Word of the day: lukewarm

The directions that come with a Waterpik say to use lukewarm water. Whence lukewarm ?

I made up a preposterous etymology:

There once was an innkeeper named Luke, generous with his board but stingy with his hearth. (Go figure.) When travelers stopped at Luke’s inn of a cold night and stood by the hearth to warm themselves, they found that the feebly glowing embers did little to take away their chill. These poor travelers were said to be lukewarm.

The truth is more prosaic. Merriam-Webster, which traces lukewarm to the fourteenth century, is more up-to-date than the OED for this word:

Middle English, from luke lukewarm + warm; probably akin to Old High German lāo lukewarm — more at LEE.

As a noun, lee means “protecting shelter“ or “the side (as of a ship) or area that is sheltered from the wind.” As an adjective, “of, relating to, or being the side sheltered from the wind,” “facing in the direction of motion of an overriding glacier → used especially of a hillside.” The word predates the twelfth century. Its origin:

Middle English, from Old English hlēo; perhaps akin to Old High German lāo lukewarm, Latin calēre to be warm.

As Gertrude Stein might have written, Lukewarm is luke and warm and luke is warm.

*

March 8: Ernie Kovacs made a faucet. Thanks, Kevin.

Postal consolidation

The United States Postal Service is planning to “consolidate” thirty processing and distribution centers. In Illinois, four processing and distribution centers outside of Chicago are slated for consolidation. That seems to mean that all outgoing mail will be processed in Chicago and environs. Snail mail indeed.

The website Save the Post Office has the complete list of locations and more information. If you click on the PDF for a location, you’ll find a link to a webpage for comments from the public.

To her credit, Mary Miller (IL-15) has joined Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) in a letter to Postmaster Louis DeJoy arguing against postal consolidation. I’m a bit addled to find that I agree with Mary Miller about something. I would imagine that Nikki Budzinski might say the same.

[If you’re wondering: “the president of the United States does not have the authority to remove the postmaster general.”]

Paying attention

From yesterday’s installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American :

On the one hand, caps to credit card late fees and an attempt to address price gouging; on the other hand, local police with immunity rounding up millions of people and putting them in camps, for deportation. And, in between the two, an election.

People had better start paying attention.

“The true noises of the night-time city”

Italo Calvino, “A journey with the cows.” In Marcovaldo, trans. William Weaver (New York: HarperCollins, 1983).

See also “the night noises of the metro-night” in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

Related reading
All OCA Italo Calvino posts (Pinboard)

A joke in a neo-traditional manner

From a very (very) young comic:

Why does “dinosaur” start with “d”?

No spoilers: the answer is in the comments.

Leggings

[“Artful Dodger.” Zippy, March 4, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

BIll Griffith is on the record: he’s not a fan of Olivia Jaimes’s Nancy. Is today’s strip, in which Little Zippy draws his favorite cartoon character, a comment on Jaimes’s Nancy, who wears leggings? Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy wears a dress, or a blouse, sweater, and skirt.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[Jaimes’s Nancy started out wearing a skirt, but now it’s leggings, red with black spots.]

An EXchange name sighting

[From The Soft Skin (dir. François Truffaut, 1964). Click for a larger view.]

MEDeric and, later, MEDicis were both Paris EXchange names.

Related reading
All OCA EXchange name posts (Pinboard)

Full-page screenshots in iOS and macOS

Here’s how to take a screenshot of a full page in iOS and macOS (Cult of Mac). These tricks will save someone the tedious work of pasting together parts to make a large whole.

The tips don’t work with all pages: if you’re trying, say, to get a large screenshot of a full-page advertisement from an old Life magazine in Google Books, the result will be an enormous file that won’t open. You have to be thinking about how much page precedes and follows what you’re trying to screenshot.

On a Mac, there’s also the free app Paparazzi — that’s what’s needed to snag, say, a full-page advertisement from Life.

Letters listing

Synchronicity: There are letters listing in today’s OCA tax photograph — the U and T of HAIRCUT. And there’s a letter listing in Olivia Jaimes’s Nancy today: a Z that tilts into an N.

[Do kids still pass paper notes in class with yes/no questions? I remember them well: “I like you. Do you like me? ☐Yes. ☐No.”]

Shave and a haircut

[234 Bowery, New York City, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

No dive today, shallow or deep, just a shave and a haircut, costing just three-fifths of two-bits (25¢). Please notice the letters dropping from HAIRCUT, hairs snipped and falling to the floor, or to the sidewalk.

In 2023, this address houses a purveyor of restaurant equipment. The Bowery is still full of businesses catering (sorry) to restaurants. Here’s some history about what once took place at no. 234. Like the people in this photograph, I’m going to keep walking.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)