Q. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! What are your go-to Christmas carols or songs?  Which holiday songs are most broadly favoured? . A. Classic FM has just wrapped up their 2021 Nation’s Favourite Carol poll and the winner, once again, is: O Holy Night. Classic FM’s 2021 Favourite Carol

Q. What are some English idioms that reflect the hope that things just have to get better… at some point.   A. Due for a purple patch A purple patch is a sustained period of good luck and serious success. The expression stems back to Imperial Rome, where only emperors

Q. EGOT. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and a Tony Award. It’s a rare quadruple threat honour bestowed on few. One example? The amazing Rita Moreno who, with her current turn in Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’, might be up for her second Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar – different

Q. It’s been a strange, strange year with more questions than answers. What were the most common online inquiries from Canadians over 2021? . A. Google has released their top trending global searches for the year. In parsing the English results for Canada, we find… Top Trending Google Searches  Canada

Q. While some of you brilliant bakers are yeasting your bread up from scratch, many of us are marvelling at the ease of our hulking bread machines. What to sprinkle in next? And who invented this magical maker of bread? . A. Thank African American Joseph Lee for this almost-homemade,

Q. 2021. We all have been through a lot. So much for celebrating the end of a calamitous 2020. How did we express our considerable emotions during this last year? Which emojis were we most likely to use when communicating with others? A. That’s a question that interested the Unicode

Q. As we dive deep into holiday season, do you find yourself craving certain foods? Perhaps your food cravings are nostalgic. Perhaps those holiday ads – rippled chips and french onion dip! – are doing their mischief.  Which foods do North American palates find most tempting over the winter holiday

Q. Oh sure. So and so wants to have their cake and eat it too. We’ve all heard the expression, but how does that make sense? What is so presumptuous about wanting to eat the cake you have bought, baked, or been gifted? . A. For starters, this is another

Q. What are the chances that the French invented French Toast, and called it ‘French Toast’? . A. The chances are slim. First: the French are more likely to call this dish, with its clever way of rescuing stale bread: ‘pain perdu’ or ‘lost bread’. Second: this bread-stretching recipe –

Q. Artist eyes see beauty in the things we discard. What are some examples of artists celebrating the well-worn, the battered, and the broken? . A. .   In Ceramics Artist Naoko Fukumaru 2021 Website Statement ‘Kintsugi, the art of golden joinery, is a five-hundred-year-old Japanese method of restoring damaged