Topics

Nov

In the Kitchen with OIC: “Pan” Cultural Cuisine!

by Joyce McGreevy on November 23, 2020

In lockdown? Don’t flip out—flip a pancake instead!
Gilaxia/ iStock

Easy Pancakes from Around the World

Rembrandt sketched them. Shakespeare wrote them into his plays. Sweden established an academy in their honor. They’ve starred in ancient tales and modern movies, inspired mad dashes and dashes of spice and color.

They are pancakes. For many of us, that means a common breakfast food that takes minutes to cook, seconds to eat, and hours to walk off. In fact, that little circle on your plate connects to a multitude of ingredients, shapes, languages, and traditions. Oh, I see: Known by hundreds of names and varieties around the world, this food encompasses a rich “pan” cultural cuisine. Read more...

Joyce McGreevy 4 Comments

Cultural Diversity/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/The World's Chefs/Worldwide Sites

Nov

Gaining Perspective in a Chaotic World

by Meredith Mullins on November 17, 2020

Time to shake things up?
© Meredith Mullins

The Rewards of Seeing from Varied Angles

How often does your perspective change these days? Can you think of times when you expanded your view of a situation or of the world just by changing your point of reference? Read more...

Perhaps when you summited a mountain and the 360-degree vista expanded exponentially while distant objects became flattened miniatures that suddenly seemed small in the grander scheme of things?
Or, when you looked down and found a detail in the street that you’d never seen before even though you’d walked over it a thousand times?

Meredith Mullins 2 Comments

Art of Travel/Life Lessons/Worldwide Sites

Nov

You Can’t Just Make Up Words—Oh, Really?

by Joyce McGreevy on November 9, 2020

A woman reading the Oxford English Dictionary, a source of implicit language lessons on how to invent a word. (Image by lilbellule789 and PIxabay)

Spoiler alert: This page turner’s ending is all about the . . . zyzzyva!
lilbellule789/ Pixabay l

Language Lesson: How to Invent a Word

It’s become a sitcom trope: One character’s remark prompts another character to retort, “That’s not even a word!” or “You can’t just make up words!”

But according to the most widespread, time-honored language lore, people have been inventing words ever since the guttural grunts of one human first morphed into vocal patterns that made sense to other humans.

Let’s settle this with the world’s shortest language lesson, here. Read more...

Joyce McGreevy 2 Comments

Wordplay

World Views: