A horse with no name

I'm surprised.  I was quite sure that the stuff that other people like to put on roast beef sandwiches was hoarseradish and the name of the tree from which we get conkers the hoarse chestnut.  I thought the use of the spelling horse was just a lazy Americanism.  But Kew gardens spells the name of the tree aesculus hippocastanum as the horse chestnut (and in any case, note the specific part of the binomial name: hippo-castanum: horse-chestnut).  I was sure that the name came from the word hoarse, as in shouting oneself hoarse, used in the sense of not sweet.  But I'm wrong.  Still there are a few miscreants like myself who add the extra "a" in the name.  And what about this: what is small, red and whispers?  a hoarse radish.

Today was unseasonably warm (51F, 10.5C) and this generated a high sublimation vapor pressure (crystals of ice in snow passing directly into the vapor phase, without passing through water).  And this in turn generated quite a fog.  But it was a welcome break from the cold weather.  Now, instead of having a tunnel two feet wide and three and one half feet tall, through which we passed to get to our front door, the snow banks are not much more than 18" with plenty horizontal space to pass through.

This handsome chap, left, is Jimmy who we are fostering at present.  He comes from the same rescue organization in Tennessee that Puga comes from.  He's friendly and very affectionate.  Sometimes his presence is a little too much for our smaller dogs but he generally means well.

I've recently been appreciating more than ever the music from Handel's oratorio "Solomon".  In addition to the wonderful chorus From the censer curling rise (the piece which has the fun bassoon part which earned yours truly a compliment from the Lord Major of London, Sir Gilbert Inglefield, 43 years ago), there is a wealth of marvelous music.  The poetry of the libretto is so good that it is hard to believe that we aren't 100% sure who wrote it.  It's generally held to be by Newburgh Hamilton who wrote several of Handel's other libretti.  Take this verse of Solomon's for instance which is beautifully set by the composer:

What though I trace each herb and flow'r,
That drink the morning dew,
Did I not own Jehovah's pow'r,
How vain were all I knew. Of course you might find it surprising that I should find this so good given my views on religion and science.  But this describes the essence of the problem that Charles Darwin, who began life as a devout believer, faced as he readied his manuscript for publication.  It is easier to deal with, as Darwin ultimately did, by abandoning the image (for Jehovah) of a white-bearded old guy directing the lives of everyone on earth and replacing it with the concept of  the wonders of the natural world and marvels of evolution.

Isn't the grammar just great?  Whether this is a present or past subjunctive, I'm not quite sure.  But it fits so perfectly.  Incidentally, it drives me nuts that most people (especially on this side of the pond) don't know how to form a conditional and pluperfect subjunctive.  For instance I hear sort of thing all time this: if I would have looked down the street, I would not be here in this hospital (instead of: if I had looked down the street, etc.).

Here's another very poetic aria, again sung by Solomon who must have had quite a generous libido (he had 700 wives and 300 concubines) as he suggests to his queen that they go out for a little alfresco tête à tête*:

Haste, haste to the cedar grove,
Where fragrant spices bloom,
And am'rous turtles love,
Beneath the pleasing gloom.

While tinkling down the hill,
Avoiding hateful day,
The little murm'ring rill
In whispers glides away. The turtles here are of course turtle doves, birds rather than reptiles [and yes I do know that birds are reptiles, cladistically speaking], a common mistranslation of the bible.

* it's also quite possible that in this section he is suggesting to the Queen that they travel to Lebanon for a little vacation -- but in that case, why the hurry?