Weekend Trivia - Sunday

10 years ago

Well, good Sunday morning Cottagers. It is a winter wonderland here. Looks like we got 8" to 10" of the white stuff over night. Really, that's a good time to get it, as most people aren't out driving around. The plows went through about 6.00 am. It will be a slow day for most!

I got some of the decorations up yesterday, around the house. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here! We're not putting a big tree up, 8( , cause we just don't have the room, and the puppy would probably cause chaos. My girls are used to the tree, and I have always used a water-pistol to reinforce the 'no-play' rule!! Oh well, china tree it is!! Outside, I have planter full of evergreens, with silk poinsettias to fancy it up. Come spring, this will be where some pretty pink tulips will go. All in all, I am pleased with the effect, though.

The practice of putting up special decorations at Christmas has a long history. In the 15th century, it was recorded that in London it was the custom at Christmas for every house and all the parish churches to be "decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green". So, what is holm?

Perhaps an easy question today, for gardeners? Maybe I am being too easy on you? Well, hopefully this will hold your attention for a little while!! I'll be back with clues, if you need them!!

Nancy.

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Comments (22)

thinman
10 years ago
That's a good question, Nancy. I can't say I know what holm is, but I do know that in the American west it is found on the range. I believe there is a song about that. Elsewhere, holm is found where the heart is.

Neither of those things tell us what holm is, but I do have a guess, and it's something green. Time will tell if I am close.

TM
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
10 years ago
The obvious springs to mind, but I suspect I should not go with that. I will wait for clues.

I bet your snow looks beautiful! Nary a flake fell here.

Cynthia
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Babylon was part of the answer, but I was going to Mesopotamia. Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization in the West, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires, all native to the territory of modern-day Iraq. An early version of cement made with lime, sand, and gravel was used in Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C. and later in Egypt. Although any preservation of this knowledge in literary sources from the Middle Ages is unknown, medieval masons and some military engineers maintained an active tradition of using hydraulic cement in structures such as canals, fortresses, harbors, and shipbuilding facilities. The technical knowledge of making hydraulic cement was later formalized by French and British engineers in the 18th century. And yes, you could make a construction guy (or a guy, TM?) crazy by referring to cement as concrete and vice versa. Mesopotamia, by the way, was very advanced for the age. Mesopotamian religion was the first to be recorded. Mesopotamians believed that the world was a flat disc, surrounded by a huge, holed space, and above that, heaven. They also believed that water was everywhere, the top, bottom and sides, and that the universe was born from this enormous sea. In addition, Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic. During the earliest Sumerian period, the "en", or high priest of male gods was originally a woman, that of female goddesses, a man. Thorkild Jacobsen, as well as many others, has suggested that early Mesopotamian society was ruled by a "council of elders" in which men and women were equally represented, but that over time, as the status of women fell, that of men increased. Unusual for that time in history, women in Mesopotamia had rights. They could own property and, if they had good reason, get a divorce. So a very advanced society back in the day, and the original 'Stairway to Heaven". So Bobbie, who was on the path: For Cynthia, for Egypt: Thanks for playing this week. I'm getting the hang of this again, I think. See you all next week. Hope it's a great one!
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OK, we ran out of time. Falstaff was the friend of Henry V, in Shakespeare's plays, and he was who we were looking for - other clues would have been Agincourt and Monmouth. His reign was generally free from serious trouble at home. Henry V promoted the use of the English language in government, and his reign marks the appearance of Chancery Standard English as well as the adoption of English as the language of record within Government. He was the first king to use English in his personal correspondence since the Norman conquest, which had occurred 350 years earlier. A forward thinking guy! He is credited with having invented what some consider the first true passport, notwithstanding the earlier examples cited, as a means of helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands. A passport does not necessarily grant the passport holder entry into another country, nor to consular protection while abroad or any other privileges, such as immunity from arrest or prison sentences rights to consular protection arise from international treaties. It is considered unlikely that the term "passport" is derived from sea ports, but rather from a medieval document that was required to pass through the gate of a city wall (porte) or to pass through a territory. In medieval Europe, such documents were issued to travelers by local authorities, and generally contained a list of towns and cities into which a document holder was permitted to pass. On the whole, documents were not required for travel to sea ports, which were considered open trading points, but documents were required to travel inland from sea ports. There, more than we ever wanted to know about passports, except that all important question, where is my application, and more importantly, by birth certificate. I am seriously miffed about this, and will now once again tear the house apart. Thanks for playing, and sorry I skunked you. See you next week, same time, same Bat-station!! Nancy.
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Such an odd duck, he was! The painting, by the way, is called "The Persistence of Memory" - I was always fascinated by it, I think it is one of his most iconic works. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto DalÃÂ i DomÃÂ¨nech, 1st MarquÃÂ©s de DalÃÂ de Pubol (May 11, 1904 - January 23, 1989), known as Salvador DalÃÂ, was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, in the Catalonia region of Spain. I figured there were many clues that would be a dead giveaway, such as mustache, surreal and born in Spain. He lived in interesting times, as they say, and saw much of the history or the 20th Century unfold. DalÃÂ was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critics. Bobbie, I was waiting to hear back, but I think you got it? So, for everyone: Thanks for playing along. See you all next week - hope you have a great one!! Nancy. Here is a link that might be useful: Salvador Dali
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Well, I sent you out on a bit of a wild goose chase. There really is no know answer. Mr. Safire put the question to America, and found no plausible answers - huh. The whole nine yards or full nine yards is a colloquial American phrase meaning "everything, the whole lot" or, when used as an adjective, "all the way," as in, "The Army came out and gave us the whole nine yards on how they use space systems." Its origin is unknown and has been described as "the most prominent etymological riddle of our time." The earliest known example of this phrase is from 1907 in southern Indiana. It is related to the expression "the whole six yards," used around the same time in Kentucky and South Carolina. Both phrases are variations on the whole ball of wax, first recorded in the 1880s. They are part of a family of expressions in which an odd-sounding item, such as enchilada, shooting match, or shebang, is substituted for "ball of wax." The choice of the number nine may be related to the expression "to the nines" (to perfection). The phrase was introduced to a national audience by Elaine Shepard in the Vietnam War novel The Doom Pussy (1967). Use of the phrase became widespread in the 1980s and 1990s. Much of the interest in the phrase's etymology can be attributed to New York Times language columnist William Safire, who wrote extensively on this question. The earliest known use of the phrase is from The Mitchell Commercial, a newspaper in the small town of Mitchell, Indiana, in their 2 May 1907 edition: "This afternoon at 2:30 will be called one of the baseball games that will be worth going a long way to see. The regular nine is going to play the business men as many innings as they can stand, but we can not promise the full nine yards." The phrase was used three more times in the Mitchell Commercial over the next seven years, in the forms "give him the whole nine yards" (i.e., tell someone a big story), "take the whole nine yards" (i.e., take everything), and "settled the whole nine yards" (i.e., resolved everything). In other uses from this time period, the phrase was given as "the whole six yards." In 1912, a local newspaper in Kentucky asked readers to, "Just wait boys until the fix gets to a fever heat and they will tell the whole six yards." The six-yard form of the phrase also appears in a 1921 headline in a local South Carolina paper. The phrase is not known to have been used in writing thereafter until a 1956 issue of Kentucky Happy Hunting Ground, where it appears in an article on fishing. After describing the contests and prizes, the author writes, "So that's the whole nine-yards." It appeared in an article on hunting the following year, this time unhyphenated. So, it's probably not a phrase we all grew up, yet it has become ubiquitous!! Amazing. It was a silly question, just to see what you might come up with - thanks for playing with me. For everyone: Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!!! Annette, we are having leftover soup from our Thanksgiving - you? See you all next week! Nancy.
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aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
10 years ago
I have a couple of things in mind but I'm waiting for clues.

Annette
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
10 years ago
A favorite song came to mind when I read your list and it seems that my guess would be too obvious, but to sing the song, holm would need two syllables. I need to plant more to keep the deer away!

Am I on the right track?

Cynthia
midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
Original Author
10 years ago
Lovely song too,I'll bet. We can't grow the prettiest version of this plant in my neck of the woods, which makes me blue.

Nancy.
mnwsgal
10 years ago
Sorry, haven't been able to connect with Garden Web all day, just kept timing out. Not that it matters as I do not know about holm. Perhaps an evergreen shrub.
midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
Original Author
10 years ago
I have been having issues as well. They have a pop-up trying #sellus. Hate that. This is not that tough, though the plant is...lol.

Nancy.
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
10 years ago
I am also feeling a bit prickly about not being able to connect earlier. Still, it is working now. If I am right, it can be either a tree or shrub. I have both versions here and love them crowned with snow. The ivy, I can do without.

Hope you are no longer a blue girl, Nancy!

Cynthia
midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
Original Author
10 years ago
Bobbie, it is not that far from what you might think. TM, don't overthink it all. So do you decorate with Holm, Cynthia?

Nancy.
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
10 years ago
i also had trouble logging on earlier. If I'm on the right track we grow a lot of it here on the island, both in home gardens and also it's commercially farmed.

Annette
thinman
10 years ago
Holm, holm on the range.

Too silly?

I was thinking it was pronounced like hole with an m on the end. But maybe it is pronounced with the hol part sounding the same as the first syllable of the plant that I believe we are all thinking of. That would make holm, holm, on the range ridiculous -- not even up to the level of silly.

TM
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
10 years ago
Yes, Nancy, if it what we all are thinking, I do decorate with it. I have several out front that have become too big and shapeless, so I hack off huge branches (probably the cause of their lack of shape-sigh) to bring in this time of year. I have a tall floor vase (well, sort of tall-3') that I fill with some branches.

TM, I was pronouncing it the same way in my head.

Cynthia
midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
Original Author
10 years ago
TM, I think it is like Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, lol. Yes, it is the one major green in carols that was not mentioned!!

Nancy.
mnwsgal
10 years ago
Holly
aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
10 years ago
I'm going with Holly too.

Annette
thinman
10 years ago
Jolly holly.

TM
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
10 years ago
Yes, holly was my first and last thought, too.

Cynthia
midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
Original Author
10 years ago
Sorry this is coming so late - busy, busy, and I went to bed early last night!!
The answer is of course, holly. This is an archaic spelling. Ilex, or holly, a genus of 400 to 600 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. The species are evergreen and deciduous trees, shrubs, and climbers from tropics to temperate zones worldwide.

The prickly leaves represent the crown of thorns that Jesus wore when he was crucified. The berries are the drops of blood that were shed by Jesus because of the thorns.

In Scandinavia it is known as the Christ Thorn.

That's it - is was a simple one, but I liked the spelling as I had never heard it before!

So, for everyone:

Thanks for playing. I have a more challenging question next week. I think.

Nancy.
cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
10 years ago
Ah, the life of a working woman! Thanks for the stars and your illustration is gorgeous! I thought this was a very fun question even though we all got it. I had never heard that before.

Have a marvelous week all and thanks for the fun, Nancy.

Cynthia, who is counting the hours until Friday at 3:15! ;)
mnwsgal
10 years ago
That is a nice illustration. The summer we spent in Scotland our car was parked next to a huge holly tree. It was not thought of fondly as was the prickly kind of holly. Though it was very pretty it was placed incorrectly.

Will be fun to work this bit of trivia into conversation at a holiday party.
midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
Original Author
10 years ago
Or in Scrabble!
thinman
10 years ago
It's funny. I had just been looking at a Bluestone catalog and thinking how nice a holly plant with red berries would look in our back yard against the white snow that we have been getting so much of this year. I think I will have to get a pair for next year.

Thanks for the fun, Nancy, and really, don't feel that you have to come up with a big challenge next week. :)

TM

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