I was measured recently for a medical procedure (nasogastric pH meter, since I've mentioned it) and found I too have lost an inch in height, no longer being 6'1". I do maintain a daily stretching routine, but decompressing my back doesn't appear to be one of its benefits (unless, of course, there was a time when I was 5'11" and didn't even know it).
Well, Google led me to explanations of "blood libel" and it turns out I'm quite familiar with the concept although I really don't think I'd ever encountered the term before (50-something product of SSND nuns [from whom I first encountered the distinction between knowledge and belief, by the way] and then the Jesuits, here).
But this reminds me vividly of a story I must have read in grade school, in which a child martyr was miraculously given the power of speech after death to testify against the "un-Christians" whose victim he had been. (Only vaguely remembering either of them at the moment, I believe it was a 50s-era re-rendering of one of the Canterbury Tales.)
Well, since you specifically recognized the older contingent, I can't but join in: Happy birthday.
Just heard from a friend in Texas whose nephew has been in Iraq for a week.
His unit has had eleven killed.
First week.
Just seemed a thing to mention in this context.
I thought liquid nitrogen ice cream looked like open thread material anyway, but the nitrogen cylinder particle made it inevitable.
Even organic milk.
Well, for an extreme example, back in the day, cattle used to graze on wild onions in the spring, with unfortunate consequences for the milk. Carotene was low in winter feed, and butter would be pale. Nowadays rations are pretty much uniform, even if organic, and despite the California cheese commercials, few commercial dairy cows have access to pasture. Local and seasonal variation are ironed out.
But I did invoke the interaction of breed with environment--not suggesting that it doesn't exist.
the Holseins and Jersey which produce milk so copiously
Well, not to be picky, but the Jersey produces relatively small quantities of especially rich milk; the Guernsey used to be popular because it offered intermediate quantity and butterfat.
I would suggest a Slow Food site as a start for sources on detailed treatment of the interaction between breed and environment, but the underlying notion is that terroir is just as real for other foodstuffs as it is for wine.
There are breeds with both dairy and beef strains (shorthorns are the first coming to mind; my grandfather had a dairy with milking shorthorns). I've heard that dairy cows may end up becoming ground beef; the cows apparently are only milk producers for five or so years in the big-dairy world.
All this is true. There are actual dual-purpose breeds; my grandfather had Devons, but before I was old enough to know anything about it they had graded over to Herefords because they offered more efficient beef production.
However, while I forget the numbers (one could Google American Livestock Breeds Conservancy), virtually all dairy cattle world-wide are the exceedingly single-purpose Holstein-Friesian ("a legal way to water the milk" as Richard Lewontin put it). And the eventual fate of dairy cows is a question apart from how bull calves are dealt with.
In the interests of full disclosure, it's also possible to cross-breed beef sires on Holstein dams, which are larger-framed and calve more easily--but in those circumstances a) there are no replacement dairy heifers, everything goes to beef; and b) some at least of the cow's milk production is diverted to get the calf on a good start to growing.
Veal, yes. The problem with raising dairy steers for beef is that they're not bred to fatten as efficiently and so will grade lower at slaughter unless held longer on feed, which lowers the profit margin one way or the other.
A few years ago, anyway, there was some interest in switching to what's known as "hair sheep" to specialize in lamb because the price of wool was so low that shearing didn't pay for itself. I haven't heard anything about it lately but that may be related either to an actual change or to my place in the information food chain these days.
My feeling is that "protestors" probably wouldn't conform to any rule about the two-syllable words but would fit in with rules for three-syllable words.
There very easily could be a principle that I'm forgetting that applies to three-syllable words as such; my reasoning was that we're talking about [verb]ers, not [noun]ers, so the pronunciation would carry over from that.
Is there any way to say, "no, honestly, I really mean it"??
A reference to the historical publication where you learned about it might serve, at least for those readers who thought it worth checking to verify that the reference is genuine.
Back to an earlier question about the pronunciation of "protesters"--I guess it was in the last open thread--my authority for this is Marilyn vos Savant, if memory serves, but I as remember it English usage is to put the accent on the first syllable when the word is a noun, and on the second when used as a verb.
CON-test, con-TEST. PRO-test, pro-TEST.
Which I read to say persons taking part in a PRO-test would be referred to as pro-TEST-ers.
"Have food. Get gas."
My late mother-in-law always got a kick out of a freeway exit sign (I think it's still there) between here and San Franscisco. The sign is for a service station, but as you drive by it stands above a restaurant.
"Fast gas."
I don't know how I've gotten this far and missed out on strange and interesting names like those given above.
Two not-unconnected points in haste re: DNA evidence and the death penalty.
First, as was suggested, the emphasis on DNA evidence gives a single point of focus, as if there were no other kinds of forensic evidence and no other approaches than questioning the forensics.
Second, and I think this also has been suggested, I see no a priori reason why the frequency of exoneration in cases where DNA evidence is available, should not be taken as a statistical implication of an equivalent frequency of errors in cases where DNA evidence doesn't apply.
I remember the Flavr Savr but not being that favorably impressed with it (from State Market in Davis--not only local to the technology but a local market noted for good produce).
Ours ranked as an all right store tomato, nothing special.
(At least I've never heard anyone say 'clang' (not as a past-tense verb anyway), and would laugh if I did. "I clang to the flotsam until rescued."
No, but I've never heard anyone say they "clinged" either. The form (just as in the past perfect) is "clung."
Second reason: soup stock!
Yup. My one regret for the pretty-near-ambrosial braised pork shoulder with cider and caramelized onions we did this year: no turkey bones.
As to stuffing/dressing cooked outside the bird: top the casserole (before topping with the lid) with a turkey wing or thigh. (What, because we had pork we were going to pass up the turkey stuffing?)
I don't remember why we were off school that day (I was a junior in [a very small Catholic] high school) but my mother was having her hair done and I had charge of my baby sister in her stroller.
I also don't remember whether I heard rumors and then went into the TV section (we didn't have a set at home), or whether I was there and saw the bulletin.
What's stuck most vividly in my memory was the woman in the beauty parlor who said, with a kind of ghoulish avidity, "and I hear Jackie was shot in the face."
We listened to the radio at home (no TV) all that weekend, and went to my aunt's house to watch the funeral.
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