Oh yes - my mother would make it, but only on, or near, the 'high' holidays, like Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. I came to like it because the cooking would make the raisins plump up. But she didn't make it often because, she said, it was 'too much fuss', which, after watching her over the stov...

Nor, I should add, have I ever seen a recipe that stated how much milk to use with how much rice, and how much sugar to add - perhaps to 'taste'. None of the dishes I had were ever overly sweet.

It is a bit of both, and can vary taverna to taverna. The rice, cooked in the milk, remains a recognizable kernel, though quite soft usually, and the milk and sugar has cooled. The cinnamon is lightly sprinkled over it before serving. It does take some time to cook, because the milk should not be ov...

I think your WWI reference has more than a little credibility. It's due to the projectile being forced through the air at high velocity, which disturbs the air considerably, producing a variety of sounds, from a sort of rumble, to a shriek, depending on the velocity, and the size of the projectile. ...

And the word for milk in modern Greek is, indeed γαλα (gala) to this day. There is also a slightly different form of the word in ρισογαλο, or 'ricemilk',with sugar and cinnamon, a favorite dessert in many of the tavernas around Athens, anyway.

David - I have heard, and read that expression, but it refers more to an unfortunate experience that someone wants, or wanted to avoid. One such was in a film, 'The World's Fastest Indian', about a New Zealand retiree who was trying to build an Indian motorcycle he could take to our Bonneville Salt ...

The one other usage that comes to mind is in the phrase 'to bug out', meaning to leave, usually quickly. It's also a part of what might be taken along on such a departure - a bug out bag. I heard it first in the military, early 60s, but subsequently by other groups concerned with survival issues.

In the sport of baseball, a 'home run' that travels deep into the stands, or even goes out of the field entirely, is sometimes referred to as a 'dinger'. The term is also applied to such a hitter, as well, who is regularly capable of such hits. Such a one was Willie McCovey of the San Francisco Gian...

I didn't start reading Service until '65, or so. But I recall there were some humorous exchanges in the local paper, prior to '59, when I was in high school, about what AK statehood might 'do' to Texas, and how it might, or might not, be deserved.

Thank you for the Service reminder. I had a friend in my early college days, north of Seattle, who was greatly enamored of Service, and regularly quoted him, enough so that I was intrigued enough to read several of his poems, which pretty much covered the gamut from tragic, through grotesque to hila...

'Sluice-ing' is a process much used by modern gold miners, particularly in the Yukon. They have large machines, known as 'sluicers', through which enormous amounts of hopefully gold-bearing soil/dirt and rocks, which lie on the layer known as permafrost, are flushed by a large volume of water, taken...

Simple enough, for sure. Depending on circumstances, another 'place' is vehicles - how they like what they're driving, how it runs, gas mileage, any 'deal' they might have gotten - trade-in, brand new, and/or maintenance, self, or dealer required, how many miles are on it, driving distance to work (...

I think so - at least, up to a point. Choosing such a place, or agreeing on it, may well be easy enough, if the 'place' is generic enough. Unfortunately, the very mention of the word 'politics' is often enough to set more than few people's teeth on edge, as the saying goes. It seems a lot of people ...

It does make me wonder at the third meaning listed, which seems so opposite to the first two. By what linguistic twisting could it have acquired such an association? Perhaps by such avoidance, to avert the possibility of a complete loss of comity, which can only exist in the absence of any associati...

Yes - but it's not a repetitive head movement so much, as just an almost imperious lift of the head, that does add emphasis - part of that body language thing. If the head is shaken side-to-side it's often accompanied by another verbal expression 'ποποπο' - or, as it sounds, 'popopo' - which is more...