Momma's Word of the Day (check first post every day!)

[red930]

Haven't had good possum in a while.

 

My Pawpaw just about "farm raised" possum when I was a kid. He let them stay in the rafters of the old garage and fed them high quality grains from the other farm animals. Possum meat is very good and even wild possum doesn't have a "gamey" quality at all.

[momma]

198.May 6th, 2007pal, n.-A friend; a chum.

 

-Synonyms: amigo, brother, chum, confidant, confidante, familiar, friend, intimate, mate.

 

-Antonyms: enemy, foe

 

-This word originated in England

 

"Where have you been all this day, pal?" "Why, pal, what would you have me to do?" That conversation was recorded in Herefordshire, England, in a deposition in 1682. At least from that time, we have had pals in English.

 

Nowadays pal is a term of endearment, but it had a disreputable aura in earlier times. In the eighteenth century, an author explained, "when highwaymen rob in pairs, they say such a one was his or my pal."

 

The word comes from the Romani language spoken by the people who call themselves Romani or Rom, and who are called by others Gypsies, a name they don't like. There are about a million and a half speakers of Romani throughout the world. The Romani of western Europe are one of three great populations that began a nomadic exodus from India about a thousand years ago. There are also the Lomarven or Lom of Central Europe and the Domari or Dom of the Middle East and Eastern Europe. all speak versions of Romani, an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan branch related to the Hindi language of India.

 

In Romani, pal means "brother." Because the Romani have kept their language to themselves in the midst of other peoples, few other words from Romani have made their way into English. We do, however, have from Romani the blackjack known as a cosh (1869), the term cove (1567) to mean "fellow" or "man," and possibly the knife called a shiv (1674).

 

-Pal may be:

 

* a friend or close acquaintance (A person may be a pal or have a pal, either being a personal relationship.)

* the name of a famous dog named Pal, trained by Rudd Weatherwax, who was the first to portray the famous collie Lassie

* PAL, a shortened form of Paladin, a famous Chinese computer game with the official English name The Legend of Sword and Fairy.

* a brand bubble gum sold mostly in Mexico and southern United States

* the AAR Reporting Mark for the Paducah and Louisville Railway

 

PAL may be a three-letter acronym for:

 

* Phase Alternating Line, a television signal encoding system.

* Panoramic annular lens

* Paradox Application Language, a programming language for the Borland Paradox database.

* Parcel airlift

* Parents Against Leukaemia

* Peninsula Athletic League

* Permissive Action Link, a security device for nuclear weapons.

* Philippine Airlines (its ICAO code)

* Physical activity level

* Physics Abstraction Layer

* Platform Abstraction Layer, generic

* Platform Abstraction Layer, ZebOS-specific

* Platform Adaptation Layer

* Pohang Accelerator Laboratory

* Police Activities League

* Police Athletic League

* Polyanaline

* Portable Audio Laboratory, a portable radio by Tivoli Audio.

* Possession and Acquisition Licence

* Positron annihilation lifetime

* Power assisted lipoplasty

* Present Atmospheric Level

* Pressure acid leach

* Process asset library

* Processor abstraction layer

* Product Area Locator, the first electronic yellow pages service, c. 1979 in San Diego, CA

* Programmable Array Logic, a brand of semiconductor programmable logic device introduced by Monolithic Memories

* Public Ada Library

* Purdue AirLink

* Progressive Addition Lenses

* Prolongs Active Life, alleged as the meaning of a dog food brand, PAL, in the UK.

* The PAL video game region

* P.A.L, German noise / electronic band

[momma]

Haven't had good possum in a while.

 

My Pawpaw just about "farm raised" possum when I was a kid. He let them stay in the rafters of the old garage and fed them high quality grains from the other farm animals. Possum meat is very good and even wild possum doesn't have a "gamey" quality at all.

 

I guess its one of those things that you can't knock it till you try it though up here in Idaho we don't have many possum running about.

[momma]

199.May 7th, 2007ranch, n. or v.- 1. An extensive farm, especially in the western United States, on which large herds of cattle, sheep, or horses are raised.

 

2. A large farm on which a particular crop or kind of animal is raised: a mink ranch.

 

3. A house in which the owner of an extensive farm lives.

 

V.

 

To manage or work on a ranch

 

-Origin: 1831

 

The roots of the American nation were in the farm. The "embattled farmers" of Concord, Massachusetts, in Ralph Waldo Emerson's words "fired the shot heard round the world" to start the war of independence; and several gentleman farmers from Virginia, notably Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, articulated the new country's principles and made the nation a reality. As the United States expanded to the west, new settlement was marked by clearing the forests and Prairies (1773) for more farms.

 

But when settlers reached the wide open spaces of the Southwest, farm no longer fit. Spanish speakers had arrived there first and adapted from the Indians distinctive ways of making a rural living in the arid land, and their ranchos are what new settlers found there. "At a ranch," wrote James Ohio Pattie in a book published in 1831, "I procured a horse for three dollars." When English-speaking settlers began making their homes on the range, they took the word ranch as well as their land titles from Spanish ranchos, and instead of farmers, they called themselves ranchers (1836).

 

The typical ranch was far more spacious than an Eastern farm, and it was used primarily for grazing rather than growing crops. But ranch became such a dominant word in the West that it was also used for places that looked like the farms of the East. A writer in 1853 noted, "The old Texan has no farm, it is a ranche." In addition to cattle ranches, Montana in the 1880s had hay ranches, grain ranches, milk ranches, and chicken ranches. There have also been bee ranches, fruit ranches, grape ranches, and orange ranches. Richard Nixon grew up on a lemon ranch in Whittier, California. In the 1950s, a survey asking what the word was for "a small country place where crops are grown" got the answer ranch from 56 percent of those interviewed in California and Nevada.

 

East and West finally met in the twentieth century with the invention of the dude ranch (1921), a cattle ranch where city slickers could pretend to be cowboys.

 

-Synonyms: spread, cattle ranch, cattle farm

 

-In Argentina ranches are known as estancias, in Brazil as fazendas. In much of South America , including Ecuador and Colombia, the term hacienda may be used. Ranchero is also a generic term used throughout Latin America. New Zealanders use the term runs.

 

In Australia, ranches are known as 'stations' usually in the context of what stock they carry - usually referred to as Cattle stations or Sheep stations. They exist mainly on dry rangeland in the outback and many were originally administered as pastoral leases by state governments. Australian sheep and cattle stations are larger than ranches in the United States. For example, one of the largest is Anna Creek station at 24,000 km².

 

-Some of the better-known ranches and cattle stations include:

 

* King Ranch in Texas, USA

* XIT Ranch

* Philmont Scout Ranch

* The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), Australia's largest pastoral company

* S Kidman & Co (Australia), owners of the world's largest cattle station (ranch).

* The Thomas Ranch- located in Cochise County, Tombstone, Bisbee, Arizona since 1902.

* 6666 Ranch - located in West Texas.

* Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, a part of the National Park Service, a working cattle ranch in Montana that preserves the ranching tradition of the American West.

[General Septem]

Ranch is also a style of house, specifically the style of house which I currently live in. :tooth:

[shatteredsteel]

you forgot Ranch Dressing

[momma]

200.May 8th, 2007car accident, n.-an incident during which an automobile either departs from regular pathway into a ditch, or collides with anything that causes damage to the automobile, including other automobiles, telephone poles, buildings, and trees. Sometimes a car accident may also refer to an automobile striking a human or animal.

 

-Car accidents — also called road traffic accidents (RTAs), traffic collisions, auto accidents, road accidents, personal injury collisions, motor vehicle accidents, and crashes — kill an estimated 1.2 million people worldwide each year, and injure about forty times this number.

 

-The term accident is considered an inappropriate word by some, as reliable sources estimate that upwards of 90% are the result of driver negligence. In the UK the Department of Transport publish road deaths in each type of vehicle. These statistics are available as "Risk of injury measured by percentage of drivers injured in a two car injury accident." These statistics show a ten to one ratio of in-vehicle accident deaths between the least safe and most safe models of car.

 

-The statistics show that for popular, lightly built cars, occupants have a 6–8% chance of death in a two-car accident. (e.g. BMW 3 series 6%, Subaru Impreza 8%, Honda Accord 6%). Traditional "safety cars" such as the Volvos halve that chance (Volvo 700 4% incidence of death, Volvo 900 3%).

 

-The Jeep Cherokee and the Toyota Land Cruiser SUV have a 6% incidence of occupant death in actual crashes. However, in multiple-vehicle crashes SUVs are not much more lethal than passenger cars.(car, cyclist, or pedestrian)

 

-Although, rollovers are much more common in SUVs as compared to passenger cars(e.g. BMW 3 series, Subaru Impreza, Honda Accord) because of their top weight. For this reason SUVs actually post a greater threat to rollover and cause a fatality rather than passenger cars(e.g. BMW 3 series, Subaru Impreza, Honda Accord).

 

-Overall the four best vehicles to be in are the Jaguar XJ series 1%, Mercedes-Benz S-Class / SEC 1%, Land Rover Defender 1% and Land Rover Discovery 1%.

 

-A rear-end collision (often called simply rear-end) is a traffic accident where a vehicle (usually an automobile or a truck) impacts the vehicle in front of it, so called because it thus hits its rear. It may also be a rail accident where a train runs into the rear of a preceding train.

 

-A typical medical consequence of rear-ends, even in case of collisions at moderate speed, is Whiplash.

 

-For purposes of insurance and policing, the driver of the car that rear-ends the other car is almost always considered to be at fault due to not being within stopping distance or lack of attention. An exception to this rule comes into play if the impacted vehicle is in reverse gear.

 

-The Ford Pinto became the focus of a major scandal when it was alleged that a flaw in its design could cause fuel-fed fires as the result of a rear-end collision, though the car was actually no more likely to cause such fires than similar models sold at the time.

 

-I was involved in a rear-end car accident yesterday when the car behind me failed to stop and ran into the back of AG's 93 Ford Tracer. I am fine but my neck hurts from whiplash.

 

-Btw, its our 200th word of the day!

[General Septem]

I'm glad you're alright momma.:eek2:

 

I've never been in a car accident myself other than a very minor fender bender in which I was a passenger. I'm hoping to keep it that way. It's nice telling people I have a perfect record.

 

Congratulations on the 200th word, by the way. :beer

[momma]

201.May 9th, 2007si·es·ta, n.-A rest or nap after the midday meal.

 

-Synonyms: catnap, doze, nap, snooze.

 

-This word originated in Spain

 

At the sixth hour of the day, after the midday meal, speakers of Spanish have a sensible occupation: the siesta. For an hour or two or three, shops close and people close their eyes, awaiting the abating of the heat of the day. In the later afternoon and evening, life awakens with new vigor.

 

English speakers have discussed the siesta since the seventeenth century. A letter dated 1655 comments on the "Siesta (as the Spaniard calls it) or afternoon sleep." English-speaking travelers to Spanish-speaking countries have continued to comment on, and often happily partake in, the siesta. Back home, however, we have kept our stores open at siesta time.

 

As Texans know, the siesta made possible their independence in 1836. After Mexican general Santa Anna defeated the defiant Texans at the Alamo, he pursued the rest of the rebels, who had retreated to Galveston Island. On April 21, on the coastal plain at San Jacinto near Galveston, Santa Anna and his troops took their customary afternoon siesta. That was the time the unsleeping Texans, led by Sam Houston, chose to attack. In eighteen minutes the battle was over, the Mexican army was routed, Santa Anna himself became a prisoner, and Texas won its independence.

 

Spanish is one of the Romance languages, a descendant of Latin, in the Indo-European language family. Worldwide, about 300 million people speak Spanish as a first language, 28 million in Spain and most of the rest in Central and South America. Numerous Spanish words have immigrated into English, from both the old world and the new. The words in this book from Indian languages of Central and South America have mostly been brought to us by speakers of Spanish.

 

Among the many other Spanish words in English we have space to mention just a few: tuna (1555), breeze (1565), alligator (1568), mosquito (1583), bravado (1599), embargo (1602), sherry (1608), desperado (1610), cockroach (1624), cargo (1657), vanilla (1662), avocado (1697), cigar (1735), ranch (1808), patio (1828), stampede (1834), silo (1835), bonanza (1844), and tango (1913).

 

-It was adopted also by the Spanish and, through European influence, by Latin American countries and the Philippines. Afternoon sleep is also a common habit in China, India, Italy ("reposo" in Italian), Greece, The Middle East and North Africa. In these countries, the heat can be unbearable in the early afternoon, making a midday break in the comfort of one's home ideal. Though in some countries where naps are taken like in Northern Spain and Southern Argentina and Chile you can find weathers similar to Canadian winters and Northern European weathers.

 

However, the original concept of a siesta was merely that of a midday break. This break was intended to allow people time to be spent with their friends and family. A nap was not necessarily part of the daily affair of a siesta.

 

Others suggest that the long length of the modern siesta dates back to the Spanish Civil War, when poverty resulted in many Spaniards working multiple jobs at irregular hours, pushing back meals to later in the afternoon and evening.

 

-In South Asia, the idea of a post-lunch nap is common, and the idea of going to sleep after a light massage with mustard oil to induce drowsiness was very popular before industrialization. It was also very popular to consume a light snack during this ritual; it was thought that this practice would make one a better person. In Bangladesh and Indian Bengal, the word which describes the concept is bhat-ghum, literally meaning "rice-sleep" (nap after consuming rice).

 

Afternoon sleep is also a common habit in China and Taiwan. This is called xiuxi or wushui in Chinese. Its main difference from the siesta is that it lasts between two and three hours. It occurs after the midday meal and is even a constitutional right (article 43, Right to rest). Almost all schools in Taiwan have a half-hour '"nap period'" right after lunch. This is a time when all lights are out and one is not allowed to do anything else than sleep.

 

Many Japanese offices encourage their workers to take a nap in special rooms known as napping rooms. Other companies provide employees with "desk pillows" for taking naps at their desk.

 

Siestas have never been too popular in the United States. However, as college students continue to learn the importance of sleep, more and more of them are begining to have mid-day siestas.

[General Septem]

Ironic that should happen to be the word and that I'm just reading it now, because with this post, my siesta is over.

[momma]

Ironic that should happen to be the word and that I'm just reading it now, because with this post, my siesta is over.

 

I am gonna need a siesta tomorrow. I have to substitute the first part of the day and then go to work in the bakery the last half. Lucky for me its my "Friday" so I have something to look forward to.

[momma]

202.May 10th, 2007vit·ri·ol·ic, adj.-1. Of, similar to, or derived from a vitriol.

 

2. Bitterly scathing; caustic

 

-From the Latin word vitrum which means glass.

 

-It is a sulfuric acid, a highly corrosive substance and was formerly known

as oil of vitriol or simply vitriol. It was named vitriol owing

to the glassy appearance of its salts.

 

-Sticks and stones may break one's bones but vitriol (aka sulfuric acid) is even more painful. Mel Gibson acknowledged the potential harm of recent anti-Semitic statements he made, calling them "vitriolic," and issued a second public apology:

 

"Mel Gibson said Tuesday he is not a bigot and he apologized to 'everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words' he used when he was arrested for investigation of drunken driving."

 

Link: Guardian Unlimited Film Gibson Apologizes for 'Vitriolic' Words

 

Posted August 2, 2006.

 

-Synonyms: acerbic, acid, acidic, acrid, astringent, biting, caustic, corrosive, cutting, mordacious, mordant, pungent, scathing, sharp, slashing, stinging, trenchant, truculent

 

-Antonyms: kind, pleasant