WORDS AND OTHER STUFF?

Flies

Yesterday I quoted a report about fly brains.  The spelling of the species was erroneous.  The correct name is Drosophila melanogaster and refers to the common fruit fly that apparently appears out of nowhere (spontaneous generation?) when you peel a piece of fruit or forget to put table scraps into the mulcher.

Even with their mammalian brains, their life cycle is only one week in length, just enough time for eating, mating and laying eggs for the next generation.

 Their name means, "Black-bellied dew lover."  I wonder how they got that name.

To remember:  "Time flies like the wind, and fruit flies like bananas."

Bidet

I read an article by a person who loves bidets because they get a person's butt nice and clean.

That's true but I thought that bidets may have another purpose.  I could be wrong.

At the end of the article, the author quoted a poem by Langston Hughes, 

"Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams die,

Life is like a broken-winged bird 

That cannot fly."

(The rest is)

"Hold fast to dreams, 

For when dreams go.

Life is a barren field,

Frozen with snow."

American poet Langston Hughes (1901-1967) wrote a lot of poems that I like, such as,

Impasse

I could tell you

If I wanted to,

What makes me 

What I am.

But I don't

Really want to - 

And you don't 

Give a damn."

Pronunciation

Professor Curzan talked about English pronunciation and how hard it must be for foreigners to pronounce words the way native English speakers do.  She cited a poem called Chaos by Dutch Author Gerard Noist Trenite (1870-1946).  Here is a small bit from his poem:

"... Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Pilot, pivot, gaunt but aunt, 

Font, front, won't, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,

Relic, rhetoric, hygienic, 

Gooseberry, goose and close, but close,

Paradice, rise, rose, and close.

,,, Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,

Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,

Though I often heard as you did,

Funny rhymes to unicorn, 

Yes, you know them, Vaughan* and Strachan.**

                         *

** Strawn.

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