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The annoucer had a mellifluous voice
mellifluous = sweet, like honey
And speaking of euonymnous = appropriately named, what makes the plant family Euonymous (perhaps most famously known for its Burning Bush member, flaming red leaves in the Fall) "appropriately named"?
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Carpal Tunnel
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From its etymology "mellifuous" ought to mean slow as spilled honey. Honey flows faster than
cold molasses, but still slowly.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Honey flows faster than cold molasses, but still slowly
...but you can speed it up if you destroy the viscosity by microwaving it briefly
([Technical note alert] breaks the sulfur/sulfur cross-links, I think [/technical note alert].
Although somehow it never tastes as yummy if it isn't rich and luxurious and thick.
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Carpal Tunnel
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... but then it loses its antibiotic properties, so you don't really want to nuke it.
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Dear AS: I wonder about the alleged antibiotic properties. A big part of the fact that fungi
do not attack honey is that the bees leave so little water in it. Same reason why jellies are
not very susceptible to mold. I haven't been reading up about honey lately, will go do so now.
I used to keep bees, until I tried to remove a frame, only to have it stuck to frame below by
propolis, and being unable to replace it without crushing a lot of bees and getting the bejeesus
stung out of me. Before I could resolve problem, I had onset of severe back pain,and just put
the cover back on, and called another beekeeper to come take all six hives away. I'd had
enough. The whole thing was a crazy idea of my wife's for a 4H project for our oldes daughter,
sho was scared to death of the bees and never even went near them. So I took many hundreds
of stings for nothing. And the kids didn't even like the honey - hardly ever used it. Being a good
father can be painful at times. Bill
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I wonder about the alleged antibiotic properties
It's well known in brewing circles that mead is harder to make than other beverages of equal alcoholic content. This is normally blamed on the tendency of the honey, which *has been severely watered down, to kill the yeast.
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Whatever there is about the honey that inhibits the yeast, it isn't an antibiotic in the
pharmaceutical sense. Antibiotics that have been added to control bee diseases are
frequently found but no others. There has been a lot of interest in peptides, proteins
that can kill bacteria, and possibly something of that sort could be in honey, but
assuredly has been sought but not found. Let us not get stung by the honey bee.
Which reminds me of a locution I have not heard for a long time: "Don't let's get stung."
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an antibiotic in the pharmaceutical sense
I seem to recall that, by definition, an "antibiotic" is a substance that inhibits the growth of bacteria, and which is derived from or elaborated by another biological organism. Just killing germs isn't enough.
That makes penicillin (from the Penicillium notatum bread mold) and streptomycin (from Stretomyces species) antibiotics, but all the Sulfa drugs (sulfanilamide, etc. - nothing to to with the element sulfur, really), being derived from the chemist's lab rather than the plant kingdom, aren't. Germicides, yes; useful, certainly; "antibiotics", strictly speaking, no.
Comment?
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Atomica agrees with you, wofa, but look what a medical dictionary has to say:
Antibiotic: A drug used to treat bacterial infections.
The original definition of an antibiotic was a substance produced by one microorganism that selectively inhibits the growth of another microorganism. However, wholly synthetic antibiotics (usually chemically related to natural antibiotics) have since been produced that accomplish comparable tasks. http://www.medterms.com/script/main/Art.asp?li=MNI&ArticleKey=8121Interesting: bio more or less means life, doesn't it, or alive? I guess the above usage is a transference, like using Kleenex as the word to mean any brand of facial tissue, or Xerox for any copied piece of paper.
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...a transference, like using Kleenex as the word to mean any brand of facial tissue, or Xerox for any copied piece of paper
The same thing happened to "inoculation" and "vaccination," all examples of extending the meaning from specific to general (or at least broader).
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