Hiya Skeleton Crew,

Happy hump day! Between the Star Wars & the Cinco de Mayo celebrations, I’m all celebrated out. Maybe let’s just have a nice quiet May 6, eh?

Trivia 1

The corn in cornucopia means “horn”, & it’s the same corn that ya see in stuff like unicorn, bicorn, tricorn, & quadricorn. Etymology’s just so incredible, ain’t it??

A bicorn can be a hat like Napoleon used to like to wear, ’specially when ya spell it like “bicorne” with an E at the end there. But without the E it can mean this fabulous creature from Middle Ages times, a part-panther/part-cow beast that jokers liked to say would grow fat by munchin up kind & devoted husbands. Those same jokers’d contrast it with the Chichevache, a monster that only gobbles down obedient wives & would be chronically malnourished. I guess that’s what passed for a knee-slapper back in Ye Olden days??

Neither the Bicorn nor the Chichevache are particularly common nowadays – though occasionally ya might hear a passin mention of a Bicorn in a modern fantasy story. The Chichevache, not so much! I think the last time I really saw anyone mention it was the last time I read Geoff Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in the Clerk’s Tale:

O noble wyves, ful of heigh prudence,
Lat noon humylitee youre tonge naille,
Ne lat no clerk have cause or diligence
To write of yow a storie of swich mervaille
As of _______ pacient and kynde,
Lest Chichevache yow swelwe in hire entraille!

Can ya tell me what name did I redact from that passage? It’s a lady’s name – the protagonist of the Clerk’s Tale – whose name’s become a word that means “a woman of exemplary gentleness and patience” (that’s accordin to Wiktionary). It’s a name ya rarely see in direct use nowadays – although its nickname version has increased pretty dramatically in popularity, probably thanks in large part to Shigeru Miyamoto.

Trivia 2

Another corn word is Capricorn, i.e., the constellation slash Zodiac sign. Anyone born between Dec 21 & Jan 20 is gonna be a Capricorn, but can ya tell me what sign would someone born TODAY have? In other words, what sign are we currently operatin under?