May 28 2023 - Sommelier of What?

 

That's what I found in the Globe and Mail's style section yesterday.  A vacation curated by a mountain air sommelier. Would there be 4 levels of mountain air sommeliers?  introductory, Certified, Advanced and Master?   There are olive oil, water, milk, sake, coffee and tea sommeliers.  Beer sommeliers are known as Cicerones. You can find Christina Li, Canadian water sommelier's website HERE.    As to being a sommelier, Wikipedia says this: In modern times, a sommelier's role may be considered broader than working only with wines, and may encompass all aspects of the restaurant's service, with an enhanced focus on wines, beers, spirits, soft-drinks, cocktails, mineral waters, and tobaccos. The inclusion of tobaccos makes me doubt that this has been written in modern times.  And what about this quote: "An experienced sommelier can even determine, through their refined sinus canals, the moon phase of the day the coffee beans were harvested." And what does the Guinness Book off Records say about sommeliers - first robot sommelier is the first headline, then largest sommelier lesson. NEC System Technologies and Mie University, Japan, have developed a robot capable of tasting wine and recognizing the differences between a few dozen varieties. To "taste", the "wine-bot" fires an infrared beam through the wine and analyses the various wavelengths of light that are absorbed. A built-in speaker is used to announce the variety of wine selected.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

June 6 - English vs Language Families

We in the English-speaking group don't think about other language families.  English seems to be dominant in so many areas that we might not even think about other languages. How many language families are there?  There are 141 language families and 7,111 living human languages within the 141 different families.   Membership of languages is established by comparative linguistics.  Just like plants - they are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship.  We also don't think about which is the most-spoken language.  That's because English is dominant in many communications.  It's 983 million speakers fall behind Mandarin Chinese with 1.1 billion speakers.  Next is Hinustani at 544 million.  Another retrieval says that there are 1.121 billion speakers of English and 1.107 billion speakers of Chinese.  Or perhaps there are as many as 1.5 billion using English to some extent.  The native English speakers number 375 million. What would the scenario be like if Chinese surpassed English in Global speakers?  How would that change things?   When I worked in computers, the universal language for comments and descriptions is English - computer code is required to have English descriptors.  I worked on a project where the software was developed in Morocco and it was written in French, so it would not be allowed in a government department given it failed this mandatory requirement.  I wonder how many fields and professions require English for similar things. I would think that STEM would be the area that requires a common set of standards and practises.  The Oxford-Royale.co.uk side says this is the case - 80% of scientific texts are written in English.  Academia, Online businesses, Tourism, Diplomacy, management consultancy and finally Finance are the top areas that require good English.  So I guess that covers a lot of jobs around the world. Look at the 'trunk' on this bonsai azalea at Longwood.

Retail Space Per Capita

I notice a contrast of space when I go to the U.S.  The footprint of malls seems to be much larger than in Canada.  There's more parking lot, loading docks, grass around the boulevards, etc.   Robin Lewis of Forbes/Retail wrote in 2014 that America was on the edge of the Great Retail Demassification.   There is 46 square feet of retail space per capita in the U.S. In the UK there is 9 square feet of retail space per capita. A Financial Post article says that there are 2,370 square feet for every 100 people in the U.S. compared to 1,453 square feet per person in Canada. This leads into the largest malls in the world:  the largest is in China - the New South China Mall is 6.46 million sq. ft. In comparison the West Edmonton Mall is 3.77 million sq. ft It makes me wonder what is the garden space per person in countries around the world.