There is much confusion in the world today concerning creeks and cricks. Many otherwise well-informed people live out their lives under the impression that a crick is a creek mispronounced. Nothing could be farther from the truth. A crick is a distinctly separate entity from a creek, and it should be recognized as such. After all, a creek is merely a creek, but a crick is a crick.posted by namewithoutwords at 10:37 AM on January 12 [4 favorites]
Rhode Island: Not an islandRhode Island is an island. It's part of the state whose official, though seldom-used, name is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
the man of twists and turns:I guess I should have specified that he would go on and on about the "Treaty of Ver-say-lees." Also, the definition next to the little pronunciation icon references "a palace built for Louis XIV." Still, point taken.Although, weirdly Google's dictionary pronounces it "ver-SAILS." Conclusion: We're doomed.
Versailles, Kentucky
Epp - i - tome (last syllable like the book). I thought "ee-pit-o-me" was a completely separate word, which I somehow never saw written down. (I also picked up a lot of my vocabulary through reading and so still mispronounce words, to this day.)It doesn't help that one of the word's meanings is "summary of a book" which is easily analyzed as "epi-" and "tome": "the top or surface of a book".
ok, I must be missing something here with the wheat..."Corn" is a general term for grains. In some places it's also used as a specific term for a certain grain, e.g. in the US it's used to specifically mean maize. In other places it's used to specifically mean other grains, e.g. wheat.
Knapah - coffee cake is a type of breakfast bread you eat alongside a cup of coffee or serve guests coming over for coffee. It's not coffee-flavored cake.In England, coffee cake is coffee-flavored cake.
Morton starts adding magnesium carbonate (an anti-caking agent) to salt, creating a table salt that flows freely, even in humid weather.posted by treepour at 7:16 PM on January 12
When fat and sugar are mixed together – the process is called creaming – little bubbles of air are being trapped in the mixture, each one surrounded by a film of fat (which is why the mixture changes colour during creaming as the trapped air creates a foam). It is this air which produces the lightness in the finished cake, but unless beaten egg is added to the mixture the fat would collapse and the air escape during cooking. The egg white conveniently forms a layer around each air bubble, and as the temperature of the cake rises in the heat of the oven this layer coagulates and forms a rigid wall round each bubble, preventing it from bursting and ruining the texture of the cake.I had no idea Roy Oribison could see. This clears up the confusion I always had about the lyrics of Pretty Woman.
Do "teacakes" actually have tea in them? I always assumed they were cakes to have with tea. And then I googled and Wikipedia showed me something that, to my eye, looks like a bagel. Those things have tea in them, somewhere?No. But as you say, in terms of meaning, teacake in England is named in the same way coffecake in the US: after the drink you eat it with. It's just that coffee cake in England is made with coffee, not drunk with it, so is named differently.
Pull up to my bumper babyposted by benito.strauss at 3:10 PM on January 13
In your long black limousine
Pull up to my bumper baby
Drive it in between
......
Grease it
Spray it
Let me lubricate it
British place names get very eroded:
Worcester = "wistah"
skycrashesdown: "she thought it went from a sphere to a crescent and back. Actually grew and shrank."How else would you explain the ☪? The placement of the star means that it is either closer to Earth than the Moon, which is patently ridiculous, or that the Moon is not (at the time of depiction) spherical.
...after my first child was born, I was nigh on hysterical that the doctor did NOT actually tie a knot in my daughter's umbilical stump. What did they mean, they just CLAMPED it and then took the clamp OFF before we went home?
Perth Amboy was founded when James Drummond, Earl of Perth, crossed the Atlantic, came to the confluence of the Raritan River and the Arthur Kill, and decided it would be a good place to have a town. As he came down the gangplank of the boat in his Scottish finery, including a kilt, the native Lenape people asked him, "Perth am girl?" He said, "No. Perth am boy!" Then he lifted his kilt to prove it. And that's how the town got it's name.Being a credulous youth Sam believes the story to be true. A few years later, Sam is in school when the teacher asks if anyone knows how Perth Amboy got its name. Sam's hand shoots up and he says, "I know! I know!" He then proceeds to tell the story just as his father told it to him. Proud of himself for knowing the right answer he sits back down.
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posted by Flunkie at 9:44 AM on January 12 [12 favorites]