I was listening to the most recent Hardcore History podcast(*) (show 25) which featured an interview with Gwynne Dyer. While discussing whether technological advances might make an invading force more likely to succeed in Afghanistan than every previous attempt, he unleashed this bon mot which so nicely sums up long term cultural conflicts:

All the drones and all the technology, well it just allows you to kill more people. But, you know, killing people tends to annoy their relatives.

Indeed.

(*) I haven’t settled on an opinion of this podcast yet. I’ve heard a couple of interview shows which have been OK, but my understanding is that they aren’t really the core focus of the show.

From a cut down version of Cinderella, in which the eponymous character is described as having dainty feet.

On the spot answer: “It means small, honey”

Dictionary says:

Nice; delicate; elegant, in form, manner, or breeding; well-formed; neat; tender.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Hmm… I clearly missed the connotations, which I knew I did, but it clearly doesn’t mean “small”. Maybe the meaning has shifted in the last 100 years?

Newer dictionary says:

marked by delicate or diminutive beauty, form, or grace

OK, diminutive I guess. But it’s a stretch.

Final grade: fail.

As an aside, it looks like the primary meanings of “dainty” have to do with food and physical taste (as opposed to taste in clothing, etc):

especially pleasing to the taste;

n : something considered choice to eat

Delicious to the palate; toothsome.

That which is delicious or delicate; a delicacy.

1 a: tasting good : tasty b: attractively prepared and served

It was already pretty clear the Prince was rocking a decent foot fetish, but this new view of the word dainty pushes it into the realm of “get out of the house!” It does explain “Oh wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?” better than I’ve ever understood it before…

The following almost made me spit my drink on my new Kindle:

“The book was highly interesting, and it is a wonder that some enterprising American publisher has not appropriated it, as the author is now extremely dead.”

Bill Nye’s Comic History of England, Edgar “Bill” Wilson Nye (1850-1896)

I’m sure this was a topical jab from a working author at the actions of publishers at the time, but it was rather funny to be reading it downloaded from Project Gutenberg as an ebook…

I love when Prima asks me questions. I’m humbled when I don’t know the answer. I’m aware intellectually that half of the stuff I think I know is really just contextual feelings that I can’t actually define, but leave it to a two year old to lay me bare.

Source: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

This one was bad, because the text that caused the question actually contains a description of a mongoose. The text I was reading from was abbreviated for children from the original, but it was something like “He was a mongoose, with a body like a cat and head like a weasel.”

I don’t remember the path I took trying to find an acceptable answer to this one, but the question has been ritualized. Even after looking up the real answer and showing her pictures of real mongooses, the only answer I’ve found that works is “it’s like a cat”. Not one of my finer answers.

They are cute, though.