News item, Sept. 19
“The dark seabed of the Pacific Ocean’s Clarlon-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) is littered with what look like hunks of charcoal. These unassuming metal deposits, called polymetallic nodules, contain metals such as manganese and cobalt…”
Researchers released a study saying they have “discovered that the valuable nodules do something remarkable: they produced oxygen and do so without sunlight … the idea that some of Earth’s oxygen gas may come not from photosynthesizing organisms but from inanimate materials in total darkness really strongly goes against what we traditionally think of as where oxygen is made and how it’s made.” — Scientific American
This existential revelation is tempered by the fact that manganese and cobalt are used to make batteries, “marking them as targets for deep-sea mining companies.”
Sorry, Bob Dylan, but that gives me the subterranean seasick blues …
^^^
Which perhaps is less-crazy-making than some other things on my list:
^ People who let their retractable leashes stretch all the way across the sidewalk.
^ This social media tagline: “open to anyone, on Facebook or not.”
^ Why is it you pay the same 30-bucks for an entree while dining at a rustic picnic table outside as at a comfortable table inside?
^^^
It’s been three weeks (yeah, nothing since Aug. 31 – you did notice, right?) since I last posted. I haven’t spent all that time thinking about dog leashes and polymetallic nodules. Other important matters have interceded. My son recently moved to Delaware. Not the First State, but Delaware, Ohio.
I suggested that once settled he plan a short road trip north a few hours to Oregon, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo. There is, of course, a Toledo, Oregon, but let’s not get distracted from our main mission here:
After mentioning Oregon, Ohio, I ran across something about a town called California, Georgia.
So this is about the names of states that are also the names of cities.
No equivalent in Oregon can I find (though places such as Damascus, Albany, and Portland are examples of a rife city-name-borrowing tendency among this state, and a few such as Rickreall, Irrigon and Halfway range from unique to pleasantly off the rails.)
Now we are digressed as well as distracted. Back to the main point: state names for cities.
I found a few online lists including two that did not mention either Ohio town of Delaware or Oregon.
But there are plenty of state/city names.
Washington figures in 25 states. There is a Montana in Wisconsin but no Wisconsin anywhere.
California can also be found in both Maryland – and there is a Maryland in Louisiana and a Georgia in Kansas. Kansas is in Utah and Louisiana is in Missouri but there are no towns named Utah or Missouri. In Oklahoma there is Texas but no Texas in Oklahoma. But there is a Texas in New York and a New York in Texas – also in Florida and Maryland.
Minnesota has a Wyoming. So does Delaware.
Alaska has a New Mexico.
New York has an Alabama.
I know someone who went to school in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile Vermont has an Indiana.
South Dakota/Carolina are left out, so is Idaho and Nebraska and Arizona. There is a Michigan in North Dakota.
Does it count that there is are towns named Dakota in Illinois and Minnesota, or 10 U.S. cities named Carolina? Including a Carolina, South Carolina. That could get confusing.
I found no Illinois, Tennessee or Mississippi, Rhode Island or Maine, Iowa or Colorado. New Hampshire? Connecticut? Nada. No Virginia nor West Virginia, Kentucky nor Hawaii.
But the atlas does flip around to Ohio again. There is one in Texas.
^^^
While we’re at it: nor … the word nor. Mind you, I am coffee’d up and alert at 6:01 as I ask this: is nor not a strange little word? You could say it is really “not or.” Like or, but not quite the same. Or’s surly big brother. It implies there is an “or” but there’s not really one. It’s like not or got turned into a contraction: n’or. (‘S’up with that?) It reminds me of “almost”. Is that “all” and “most” run together? Which is it? These are words with identity crises — though heretofore could tell you stories, especially after hanging around the fo’c’s’le.
Anyway, there should be an opposite to almost: how about fewsome?
Almost: as a word, it’s like the etymologists could not make up their minds. “It pretty much sums it up,” they said, which kind if ticked off the mathematicians down the hall so they, also being confused, went to complain to the entomologists, which really bugged them.
Which reminds me of a cool snack product name: Academia Nuts. — N.R.
That’s a lot of research.
It’s also confusing that Oregon has two John Day towns and rivers.
Neither I nor my nutty academia friends know why that is allowed.
(Although we know why it happened - even though it’s weird).