stuff / Pumpkin Juice and other foods/Mainland?England/Prince Harry/BEES

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

My computer died last weekend. I've ordered a new one, and am worrying
myself into insommnia about recovering my E-MAIL and my BOOKMARKS and
my FILES from the dead one's hard drive. Meanwhile, I am using Tim's
spare computer, which is so slow it makes me  crazy, in the same room
as the Television, and accompanied by a chair that gives me a
backache. I am such a whiner.

QUESTION: What is 'sporking'? (per
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25711 from Dina)

Btw, congrats to Dina on successful job hunt.

Steve bboyminn wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25744 :

<< pumpkin flesh while very edible, are not very juicy. So, to get the
quantities of pumpkin juice we see in the books, they have to be
juicing thousands of large pumpkins; completely impractical. >>

Maybe it's like the mint jelly traditionally served with leg of lamb:
truth in labelling laws forced its name to be changed to mint-flavored
apple jelly. I imagine pumpkin juice as something like apple juice
that tastess like pumpkin pie, so perhaps apple juice IS the main
ingredient but it's named after the flavor.

Another example is the 'lemon custard' that is a traditional part of
dim sum has had its name changed to 'egg custard' because the old name
was named after its *color* not its ingredient. The friend who told me
that also told me that he bought a 'pineapple bun' at a bakery in
Little Tokyo which was pastry dough *shaped* like a pineapple.

I suppose an American example is 'hot dog'.

Becky wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25764 :

<< So next time I was stuck in an airport with my plane delayed
(fairly normal as I'm not from mainland England, but I'm at university
on the mainland) >>

*sympathetic shudder* at delayed planes being normal. Btw, as a
USAmerican, I'm not accustomed to the phrase 'mainland England'. 

PRINCE HARRY

Steve bboyminn wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25718 :
<< than that of Harry's personal right to privacy. >>

People born into the British royal family have no right to privacy.
It's unfair that they didn't get to choose their parents, but they DO
get a lot of money as part of the deal, inheritances and a government
salary.

<< given the party theme of 'Colonials and Natives' >>

For political correctness, maybe he should have gone painted blue as a
Pict, ideally accompanied by a friend dressed as a Roman legionnaire.

<< Prince William wore black tights and a leopard skin; >>

Why didn't that cause a scandal about racist stereotypes?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25727:
<<  the Indians have every reason to hate the British. But it's not
really in their nature to foster hatred >>

That is not what I would say about the country where BJP party
followers tore down the mosque of Ayodhya with their bare hands, a
train-car of Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya was burned alive by
Muslim street-vendors, and innocent Muslims minding their own business
were burned alive in their own houses by Hindu rioters in Gujarat. I
would say that Indians are as good at hating as all other humans are.

<< Germany is the only country I know of that
has suffered mass insanity twice in one century. >>

Are you referring to WWI and WWII? I'm not aware of WWI being mass
insanity -- didn't I already post about this during LOTR-FOTR movie
discussions? -- a *few* Serbian nationalists plotted to assassinate an
archduke and one of them more-or-less accidentally succeeded, so the
Austrian-Hungarian Empire found it necessary to militarily chastise
Serbia (I think it's called something like "suppressing an
insurgency"). Apparently the Russian Empire found it necessary to send
an army to defend the Serbs because they were fellow Orthodox
Christians. Then countries found it necessary to join in on one side
or the other because they had treaties to ally with Austria-Hungary or
Russia or one of the other countries that joined in. The common people
just did what their governments told them to do. Sometimes I marvel
that so many Great Powers never thought of the solution of simply not
honoring their treaties, as my country has done so often, but maybe
they thought it was a chance to conquer some territory to increase the
size of their Empires. 

Barbara Roberts wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25790 :

<< Thankfully Harry Potter lists have not attracted Nazis yet. >>

Actually I saw some posts on one list from an Odinist who may not have
been a Nazi, but was quite clear about the wizard folk representing
the superios Aryan race, while the Dursleys and other foolish Muggles
showed the bad results of mongrelization.

BEES

Leeann McCullough wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25661 :

<< I am truly sorry if this has been noted before. My 10 year old son
and I were talking about the "meaning" of Dumbledore (bumble bee) and
Voldemort (death). He said to me, "Mom, is that why DD didn't try to
kill Vold. at the Ministry of Magic? Because you know after a bee
stings, it dies!" Wow, I have been contemplating that on and off for a
year or so, but never came to that conclusion. What a clever child! >>

Punkie wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25779 just what
I was planning to write, but with different citations: 

<< Your son is indeed clever. However, the adults among us are not so
clever. I know, I know I'm always the killjoy. It is *honey*bees that
die when stung. Bumblebees live to sting again. >>

Here is an article from Wikipedia confirming my belief that only
honeybees die from stinging ; drones have no stingers).

only honeybees die from stinging 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristics_of_common_wasps_and_bees

only *worker* honeybees die from stinging with their barbed stingerss;
the queen honeybee's stinger is smooth and can be reused
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/bee_SocialBees.asp

"Drone bees have no stinger, since a stinger is actually a modified
ovipositor."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee#Eusocial_bees

"Most, but not all, bumblebee species are gentle. From this comes
their original name: "Humblebee"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebeehttp://en.wi
kipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee

"ETYMOLOGY:  bumble2 + bee1."
http://www.bartleby.com/61/74/B0547400.html

"bum·ble
INTRANSITIVE VERB:  To make a humming or droning sound; buzz.
NOUN: A humming or droning sound; a buzz.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English bomblen, of imitative origin."
http://www.bartleby.com/61/73/B0547300.html

http://www.word-detective.com/051600.html#dumbledore
""Dumbledore" is a pretty obscure word, rarely heard even in Britain
and virtually unknown in the U.S. "Dumbledore," it seems, serves as
the name of two entirely different (and quite dissimilar) insects. One
is the bumblebee (which the English call a "humblebee"), the
slow-moving, helpful denizen of flower gardens. The other sort of
"dumbledore" is a nasty critter called the "cockchafer," a large, ugly
and voracious beetle which eats trees. "Chafer" is another name in
England for a beetle, and "cock" in this case is an allusion to the
size and aggressiveness of a rooster. Boy, do I not want to meet this
bug. Fortunately, "dumbledore" is almost always used to mean a
bumblebee.

The "bumble" in "bumblebee," the "humble" in "humblebee," and the
"dumble" in "dumbledore" are all echoic in origin, meaning that the
words themselves are supposed to imitate the sound of a loud hum.
("Bumble" meaning "to flub" or "blunder" is an entirely different
word.) The "dore" in "dumbledore" comes from the Old English "dora,"
which meant an insect that flies and makes a loud humming sound."

Btw, are you, Leeann, related to "... the Leeanan Sidhe. The Leeanan
is a beautiful female faery that is drawn to creative humans like
authors, poets, and artists."
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/9406/whoelf.html

Tyler wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/25771 :

<< One more small tidbit about bumbebees-they are
solitary, they don't hive like other bees. >>

The articles I cited above list bumblebees among both eusocial and
quasisocial bees, indicating a bumblebee hive consists of dozens of
bees versus a honeybee hive consisting of thousands.