Violins

This is shaping up to be a big week around our household. My wife comes home today, it's my second week on the new job (still climbing that learning curve), Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, the new Star Trek movie opens on Friday, and the weekend brings not only my son's birthday, but my own birthday and, of course, Mother's Day. Lots to get ready for this week.

It was on this day way back in 1655 - let's see, that's 354 years ago - that a man named Bartolomeo Cristofori was born. Mr. Cristofori had at least one brilliant idea in his life: He replaced the string-plucking mechanisms on a harpsichord with levered devices called hammers. This allowed the player to adjust the volume of the instrument by applying more or less force to the hammer when played.

His original name for the new instrument was "Harpsichord-that-plays-soft-and-loud." (Well, no one said Bartolomeo was gifted in marketing.) As the instrument grew in popularity among musicians, the name was shortened to just "soft-loud" and eventually just "soft."

In Italian, the word for "soft" is "piano."

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A CLASSIC STORY OF ONE-UPMANSHIP

Three violin manufacturers had all done business on the same block for years and years in the small town of Cremona, in Italy.

After years of peaceful coexistence, the Amati shop placed a sign in the window that read, "We make the best violins in Italy."

The Guarneri shop, two doors down, followed suit shortly thereafter but their sign read, "We make the best violins in the world!"

Finally, the Stradivarius family, who owned the shop right between the two, placed a sign in the window that read simply, "We make the best violins on the block."

[with thanks to Doc's Daily Chuckle]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: The Old Latin word "altus" meant "high" (you can see where the word "altitude" originates) ... by adding the modifier "ex" to it you got the word "exaltare" ... or "out of high." Here, however, the prefix "ex" seems merely to be an intensifying addition. We know it as the word "exalt," which means to lift up on high, glorify, raise in rank. As in, "the music was so triumphant it exalted my spirit to the heavens."

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