How the Government Came to Decide the Color of Margarine

Food has color. Some bright, some pale, but the colors are distinct. For decades everyone wanted a deep, mahogany red Delicious apple because it looked nice. It was mushy and mealy, but it looked nice. Those days are in the past for apples, which come in many different shades and taste much better than the previous standard.

I remember my mother describing how they kneaded in the color to margarine. It seemed strange, considering I grew up with neon colored candies, to think you had to add your own color to margarine. Everything has its own tale, as they say, and margarine is no exception.

This week, a look at how the government got into the color of margarine

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Happiness depends upon ourselves." - Aristotle (Greek philosopher and polymath, 384 BC - 322 BC)

   How the Government Came to Decide the Color of Margarine by fredwine on Scribd

It's All Greek to You and Me, So What Is It to the Greeks? Part 2 - Chinese

The phrase “it’s all Greek to me” (meaning “I don’t understand it, it’s unintelligible”) is a common enough one in English to be the name of an awful lot of Greek restaurants. Quite a few other languages also use Greek as the stereotypical hard-to-understand language – mostly European languages like Portuguese, Spanish, or Norwegian, but also Persian/Farsi.

A Greek person, on the other hand, would express the same meaning with the phrase “It’s Chinese to me” – as would speakers of various other languages including French, Dutch, Russian, and various Eastern European languages; it’s an alternative option to Greek in Spanish and Portuguese, too. In fact Greek and Chinese seem to be the most popular choices of “unintelligible” languages. A few others choose Arabic or Hebrew; Dutch seems to be unique in having a phrase “That’s Latin for me”, while English, of course, also has “double Dutch”. Pleasingly, the constructed language Esperanto has a phrase “it’s all Volapük [a rival constructed language] to me”.

This week, well, you get the idea.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult." - Ann Radcliffe (English author and pioneer of Gothic fiction, 1764 - 1823)

   It's All Greek to You and Me, So What is It to the Greeks Part 2 - Chinese by fredwine on Scribd