Word of the Day
ballyhoo
noun
a clamorous and vigorous attempt to win customers or advance any cause; blatant advertising or publicity.
More about ballyhoo
Ballyhoo “blatant advertising or publicity” is a word with an unclear etymology. The word is an Americanism, meaning that it originated in the collection of dialects of English spoken in the United States, and along with fellow Americanisms such as hobo, jazz, and jitney, ballyhoo’s origins are obscure—though, of course, there abound several theories with varying degrees of probability. One proposal relates to ballyhoo’s earlier, now obsolete sense of “speech by a show presenter that boastfully advertises a performance,” which connects ballyhoo to carnival and circus lingo. From here, if this hypothesis holds weight, ballyhoo could be a shortened form of ballyhooly “Hell,” perhaps named rather unaffectionately after a village in northern County Cork, Ireland: the logic here is that, following the pattern of the phrase to raise hell, ballyhooly was clipped at the end and narrowed in definition from “Hell” to “clamor, outcry” and then again to “showman’s speech.” Other hypotheses about the origins of ballyhoo include an inversion of the elements that form hullabaloo “uproar.” Ballyhoo was first recorded in English in the 1830s.
how is ballyhoo used?
As a young man, William worked for a logging company on Vancouver Island, cycling 30 miles after a long day of physical labour. He qualified for the 1928 Olympics at Amsterdam …. [He] turned professional the following year, ending his Olympic career, becoming a popular figure in the sporting culture. He was even romantically linked to Countess Fern Andra, a beauty of German silent movies and friend of the spy Mata Hari. The romance likely was a bit of promotional ballyhoo.
Barely a decade ago, the New York men’s wear presentations merited their own dedicated week with all the attendant ballyhoo, parties, corporate sponsorships and street-style photographers trawling for Instagram fodder. People turned out in droves, disporting themselves in outlandish costumes …. Plenty of schlock was produced during those weeks …
rosolio
noun
a cordial flavored with rose petals, cloves, cinnamon, or the like, popular in southern Europe.
More about rosolio
Rosolio “a cordial flavored with rose petals or spices” is a borrowing from Italian, and though a rosolio can include rose petals among its ingredients, the drink is not related to the word rose. Rosolio is a variant, likely because of the influence of Italian rosa “rose” and olio “oil,” of rosoli, from Medieval Latin rōs sōlis “dew of the sun.” The term rosemary has a similar origin, deriving not from rose and Mary but rather from rōs maris “dew of the sea.” Latin rōs “dew” has relatively few descendants in English, other than obscure, obsolete terms such as rorid and rory, both meaning “dewy,” but Latin sōl “sun” is the source of solar, solarium “sunroom,” parasol, and solstice. Rosolio was first recorded in English in the 1810s.
how is rosolio used?
Italicus is a new liqueur from Italy inspired by rosolio, a drink that was once the toast of the Court of Savoy …. Piecing together the original rosolio recipe was painstaking work; [Giuseppe Gallo, Italicus creator and an authority on Italian drinks,] spent many months trawling the archives of the University of Turin and interviewing superannuated Italians before he pinpointed a formula of roses, lavender, gentian and lemon balm. For his own recipe, he added chamomile, bergamot and fragrant Cedro lemon to the mix, resulting in a slightly more citrusy liqueur that works particularly well served 50/50 with prosecco, lots of ice and a couple of green olives.
apparatus
noun
any complex instrument or mechanism for a particular purpose.
More about apparatus
Apparatus “a complex instrument for a particular purpose” is a borrowing of Latin apparātus “equipment, act of equipping, preparation.” Using the suffix -tus, which indicates verbal action, apparātus—literally meaning “equipped (thing)”—is the past participle of the verb apparāre “to equip, make ready,” from parāre “to prepare.” The stems of parāre, para- and pera-, appear in a wide variety of Latin-derived terms, from imperative and preparation to vituperate and separatist. As a result of the regular sound changes that emerged as Latin evolved into French, parāre still exists today, albeit in disguise, in French-derived terms such as empire, rampart, repair, spar, and even sever. Apparatus was first recorded in English in the 1620s.
how is apparatus used?
New research shows that six species of Caribbean and Latin American anoles, a type of lizard, can exhale air to create large, oxygen-filled bubbles that cling to their head. The anoles were seen periodically inflating the bubbles and then drawing them back in through their noses …. “We think this is operating like a rebreathing device,” says study first author Christopher Boccia, a doctoral student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. That device, also called a rebreather, is an apparatus that allows divers to extend time underwater by recycling exhaled air and breathing the previously-unused oxygen in it.
Scientists, philosophers—and parents—have asked similar questions about what is innate and what is learned in the infant brain, going all the way back to the ancients. A study conducted using an apparatus specifically designed to inspect the brains of babies may bring an answer one step closer …. Rebecca Saxe, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her colleagues scanned 42 infants ranging in age from two to nine months using a special functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) helmet designed specifically for babies.