Posts Tagged ‘word with a past’
Word With A Past: Vaudeville
In 1648, revolution broke out in the streets of Paris. Known at the time as the Fronde ,* it was in many ways a rehearsal for the French Revolution(s) that would follow. Barricades went up in the streets. Aristocrats were pulled out of their carriages and shot at. Militias paraded in the public squares. There…
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Word With a Past: Doing A Land Office Business
In 1785, the newly created United States, burdened by debts incurred in its war for independence, passed a Land Ordinance Act authorizing the Treasury Department to sell land in the public domain as a source of revenue.* Acting on the principle of “survey before settlement”, tracts of land were surveyed into townships and plat parcels,…
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Word With A Past: Parchment
For hundreds of years papyrus was the principal material on which books (or at least hand-copied scrolls) were written. Since it could only be made from the pith of freshly harvested papyrus reeds, native to the Nile valley, Egypt had a monopoly on the product–and a potential monopoly on the written word. In the second…
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