Deborah Makarios – Page 21 – Deborah Makarios

November 27, 2021November 27, 2021

You Know You Read Too Much When…

Last week, I got nerd-shamed by a car.

I had just been for my weekly visit to the localish library (behold my resplendent self-control), and was proceeding to depart the carpark in the usual manner, i.e. in a car, when I beheld a warning light upon the dashboard.

Lit up in red, the combination of a pictogram and a numeral, the warning light was there to inform me that the front seat passenger did not have their seatbelt on.

This was a matter of concern. Not because of the increased danger to life and limb caused by an absence of seatbelt-wearing, nor even because the driver of a car containing an unseatbelted person (if under 15) can be fined for the omission. No. This was a matter of concern because I was alone in the car.

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November 17, 2021November 17, 2021

Hercules’ Housework

“The room was not a room to elevate the soul. Louis XIV, to pick a name at random, would not have liked it, would have found it not sunny enough, and insufficiently full of mirrors. He would have desired someone to pick up the socks, put the records away, and maybe burn the place down.

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November 4, 2021November 4, 2021

The Nasty Secrets of Scientific Nomenclature

Of late I have been reading a good many gardening books, and a good many of them use scientific nomenclature for plants. This is to avoid confusion – or at least it would be if those in charge of said nomenclature didn’t keep changing the names between books. Still, once you have a bit of Latin (and occasionally Greek) under your belt, you have a nifty resource for extracting information about the plant in question.

The first part of the name is the surname or family name; and the second part is the specific species name. To give you an example, if I was a plant I would be Makarios deborah, or, if members of the family Makarios were the subject of discussion, just M. deborah.

Camellia sinensis, to give you an actual plant example, is a camellia from China, and is the plant that produces tea. Camellia japonica, on the other hand, is from Japan, and… also tea. If you like. It is said to be higher in caffeine and lower in tannin, so if you need to absorb iron but also stay awake all night, Camellia japonica tea may be for you.

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