Cellar Scribblings

[Sason]

[CellarDweller]

Hiya BetterMost friends!!!!

How do I know it's Spring, almost Summer?

Because I had a stinging insect try to get into my apartment!   

I prepped the area where I have seen them come in, I put screens on the reverse sides of the doors, I put packing tape all around the edges of the doors, so no space is uncovered, and I rolled up some fabric and have it along the bottom of the doors.   Then, I waited.   I started waiting when the first of May arrived.

Today, I heard buzzing on the other side of the door, I couldn't see what type it was, but it was trying to get in.   I grabbed my Raid, and sprayed through the louvers, and after some time, the buzzing stopped.

I sent a text to the super, and he replied that he'll stop by tomorrow (we'll see) and he'll look around.   I'm hoping that he'll want to open those does, and when we do, a large hornet will be curled up, dead on the rug.  Then he'll have someone come and spray.


Work has been busy the past two days, but I'm managing to keep on top of everything at work, so I'm happy about that.  I spent some time on Sunday working, just to get caught up on stuff, and then worked until 9:00pm last night, so I have 7 hours overtime for the week already.

I'm hoping that there will be  no more overtime this week, but especially on Friday night.  It will be nice to see it in the paycheck next week. 

The gym I joined has just recently switched to "masks optional" if you are double vaxxed.  I still wore my mask, even though I'm double vaxed.  there were a few people who opted not to use them.

[CellarDweller]

Hiya BetterMost friends!!!!

Welcome to the holiday weekend!

Things at work on Friday were stressful.  I'm in the middle of what I refer to as "The Monster Report", and part of that report needs to be done by EOD Friday.  However, I rely on other people getting their parts done, and they were all busy on Friday as well (trying to get done before the weekend) sooooooo I had to spend most of the day following up with them all reminding them the needed to do what they do so I could do what I needed to do.

Thankfully, everything was done by about 4:30 on Friday afternoon, so I had 30 minutes to spare.

 

Today (Saturday) has been a quiet day at home.  I've gotten some small things done around the apartment, but other than that, nothing major going on.

Sunday I have my usual visit to mom and dad's, and doing laundry. 

Monday afternoon I'm invited to a BBQ at 4:00, and I'm making an anitpasto salad.  However, the weather may be crappy, so I'll have to see whether or not the event actually happens.  I hope it does, as I picked up all the makings for the salad already, so I want to use them.

For those who don't know what an antipasto salad is, here's a description and pic.

Antipasto salad is known to be from Italy. It is a traditional Italian salad that is served as the first course during a meal. Most often an antipasto salads ingredients are slices of meat, various vegetables, olives, mushrooms tossed in a light oil or vinegar dressing. This antipasto salad is very similar to a traditional Italian salad that had all the flavor you are wanting.

An antipasto salad generally has some (or all) of the following ingredients:

Romaine: Chopped and made as the base to this Italian salad.
Green Olives: These typically come from a can and are halved leaving a tangy and zesty flavor to the salad.
Black Olives: Medium sized olives are best and taste amazing in this salad. They are soft in the salad with a hint of flavor.
Cherry Tomatoes: Slice in half and add fresh tomatoes and brighten this salad up.
Mini Pepperoni: Slice up and add into the salad for a sweet and spicy combination.
Pepperoncini:  This mild pepper (barely above a bell pepper on the Scoville scale) has a sweet flavor when fresh. But it’s not fresh where its made its mark. In pickled form is where it shines. Pickled pepperoncini are common in (or on) many meals, including some American favorites like pizzas, salads, sub sandwiches, and Italian antipasto. It’s mild, tasty, and quite easy to find!
Genoa Salami: Thinly slice salami that is chewable and ready to eat once served.
Mozzarella Cheese Balls: These mozzarella cheese balls are one of my favorites for texture and adding to the salad.
Artichoke Hearts: Canned and comes perfectly cut for you. Just drain and add right to the salad without the work.
Provolone Cheese: Squared and squishy just the right amount of texture in between all the crunchy.

For my salad, I'm leaving out the roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts.  Also, everyone is not fond of pepperoncini or olives, so I'm bringing them, and keeping them in separate contains, so people can add them to their portions, if they choose.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Antipasto salad is known to be from Italy. It is a traditional Italian salad that is served as the first course during a meal.

I've often wondered about "antipasto." I mean, why is it called that? "Anti" means "against," and "ante" means "before," like "antebellum" being used to describe the American South "before" the American Civil War. So if it comes before the pasta, why isn't it "antepasto"?

This is what Webster tells me:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antipasto

[CellarDweller]

I've often wondered about "antipasto." I mean, why is it called that? "Anti" means "against," and "ante" means "before," like "antebellum" being used to describe the American South "before" the American Civil War. So if it comes before the pasta, why isn't it "antepasto"?

This is what Webster tells me:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antipasto

Hiya Jeff.

I'm not a language expert, but I may have an explanation, depending on whether or not my assumptions are right.

Using your example of "ante" vs "anti" - I'm making an assumption that Antipasto was at one time, two words, now recognized as one word.

In the Italian language, you'll notice that there are no words (or very few exceptions) that end in "s".  That's because the vowel at the end of the word has two specific details.

Firstly, the vowel at the end tells you what gender the word is.  In the English language, word are masculine, feminine or 'neutral', meaning that it is genderless.  In the Italian language, most (if not all) of the words have genders assigned to them.  If a word ends in "o" or "i", it is considered a masculine word.  If it ends in "a" or "e", it is considered a feminine word.

Now, if a word ends in "o" it is masculine, singular.  If it ends in "i", it's masculine, plural.  If it ends in "a", it's feminine, singular.  If it ends in "e", it's feminine, plural.

Say you were telling someone to open a window or windows in a room.  you would say in English:

"Open the window" or "Open the windows"

In Italian you would say:

"Aprire la finestra" or "Aprire le finestre"


So looking at the structure of the Italian language, if "anti" was its own word, it was masculine plural.  To change it to "ante" would make it feminine plural, and that does't happen in the Italian language.


Just to reiterate, I'm not an expert in Italian, so I could be totally off base, but that's my best guess.

[southendmd]

Heya Chuck.  Regarding anti and ante, I gotta disagree with you here. 

Anti/ante aren't nouns, so the gender thing doesn't apply.

Anti/ante is a preposition meaning "before".

Ante was the original Latin, which simply later became anti in modern Italian.

(Did you ever see how "capicola" became "gabagool" in the Sopranos?)

[Jeff Wrangler]

English nouns don't have gender, do they? 

[CellarDweller]

Heya Chuck.  Regarding anti and ante, I gotta disagree with you here. 

Anti/ante aren't nouns, so the gender thing doesn't apply.

Anti/ante is a preposition meaning "before".

Ante was the original Latin, which simply later became anti in modern Italian.

(Did you ever see how "capicola" became "gabagool" in the Sopranos?)

It's been a long time since I've spoken or studied Italian, so thanks for the refresher.  As for the Sopranos, I only saw a few episodes, hated them.  LOL  and I HATE that word "gabagool".

[southendmd]

It's been a long time since I've spoken or studied Italian, so thanks for the refresher.  As for the Sopranos, I only saw a few episodes, hated them.  LOL  and I HATE that word "gabagool".

This is a cool article, from Atlas Obscura:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-capicola-became-gabagool-the-italian-new-jersey-accent-explained

[serious crayons]

English nouns don't have gender, do they? 

No, they don't, thank God, because if they did I can see it potentially becoming a gender equity issue at some point. I'm not sure how, because I don't know enough French, Italian or German (or other European languages I don't speak at all) to know whether their seemingly arbitrary designation follows any pattern that might be deemed offensive -- say, if "science" is masculine and "housework" is feminine.

Those Anglo-Saxons were foresighted enough to neutralize nouns from the getgo and avoid trouble 1,500 years down the road.

Notice that Latino and Latina are now frequently referred to as Latinx. So that's one down -- a million to go. I'll take the next one.

"Open the window" or "Open the windows"

In Italian you would say:

"Aprire la finestra" or "Aprire le finestre"

Aprire lx finestrx. Done! Now just work on pronunciation.

Despite potentially supporting the patriarchy, languages with gendered nouns are that much harder to master. You have to learn the word and its gender. (Although English is considered hard to master for other reasons, like the variable pronunciation of particular spellings, e.g., "tough" "though" "ought," etc. -- I believe European languages are more consistent.)


Sonja (or Paul) do Scandinavian languages have gendered nouns?