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18 Mar 2024

Love & Nanaimo Bars

Q. Is it reasonable to assume that the utterly delicious Nanaimo Bar originated in Nanaimo, British Columbia? . A. Reasonable? Yes. Safe? Hmm… When something is so delicious – a layer of creamy chocolate that gives way to a vanilla custard middle which sits atop graham wafers and coconut –

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15 Mar 2024

Hit The Sack

Q. Is the English language really that hard to learn? Yes. Yes it is. Our encyclopedic collection of idioms does not help. Exhibit Number One: ‘hit the sack.’ Which sack are we hitting and why? Is this some sort of madcap carnival game? Where did this idiom originate? . A.

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11 Mar 2024

Full Tilt Puccini

Q. If you like opera – or, you know, watch cartoons, TV shows, or movies – you’ve likely heard arias from the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). You might have heard Kiri Te Kanawa singing ‘O mio babbino caro’ – from Puccini’s ‘Gianni Schicchi’ – in  ‘A Room with a

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09 Mar 2024

Puzzling Out Pen Names

Q. Who are some well-known authors with pseudonyms? . A. For a litany of reasons – some personal, some driven by brutal societal biases –  authors have long tossed their birth names for noms de plume. Some of these pseudonyms have been adopted for entire writing careers, others for an

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