WORDNOOK
By the editors of Merriam-Webster
STICKY SITUATION
THE ROSE KNOWS
Dear Editor, When something bothers my husband, he calls the annoyance a fly in the ointment. What does this mean and where does the expression come from? D. C. Fairfax, Virginia
Dear Editor, I sometimes see the term sub-rosa, as in sub-rosa business or sub-rosa affairs. Can you explain what it means? C. T. Eugene, Oregon
Fly in the ointment is a very old expression that can be traced to the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes: “Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour; so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.” So your husband is right—a fly in the ointment is an annoyance that spoils an otherwise pleasant situation, or in the case of the passage above, a person’s reputation. Ecclesiastes is the source of many familiar bits of wisdom, such as “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity,” “Cast your bread upon the waters” and “Nothing under the sun is new,” to name just a few.
Many people became familiar with sub rosa from its appearance in Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code. When used as an adjective, sub-rosa means “secretive” or “private” and is usually hyphenated. When used as an adverb, as in to meet sub rosa, it means “in confidence” or “secretly.” The term is from New Latin (the Latin of the modern era), and literally translated it means “under the rose.” Its meaning derives from the ancient association of the rose with secrecy, much like that of the lily with purity and the daisy with deceit. According to Greek myth, the goddess of love, Aphrodite, was enjoying a secret love affair when Harpocrates, the god of silence, spied her and her lover. Aphrodite’s son,
CARVED IN BONE Dear Editor, I have a collection of scrimshaw and I was wondering where the word scrimshaw comes from. D. B. Warren, Michigan Scrimshaw refers to the practice originating with American whalers of carving various articles
from shell, whalebone and ivory. It also refers to the carved objects themselves. As a noun, it was first recorded around 1864. The verb scrimshaw, meaning “to carve or engrave scrimshaw,” was first recorded about 40 years earlier. The origin of scrimshaw is obscure. One popular theory holds that the word came from the name of a sailor particularly skilled in such carving. But if such an individual did exist, he is unknown today. Another theory suggests a relationship between scrimshaw and scrimshank, a verb meaning “to shirk responsibility or duty” that is chiefly found in British English, specifically in military slang. (The origin of scrimshank is itself unknown.) It could be that the idle hours spent carving moved sailors to associate their activity with evading duty. However, there is no concrete evidence to support this hypothesis.
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Palindromes
CROSS-TRAIN YOUR BRAIN!
Targets: long-term memory working memory executive functioning
Palindromes are words or phrases that read the same backward and forward. Madam, I’m Adam is a well-known palindrome. In this game, all of the answers are one-word palindromes.
This challenge has been adapted from 399 Games, Puzzles & Trivia Challenges Specially Designed to Keep Your Brain Young. Targets:
trivia
ON A FIRST NAME BASIS
1. A quick glance, or a chick’s chirp. 6. Dunce, nitwit, idiot.
long-term memory executive functioning
All of the answers in this quiz share a common first name.
• A nineteenth-
Eros, who happened by, protected his mother’s privacy by creating the first rose and buying Harpocrates’ pledge of silence with it. The rose thus became a well-recognized symbol of secrecy. Around the time of the Renaissance, paintings and sculptures of roses often decorated the homes of the wealthy, especially in those rooms where the conversation among guests might require a reminder that sub vino sub rosa est, or “what is said under the influence of wine must remain a secret.” The first written use of the term sub rosa in English to mean “in secret” appeared in 1654, and it is still in common use today.
century English author; the creator of Peanuts; and a river in Boston.
• Jimmy Carter’s vice president; an actor who played Oscar Madison; and a former news anchorman.
SOLUTIONS: Trivia—On A First Name
• An astronaut;
an actress who played Gidget and Norma Rae; and the actress who played Archie Bunker’s daughter Gloria.
7. Legal proof of property
3. A technology that uses
8. A principle or belief, especially
4. A short, sharp, sound . . . from
9. A carpenter’s tool used to ensure
5. Novels or series of novels in
10. Pertaining to cities or citizenship;
revolution.
ownership.
• The capital of
British Columbia, Canada; the largest lake in Africa; and a nineteenthcentury British queen.
SOLUTIONS: Palindromes
Basis Peep Shahs Radar Toot Sagas Boob
7. Deed 8. Tenet 9. Level 10. Civic 11. Tot
• Charles (Dickens and Schulz) • Walter (Mondale, Matthau, and Cronkite) • Sally (Ride, Field, and Struthers) • Victoria
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
workman.com
2. Iranian rulers—before the Islamic
electromagnetic waves to detect objects in its path.
a car horn or a trumpet, for example.
which generations of people in a group or family are chronicled over many pages.
one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy.
that a surface or edge has no part higher than another.
it’s also a Honda car model.
11. A small child.