Neal Stephenson has been writing about William of Orange for a while, at least in another series of books, the “Baroque Cycle” from about 2003.
I read this, but I’m still confused. It says that William Of took his name from a French town, Orange, whose own name seems to be from Gaulish > Latin and nothing to do with fruit or colour. That’s sort of like saying that Mary of Reading is why we like the colour red, or Julie of Greenwich is why our team is green (if Mary of Reading / Julie of Greenwich had existed and founded a nation).
Although this may be generally true, it is often not specifically true. For example, in my vegetable garden this summer, all my Cucurbita pepo plants suffered a sudden fatal collapse, including pumpkin, winter squash, and zucchini. They were thriving. My Cucumis plants – cucumber, cantaloupe – were untouched, even though intertwined. I have no idea why – a soil-borne fungus? – but they were not unhealthy at all, not one of your criteria for ill health applied.
I think this is right. The house of Orange’s name came from the town, the name of the fruit is derived from Persian. The color comes from the name of the fruit, and the house of Orange adopted the color as their own since it was so similar to their own name.
Cool. I knew carrots came in different colors, but didn’t know that orange ones were bred specifically for color.
Indeed, in English the fruit were originally something like “a naranj”, then the n migrated across to the article. Just as “a nuncle” became “an uncle”.
Genuine question - is this right? For something like orange, the word comes from “naranja” (Spanish) and eventually the N migrates to the indefinite article to form “an orange” (grammarians, please feel free to clean this up). That would suggest (to me) that there’s a word like nuncle in a source language so that an uncle can be formed from it. The source languages for English are usually French or Germanic, but the (current) French and German words are oncle and Onkel. No N to migrate.
j
Checking the OED, it’s not right. English borrowed the word from French oncle, but “nuncle” is attested from the 15th century. But in the spirit of the thread, the entry also gives us:
Eme also has forms in neme, which apparently survives in dialect (last quote, 1855). Fædera was probably too close to fæder > father to survive, I’d guess. Chart of Old English Kin Terms
I didn’t really “stumble” on this, but it’s interesting.
The new NFPA “Standard on Fire Protection of Cannabis Growing and Processing Facilities” is…
NFPA 420.
Who says that people who write Codes and Standards don’t have a sense of humor?
Many of them do. Take a look at the filled-out forms in the National Electrical Code Handbook. There’s a lot of electrical work taking place at 742 Evergreen, with the associated participants one would expect.
The Queen has appeared on the currencies of at least 33 countries around the world, making her the world record holder for appearing on the money of most nations.
The world’s largest cruise ship, the Global Dream, is going to be scrapped without ever having been to sea. Apparently the company went bankrupt during Covid, and couldn’t find a buyer for the ship. It cost over a billion to build, and apparently still needs to be outfitted.
That’s a terrible waste.
Robert Clary (LeBeau of Hogan’s Heroes) was married to the daughter of 30s movie star, Eddie Cantor.
I learned that today, too. I wonder if we had watched the same movie.
I saw a Loony Tunes cartoon with a parody of Cantor last week (I was pretty proud that I not only recognized who he was, but also that the cartoon was built around his schtick) and decided to look him up.
I saw “Thank Your Lucky Stars” today on TCM, where he’s pretty much the main character(s).
Queen (Princess) Elizabeth first appeared on a stamp at the age of six…a 6c stamp issued by Newfoundland in 1932.
She also appeared on a Canadian $20 bill in 1935.
In 1928, the United States changed the president on the $20 bill from Grover Cleveland to Andrew Jackson. Cleveland was moved to the $1000 bill.
I thought this too, but then I remembered that it was merely a cruise ship, so it would be needlessly generating pollution and environmental hazards such as dumping septic tanks into the sea, if it were launched.
However, by being built then scrapped, at least workers got paid, and the scrap would be fairly high quality. There is of course the large amount of environmental damage just from the materials and the build/ scrap process, but those would be present either way.
So by not being launched, you might say that “waste” was being minimized…