Friday, August 19, 2011

In the limelight, and more

The Cape Cod Mystery, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, 1931 pg 116

"Although the brother is sort of in the limelight, isn't he."
Limelight (also known as calcium light) is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illumination is created when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of quicklime (calcium oxide), which can be heated to 2572 °C before melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence. Although it has long since been replaced by electric lighting, the term has nonetheless survived, as someone in the public eye is still said to be “in the limelight.” The actual lights are called limes, a term which has been transferred to electrical equivalents.

"I'll make you a hot toddy."
A hot toddy is a mixed drink, usually including alcohol, that is served hot. Hot toddies (such as mulled cider) are traditionally drunk before going to bed, or in wet or cold weather. They were believed to help cure the cold and flu.

It has been suggested that the name comes from the toddy drink in India,[2] produced by fermenting the sap of palm trees. The term could have been introduced into Scotland by a member of the British East India Company.[3]

An alternative explanation is given in Allan Ramsay's 1721 poem The Morning Interview, which describes a tea party in which it is said that

"All the rich requisites are brought from far: the table from Japan, the tea from China, the sugar from Amazonia, or the West Indies, but that
'Scotia does no such costly tribute bring,
Only some kettles full of Todian spring.'"
To this passage, Ramsay has appended the note:

"The Todian spring, i.e. Tod's Well, which supplies Edinburgh with water."
Tod's Well, on the side of Arthur's Seat, supplied Edinburgh, and since whisky derives its name from water (the Scots Gaelic term uisge beatha ), it could be that "Toddy" was a facetious name for whisky.

"Eye for an eye, and all that."
The phrase, "an eye for an eye", (ayin tachat ayin, literally 'an eye under an eye'), is a quotation from several passages of the Hebrew Bible in which a person who has injured the eye of another is instructed to pay compensation. It defined and restricted the extent of retribution in the laws of the Torah.

The English word talion means a punishment identical to the offense, from the Latin talio. The principle of "an eye for an eye" is often referred to using the Latin phrase lex talionis, the law of talion.

"Good godfreys mighty," Asey said.

No comments:

Post a Comment