As mentioned in a previous post on forks, the early Europeans were confused with the new vogue of cutting food at the table into small, bite-size pieces. They found the custom, recently introduced by merchants trading with China, tedious and pointlessly fastidious. Unknown to thirteenth-century Europeans was the Oriental …
“Comet” is from two Greek words. Kometes means “with long hair,” and is derived from kome, meaning “the hair of the head.” To name the stars that orbited the sun and trailed long, cloudlike tails, the Greeks used their noun aster (“star”) and added kometes. This combination meant “a …
The ancient Greeks and Romans named the days of the week after the sun, the moon, and the planets, which they had already named for their gods The Germanic and Norse peoples adopted this practice and simply replaced the Roman gods’ names with those of similar deities. Six of …
The wedding cake was not always eaten by the bride; it was originally thrown at her ! It developed as one of many fertility symbols integral to the marriage ceremony. Wheat, long a symbol of fertility and prosperity, was one of the earliest grains to ceremoniously shower new …
As ancient Rome grew in power and influence, wealthier Romans began to build country houses outside the city. In Latin, such an estate was called a villa. Caretakers, groundskeepers, and domestic help were needed to maintain the house and property, so the Roman landowner built other small dwellings around …
Roman patricians and plebeians ate with their fingers, as did all European peoples until the dawning of a conscious fastidiousness at the beginning of the Renaissance. Still, there was a right and a wrong, a refined and an uncouth, way to go about it. From Roman times onward, a …
This is from the preface to Nathan Bailey’s Universal Etymological Dictionary of 1721: Some have remark’d that there is a constant Resemblance between the Genius of each People and the Language which they speak, and thence The French who are a People of great Vivacity have a Language that …
St. Pantaleone was a fourth-century Christian physician and martyr known as the “all-merciful.” Beheaded under orders of Roman emperor Diocletian, he became the patron saint of Venice, and a reliquary containing his blood (allegedly still liquid) is housed in the Italian town of Ravello. Pantaleone is probably the only …
I was saddened to read recently that brontosauruses never actually existed. Not only does that mean that one of the toys of my childhood was mischristened, it also means that there is no creature called a thunder lizard, and I think that’s a shame. You see, sauros was just …
Today medical care is considered a priority in Europe and elsewhere around the world. But this has not always been the case. Surviving written records from past civilisations reveal that care of the sick was not usually considered a priority. Sometimes a chronically or terminally ill person was just …
