture in the advert: the girl looks too young either to be menstruating, or to be suffering the misery that the cessation of periods can cause. I do hope, therefore, it's not some vile paedophile porn reference - those Victorians could be a despicable lot, and their adverts for the cognoscenti pretty nasty.
I had no idea about the Pinkham stuff - I thought it was just an innocent and very silly song made up by Mike McGear, Paul McCartney's brother, but the ditty was, apparently, originally an old US drinking song, brought over here by Canadians in WWI. They used to sing it at the Germans, apparently, with very ribald words.
Last edited by Temperance on Wed 02 Mar 2022, 11:59; edited 1 time in total
Temperance Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Posts : 6895 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : UK
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Wed 02 Mar 2022, 11:55
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 03 Mar 2022, 09:45
This came up over on Historum. I thought it was quite amusing.
General Bosquet's comments on the Charge of the Light Brigade "C'est magnifique, mais ce ne'st pas le guerre"
Punch magazine on hearing about margarine. "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre." (But it is not butter.)
Priscilla Censura
Posts : 2769 Join date : 2012-01-16
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 17 Mar 2022, 11:29
Oligarch
Not a new word nor title but now a new and enlarging class of people........... and ones not around in the mad days of my gang's mating forays, either. Now there appear to be several hundred of them. I guess Russian ones are clever clogs who made a packet out of the melt down of the iron curtain. I have no idea how. They seem to be able to buy into where ever they want to live; another ugly side of gross wealth.
Do/did they all have residences in London now? or are they world wide? And how do I get to be one, eh?
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5083 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 17 Mar 2022, 11:48
They are certainly not just confined to London. The French press has been busy high-lighting Russian-owned châteaux in Brittany, Dordogne and the Loire, villas along the Côte d’Azur, private ski chalets in the Alps and of course those huge "yachts" now fleeing out of Monte Carlo, St Tropez, Cannes and Antibes.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Fri 18 Mar 2022, 09:58
Heckling/Heckler.
The word Heckle originates from the textile trade, when heckling was the term used for removing knots from flax or hemp.
Heckling in its' modern sense started in late Victorian times when radical textile workers would disrupt politicians etc with awkward questions or rude comments.
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 19 Mar 2022, 14:39
'Eckie thump, I never knew that about "heckle", Trike.
Not a new word but I never realised that
chandler
had two meanings. I knew of the candle maker/seller meaning but always thought a ship's chandler provided candles for ships, but no, that meaning is for a person who deals in nautical supplies. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/chandler
chandler
(ˈtʃɑːndlə) n 1. (Commerce) a dealer in a specified trade or merchandise: corn chandler; ship's chandler. 2. (Crafts) a person who makes or sells candles 3. (Commerce) obsoleteBrit a retailer of grocery provisions; shopkeeper [C14: from Old French chandelier one who makes or deals in candles, from chandelle candle] I've been studying words with 'ler' such as fuller, feeler, fowler in my attempt to keep my knowledge of Pitman's shorthand ticking over. 'Chandler' was one of the words on the relevant website.
Green George Censura
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 19 Mar 2022, 16:55
Ah but which sort of chandler supplies four candles?
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 24 Mar 2022, 10:01
PENGUIN
There's no absolute certainty where this word derives from. One widely held view is that it derives from the Welsh, pen gwyn, meaning "white head" and was originally applied to the now extinct Great Auk of the North Atlantic. The resemblance of the flightless birds of Antarctica to the Great Auk led to them being given the same name.
Another suggestion is from the Latin, pinguis, which can mean fat, plump or oily. This fits with an alternative German word for a penguin, fettgans, or "fat-goose".
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Fri 25 Mar 2022, 15:00
PELICAN
From the Ancient Greek word pelekan ,which in Classical times meant both a pelican and a woodpecker, pelekan itself having derived from pelekys meaning an axe.
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 26 Mar 2022, 08:49
GG, I haven't a clue whether the ship's chandlers supplied fork handles even. That sketch has moved into popular lore it seems - thanks Two Ronnies.
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 26 Mar 2022, 19:28
I was thinking about some cleaning/laundry products from my childhood or even young adulthood not being around so much if at all today. I found an old advert about White Tide getting clothes cleaner. Hughie Green was interviewing a scientist allegedly measuring how clean a garment washed in White Tide was using a 'reflective spectophotometer'. I thought it was a load of rubbish but there actually are machines called spectophotometers though I haven't seen Tide either white or blue for ages. I think there's still a product called Tide sold in the USA.
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5083 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 26 Mar 2022, 20:16
A spectrophotometer measures the intensity of a light beam at different wavelengths, hence they really can detect a difference between old-fashioned detergents and those that wash "whiter than white" using optical brightening agents. These optical brighteners are chemicals that absorb light in the ultraviolet and violet region of the electromagnetic spectrum (mostly invisible to the eye) and re-emit this light in the visible blue region by fluorescence. A fabric treated with these additives emits more visible light than that which shines on it, making it appear brighter, and as the emitted light is usually in the blue region it also compensates for any slight yellowing of the material.
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sun 27 Mar 2022, 18:59
Apparently Tide was banned in the EU because of the level of dioxane in it. Here is the ad with the spectrophotometer.
Last edited by LadyinRetirement on Sun 27 Mar 2022, 19:18; edited 1 time in total
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sun 27 Mar 2022, 19:17
Why anyone would want to wash their gloves inside their trouser pockets baffles me (as is the name of the actor in the advertisement) but here's another Tide commercial. I can't find it today but yesterday I found an image for a trial packet of blue Tide at 14.1/2 p (fourteen and a half pence).
Sphygmomanometer was fun to write in shorthand - it's so much easier to say blood pressure gauge/monitor.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Wed 30 Mar 2022, 09:52
The Naked Truth
Believed to originate from the phrase, nudaque veratas, found in Horace's Odes.
Classical fable that Truth and Falsehood were bathing in a river. While Truth was out swimming, Falsehood stole Truth's clothes. Returning to the river bank, Truth found only Falsehood's discarded clothing. Refusing to wear anything belonging to Falsehood, Truth walks back from the river naked. The story was retold over the centuries and by the Middle Ages the phrase "the naked truth" was well established.
Priscilla Censura
Posts : 2769 Join date : 2012-01-16
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 31 Mar 2022, 08:42
Hilarious
Currently an over used media word that indicates a possible trace of amusement for vacuous minds
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5083 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 31 Mar 2022, 09:23
Hilarious is from the Latin hilaris meaning "cheerful, lively, merry, joyful" and ultimately comes from the Greek ἱλαρός (hilaros), meaning much the same.
In ancient Rome hilaria generally referred to specific days or periods of rejoicing - whether that be public state occasions, or more private family birthdays and anniversaries. However in time the name came to be applied specifically to the religious festivals celebrated around the vernal equinox in honour of Cybele - an ancient Asiatic deity whom the Romans had adopted and then regarded as their Great Mother Goddess, Magna Mater. By the Imperial period this whole spring festival had expanded to last almost two weeks, starting with days of purification, followed by ritual mourning on 22 March for the day of the death of Attis, Cybele's consort, then eventually reaching a climax on the day of hilaria proper, "the Day of Joy", which celebrated the resurrection of Attis on 25 March.
So now in 2022, with spring having sprung, the days getting noticeably longer and the clocks changed, Mothers' Day over (at least as celebrated in Britain), and the end of Lent and Easter fast approaching (marking another symbolic death and resurrection - oh what a coincidence), is it now perhaps appropriate to have a little cautious hilarity?
However I admit that would be most unlikely amongst the ancient priests of the goddess Cybele herself, the so-called Galli, who famously practiced flagellation, mutilation and self-castration in her divine honour. Even the Romans thought they were a decidedly "funny" lot - but more in an odd, strange, bizarre, mystical and worryingly foreign way - rather than as a cause for much amusement or anything to be laughed at. However as their collective name, galli (singular gallus) was in Latin, exactly the same word used to refer to both un-castrated roosters and the Gallic 'French' Celts (hence amongst other things the cockerel symbol of modern France/Gaul) it was nevertheless the source for several smutty, though rather clever, Roman puns.
Last edited by Meles meles on Thu 31 Mar 2022, 22:33; edited 1 time in total
LadyinRetirement Censura
Posts : 3307 Join date : 2013-09-16 Location : North-West Midlands, England
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 31 Mar 2022, 14:51
MM, after reading your comment above I wondered if 'hilaris' was linked in any way to the 'Hilary' term (between Christmas and Easter) but according to Google it is derived from St Hilary, a fourth century bishop of Poitiers.
There hasn't been any proper snow where I live since end of November/beginning of December but we had a litte this morning though it melted. It looks now (14.49 BST) as though it's trying to snow though it's more like sleet at present. I've plugged the heater in for the first time in a few weeks (yes, I know, just when the utilities are going to increase in price). That's getting away from hilarity somewhat though....
Edit: 'more like' not 'poor like'
Last edited by LadyinRetirement on Thu 31 Mar 2022, 23:26; edited 1 time in total
MarkUK Praetor
Posts : 142 Join date : 2022-03-13 Location : Staffordshire
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 31 Mar 2022, 18:45
As you know I live seven miles north of you. At 0730 there was snow on the ground here, but when I got into Stafford at 0750 there was none. However it followed me in and snowed on and off all day. Sunny now.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Fri 01 Apr 2022, 11:14
Huntigowk/Huntigowk Day
Or, as it is otherwise known "April Fools Day"
It is an old Scots word derived from "gowk", meaning a cuckoo or a fool.
" The old Scots tradition of handing someone a sealed envelope and asking them to deliver it to someone else. Inside there should be the message “Dinna laugh, dinna smile, Hunt the gowk another mile”. The recipient then writes the same message, sends the victim off to someone else and so it goes until the gowk realises that he or she is being made a fool".
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Thu 21 Apr 2022, 13:27
MAGNOLIA
The word first appears in Genera by Charles Plumier in 1703 to describe a flowering tree he found on the Island of Martinique, known locally as "talauma"
Plumier named it in honour of Pierre Magnol, a French botanist who categorised over 1300 species of plants and flowers.
Caro Censura
Posts : 1517 Join date : 2012-01-09
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 23 Apr 2022, 00:09
I looked up magnolia and it said something about them evolving to encourage beetles since it was before the arrival of bees. I read an interesting book about trees not long ago, The Secret Life of Trees by Colin Tudge and it went through the evolution of trees and why and how they developed, right from before there was any life as we know it. It was a bit esoteric and academic for me but interesting and memorable. I thought afterwards that I should just have read the later parts, but I am quite glad now that I did plough my way through the start, since this seems to be relevant to quite a lot of discussions I have now!
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5083 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 23 Apr 2022, 09:17
I enjoyed Colin Tudge's book, Secret Life of Trees; he had a similar approach with his book about birds, Consider the Birds: How They Live and Why They Matter, which is another good read if you like his sort of rambling and slightly academic approach.
Magnolias are lovely plants with many of the wild species growing to be enormous forest trees when mature, compared to the modern hybrids one usually sees that have been bred to fit in increasingly small modern gardens. I have two small hybrid magnolias close to the house but I'd like to get a really big one for my wild 'Jurassic Park' bit of garden because as you say, in form they are little changed from their ancient predecessors, the genus having evolved before bees. Vizzer would probably chide me for introducing non-native species but I'm trying to create a small grove to resemble the flora of the Mesozoic. I've already got four coastal redwoods (sequoia) the largest currently about 20m tall, a dawn redwood (metasequoia), a wollemia, three ginkgoes and a giant redwood (sequoiadendron) but that last is still in a pot and won't be planted out for another year or so. Also in pots I've got several cycads but these are rather slowing growing and even when mature usually only stand a couple of metres tall, so they would probably get swamped by brambles if I were to plant them out before the other trees get big enough to suppress the weeds. I'd like to get some New Zealand tree ferns (dickinsonia) but they are very expensive here (though I might try raising them from seed) and anyway I'm not sure that it's not too dry, at least in summer. All in all I'd like to create something a bit like Trike's depiction of Cretaceous flora that he posted over on his dinosaur thread:
I will of course be long gone before all these plants get anywhere near maturity but maybe it will be my legacy to the future owners of the house and garden.
Last edited by Meles meles on Sun 24 Apr 2022, 11:57; edited 1 time in total
Green George Censura
Posts : 805 Join date : 2018-10-19 Location : Kingdom of Mercia
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 23 Apr 2022, 13:54
I recall attending a garden Party at Plas Cyfronydd and being shown their Gingko cope - although apparently all are genetically clones, there are now numerous cultivars, and they have almost all of them. Consider, too, the tambalacoque. It seems almost all existing trees date from the time of the dodo, and, apart from a few that are considered to have propagated from seeds eaten by tortoises, they are thought to have been made viable by passing through the bird's intestinal tract. Work funded by Gerald Durrell's foundation has succeeded in growing new specimens by feeding the fruits to turkeys.
Triceratops Censura
Posts : 4377 Join date : 2012-01-05
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 23 Apr 2022, 14:37
Jurassic
From the Celtic root word "jor", Latinised "juria" meaning a forested mountain. The Jura Mountains lie along the France - Switzerland border.
In 1795, the German naturalist and geographer, Alexander von Humboldt, noticed that the limestone deposits of the Juras were distinctively different from Muschelkalk, " mussel chalk", of Southern Germany and named it " Jura Kalkstein"(Jura Limestone)
The French geologist, Alexandre Brongiart, later linked the Jura Kalkstein with similarly aged limestone in the Cotswolds and Oxfordshire and coined the term Jurassic
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5083 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sat 23 Apr 2022, 15:18
Most commercial varieties of Ginkgo biloba are clones but self-sown ones certainly aren't. Ginkgoes are dioecious with some trees being female and others being male, although it is almost impossible to tell the sexes apart until the trees are mature at a few decades old. Male plants produce a lot of pollen which can cause severe hay-fever like symptoms, while the fleshy 'fruits' (although botanically they are not true fruits) produced by female trees contain butanoic acid which smells very disagreeably like rancid butter or vomit. Accordingly cultivated varieties for use in gardens or as street trees are usually clones in order to guarantee the mature tree has the characteristics you want and that amongst other desirable qualities such as stature, shape, autumn colour etc, the tree is either male so it will never produce the malodorous fruit, or a female clone without the allergy problems. If there are mature male and female trees in close proximity (they rely on the wind for pollination like most conifers) and they are just left to themselves, eventually they will likely produce viable seed within the fleshy 'fruit' on the female trees (the rich nut-like inner seeds are also widely eaten as a delicacy in Asia). Ginkgo trees obviously set seed readily enough within their original home range in the forested mountains of south-central China, but they will also do so in temperate regions such as Europe (including the UK) and North America although they have never become significantly naturalised. They can also be cloned very easily by taking semi-ripe twig cuttings (I propagated my trees that way) and if cut down will readily produce many new shoots from the base which can be then be cleaved off and planted separately. Some old trees will also produce bulbous burrs on the lower trunk (called chi-chi, "breasts") which then develop into woody structures that grow downwards to the ground, somewhat akin to aerial roots (perhaps as a stratagem to survive being swamped by flood debris or landslips). Again these can be removed and planted separately, or just left to naturally take root and then develop a new shoot while still attached to the parent tree.
This ability to easily propagate in a variety of different ways may be one reason why they have survived largely unchanged for so long (the only living species, Ginkgo biloba, is almost indistinguishable from Jurassic fossils) but it may also account for their population's somewhat limited genetic variety. The ginkgo's survival in more recent times is also likely due to its religious significance in Buddhism and Confucianism, and hence the widespread planting of trees in temple gardens well outside of their natural home range. They are also as tough as the proverbial old boot. There were six mature ginkgo trees growing in Hiroshima between 1–2 kilometres from the 1945 atom bomb explosion - all survived (and are still alive) while comparatively few other trees that close to the blast made it.
PS - Since this is the word of the day thread:
Gingko or ginkgo or ginkyo
The genus name is regarded as a misspelling of the Japanese pronunciation gin kyo for the kanji 銀杏 meaning "silver apricot", which is found in Chinese herbology literature such as 日用本草 Daily Use Materia Medica (1329) and 本草綱目 Compendium of Materia Medica (1578). The German naturalist and explorer, Engelbert Kaempfer, first introduced the spelling ginkgo in his book Amoenitatum Exoticarum (1712) and it is thought he misspelled "Ginkyo" as "Ginkgo". This misspelling was then included by Carl Linnaeus in his book Mantissa plantarum II when he gave it as the tree's genus name. Despite the transcription error, "ginkgo" is usually pronounced /ˈɡɪŋkoʊ/, which has given rise to the common alternative spelling "gingko".
Vizzer Censura
Posts : 1818 Join date : 2012-05-12
Subject: Re: Words of the Day Sun 24 Apr 2022, 10:51
As my ash tree leaf avatar suggests, the planting and nurturing of the native broadleaf trees of the British Isles is something I’ve been involved with for many years. These would include ash (obviously) but also wych elm, blackthorn, crab apple, elder, hazel, oak, hawthorn, spindle, willow, elm, buckthorn and alder. Indeed our crab apple is currently in stunning blossom.
I wouldn’t want it thought, however, that I was some sort of xenophobic gardener. And I certainly wouldn’t chide anyone for planting exotics as that would be a hypocritical thing for me to do considering the number of exotic trees and shrubs we have adjacent to the walled part of our garden. For instance there is a split leaf philodendon (Thaumatophyllum bipinnatifidum) from South America which is often mistaken for the Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa) from Central America but is much hardier and (unlike the Swiss cheese plant) can be grown outdoors here given the right soil and shelter. We also have a Snowmound (Spiraea nipponica) from the island of Shikoku in Japan and a dark red dwarf Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Firecracker’). Nearby there’s a Chilean lantern tree (Crinodendron hookerianum) and a hardy Fuschia magellanica also from Chile. And then there are the sometimes much maligned laurels – a Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica), a Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) from Asia Minor and last (but not least) a potted Bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) from the Mediterranean which, needless to say, is a regular contributor to the kitchen. We think that our collection is exquisite but others might see it as being a veritable gallimaufry of ornamental trees.
GALLIMAUFRY
A hodge-podge, hash or ratatouille of variegated ingredients.