You say Tomato, I say Tomato

Preventive/Preventative....which is righter?

WikiAnswers says:

== Answer == I vote for preventive, although they can both be used. Why throw in the 'ta' if it is not needed?
It seems that "preventive" is indeed the better option, as long as you're using it as an adjective. For use as a noun, I would say that "preventative" works better. For example, "Airbags act as a preventive measure for automobile accident fatalities. Indeed, they are a commonly used preventative." that would imply "prevention" better than "preventatation"

The Oxford English Dictionary seems to prefer "preventive." The suffix -ive carries the meaning of "having a tendency to, having the nature, character, or quality of, given to (some action)". The suffix -ative carries a similar meaning, but it is less common. To my ear, "preventative" would be the adjectival for the non-existent verb "preventate."


All I know for sure is that Prevenative is wronger!

ps Lawn mo?

The Perfect Match

The scratch followed quickly by a slight hissing sound produced a tiny torch of light in the gloomy dusk. Touched to the bedside candle, the wick caught and a flame roared up.

Now he understood why the modern hotel, appointed with so many nice amenities, had also supplied the rooms with several candles and a big box of matches. Electricity was still unreliable in the post-communist country.

The weary traveler settled in a chair, a book in his lap. As he sat in the circle of flickering light, he thought about his wife. She hated it when he was away from home. He stood and slipped the box of matches into his luggage.

When his wife asked him why he'd brought matches home from his trip, he would whisper in her ear; "Because they reminded me of how beautiful you are in candlelight."

Fifteen years and many business trips later, she still kept the box of matches.

Check Willow's Magpie Tales for more stories inspired by her photo prompt.

everything you ever wanted to know about H

Hello, howdy, hey, hi, hullo,

A short history on the evolution of the letter H: The American Heritage dictionary says the letter heth originally represented a consonant h in Semitic languages which included Phoenician. When the early (eastern) Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet they used this letter for their h sound or "rough breathing." In the eastern Ionic dialect the h was lost. Later both western Greeks and Romans used an alphabet that retained the h and from them came the symbol that the Romans simplified to the modern form of the letter H.

In ancient Egyptian the hieroglyph for fence was most likely the starting point of the symbol we recognize today as H.The Proto-Semitic H appeared as:
The Phoenician H was represented by this mark:
The Etruscan H was:
In the Greek alphabet the H appeared in this recognizable form.

And finally the H in Latin:

Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger

Beginning with H:

Names and Places: Hong Kong, Hitchcock, Haiti, Holland, Hoboken, Ho Chi Minh-the city and the person, Nathan Hale, Jimmy Hoffa, Hungary, Hawaii, Hammurabi, Homer-the cartoon character, the poet and the artist, Honduras, Honolulu, Hoosier, Harry Houdini, Hadrian and his wall, New Hampshire, and the Hamptons, Helene Hanff-favorite writer, five former presidents-Warren G. Harding, William Henry Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison.

Food: hashbrowns, honey, hominy, honeydew melon, hummus, ham, hamburger, hot dog, horseradish, herring, halibut, haggis, Hershey's chocolates, hot tamales, hoagies, herbs, and hen

The most famous, most used sans-serif typeface in the advertising world is Helvetica. It even has it's own documentary. My son Brandon and I watched it this summer while we were on vacation in Florida...cause we are weird like that.



This clip is really long, so you may not want to watch it all. That won't hurt my feelings. But if you love typology you will be interested.

Please don't make fun of us......

H words that we should use more often:

harbinger, hoity toity, hassle, hillbilly, harridan, hope chest, hootchy-kootchy, hushpuppy, harrumph, hodgepodge, harmonious, hokum, hindsight, hoopla, hippogriff, hinterland, hornswoggle, hipster, hurdy-gurdy, hobnob, hunky-dory, huzzah, hosanna, hyacinth, hooligan, halcyon, hooray, hopscotch, hijinks, hog heaven, hightops, harangue, haberdashery, hullabaloo

My birth year makes me a Horse in the Chinese zodiac. Here is what a horse is supposed to be like. I'm not sure this is totally me:

1918, 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002

People born in the Year of the Horse are popular. They are cheerful, skillful with money, and perceptive, although they sometimes talk too much. The are wise, talented, good with their hands, and sometimes have a weakness for members of the opposite sex. They are impatient and hot-blooded about everything except their daily work. They like entertainment and large crowds. They are very independent and rarely listen to advice. They are most compatible with Tigers, Dogs, and Sheep.

As far as I know, there is no goodbye word that starts with H so I will have to end this with a simple adieu....to you and you and you! So long farewell!

I was supposed to name 10 H things that I really liked. I'm not too good at following directions. If you would like a letter to write about and would like to do as you're told....visit Betsy at My Five Men. And tell her I'm sorry while you're over there please.

Terms of Endearment

Darling * Honey * Honeybunny * Sweetheart * Sweetie Pie * Sweetness * Precious * Pumpkin * Pookie * Beloved * Pet * Baby * Babe * Cutie * Sugar * Cupcake * Sweetpea * Muffin * Cookie

We humans have probably endowed the objects of our affection with loving nicknames for as long as there have been spoken languages. Since we celebrate Valentine's Day this month, I've tried to do a little research on commonly used terms of endearment.

Did you know that the term sweetheart was used to refer to a loved one as early as the 1200s? The first recorded source in which someone calls their sweetheart honey is found in 1350. Sugar became a part of the English vocabulary via the Normans and their invasion if England in 1066, but the word wasn't used as an affectionate label until 1930. Wikipedia states that the term baby was first used as an endearment in 1839.

So many of our tenderhearted words are the names of things that taste sweet in our mouths. Treats, delicacies, tidbits, goodies; we use words associated with these things to describe the ones we love.

I have sweet memories of being called baby by my daddy when I was young. He still calls me that sometimes. I went to a boarding school in the deep south the first year I was in high school. The owner/head mistress peppered her conversations with "Sugar" this and "Sugar" that. Always pronounced sugah, the r was never spoken, the emphasis on the last syllable was long. I still call my own children sweetheart sometimes....because they are....sweet to my heart.

What terms of endearment do you use with the objects of your affection?

Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a person of the opposite sex whose name you cannot at the moment recall -Oliver Herford

Resolve to Reflect In 2009

The act or process of thinking:

• thought
• brainwork
• cerebration
• cogitation
• contemplation
• mental activity
• musing
• pondering
• rumination
• wondering
• meditation
• speculation
Careful consideration of a matter:
• deliberation
• advisement
• calculation
• contemplation
• debate
• evaluation
• examination
• meditation
• pondering
• rumination
• speculation
• study

Food for Thought

Do you like to read books about food or cooking?

Some people collect cookbooks. Thumbing through recipes or making meal plans is a hobby for them. I cannot honestly say that I am one of these people although I do tear out the occasional recipe from a lady's magazine or print out one from the internet. I especially like the ones that someone else has recommended. Some of my favorite recipes have been torn from our local Wednesday Food Section of the paper.

I wish I had some of my grandmother's recipes. She made a delicious Orange Cake. She baked it in an angel food cake pan and when it came out of the oven she would drizzle a sugary glaze over it. Our whole family remembers it with the fondest of memories, but alas the recipe died with her. She made it from memory. I wonder if any of my cooking will be legendary in my children's minds after I am gone.

Me and Grandmother on my 1st Birthday

I did learn to make Chicken and Dumplings from Grandmother. These instructions weren't written down either. I stood beside her in the kitchen and watched her mix the ingredients, roll out the dough, drop the dumplings into the broth one by one, gentling swirling the pot to cover each dumpling as it floated in the savory broth. My grandmother has been gone for over 15 years now. By request of my youngest son, I prepared this dish as part of his birthday meal a couple of years ago. My daddy took one taste and asked me if this was his mother's recipe. I knew I had the recipe right.

Me and Grandmother when she was about 80

Two Fat Ladies was my favorite cooking show from the first moment I laid eyes on those two motorcycle and sidecar riding ladies, Clarrisa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson. What a hoot and what an education...pommes frites rather than french fries does sound ever so posh. And with all the butter and cream they used, well their dishes surely had to be tasty didn't they? I loved it that they served these meals to such diverse groups as the Scottish Fireman's Brigade and to the students of a boy's prep school.

Have you ever wondered why a recipe might also be called a receipt? Well since this inquiring mind wanted to know, I looked it up.

Receipt is an old form that means the same as recipe. Both derive from Latin recipere, to receive or take. Receipt was first used in medieval English as a formula or prescription for a medicinal preparation (Chaucer is the first known user, in the Canterbury Tales of about 1386). The sense of “a written statement saying that money or goods have been received” only arrived at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Recipe is the imperative, “take!”, from the same Latin verb. It was traditionally the first word in a prescription, heading the list of ingredients. This was often abbreviated to a letter R with a bar Recipe has been used alongside receipt since the eighteenth century in the sense of cookery instructions, gradually replacing it over time.

Hence Rx for a prescription. Cool.

I think we should use more culinary words and phrases in our everyday speech; like gustatory, epicurean, gourmand, gastronome, repast, provender, potable, having to eat one's own words, having an attitude like sour grapes, enjoying life with relish and gusto....

No one writes about food like Ruth Reichl. I first read her Tender At The Bone a number of years ago. This book is her semi-autobiographical ode to her love affair with food and her journey from her childhood kitchen to her work as the editor of Gourmet magazine. Her descriptive food vocabulary is so exact the reader almost tastes the dish along with her. She has since written Comfort Me With Apples and Garlic and Sapphires.

Like Water for Chocolate is another one of those books that melds food and fantasy with an almost invisible line connecting the two. While reading I felt myself being transported into the Mexican kitchen of her story so that I could chop chilies along with the other characters in the book.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul -Plato

Language and words are like food to me. Food for thought. Big bites of life. Flavor for a day to day world. Tasty experiences and savory memories. Mmmmmmm.