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Waldorf Salad is from the Waldorf Astoria in NY

W is for Waldorf Salad

A curious fruity salad from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NY. Originally two separate places - The Waldorf and The Astoria. One for Waldorfians and the other for Astorians, they merged to yield a unfied Upper Crust.

The Waldorf Salad recipe from NYT

The Double U

The double U is a parvenu – like the single U it derives from. A straggler to the English alphabet, it waltzed in late, accompanied by the letter J . The letter gets its name from the original letterform. Sometime around the introduction of the printing press (and the end of the practice of burning witches) it was a pair of 'U's.

The macabre has been with us for a long time. Will we ever evolve? Source: Wikimedia

I can see it now... if you are going to have to mess up all the upper and lower case-work by adding the letter U, why not just double things up to make the letter UU and call it a day. WooWoo – The pub calls.

Alphabets & Numbers of the Middle Ages, Henry Shaw - (1845) Source: fromoldbooks.org

The letterform eventually merged into the double V we know, but its name did not – at least not in English – at least not yet. Maybe in the future, it will become something else entirely.

There's a long history of the alphabetical evolution of English Letterforms, including how the letter Z got booted to last place.

A chart of The Evolution of the Alphabet, by Matt Baker Source: usefulcharts.com

A coda for the birders - the Warbling Vireo!

Warbling Vireo Sounds, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The rich song of the Warbling Vireo is a common sound in many parts of central and northern North America during summer. It’s a great bird to learn by ear, because its fast, rollicking song is its most distinctive feature. Otherwise, Warbling Vireos are fairly plain birds with gray-olive upperparts and white underparts washed with faint yellow. They have a mild face pattern with a whitish stripe over the eye. They stay high in deciduous treetops, where they move methodically among the leaves hunting for caterpillars.

All About Birds

As always, thanks for reading and indulging!
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