‘Tis the season for bubbly drinks, which have a long history in our culture
Q. “Dear Santa, I’ve been good mostly…,” and the letter, with its wish list duly completed, is put into an envelope, stamped and addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole.” Where might the letter end up? A. Without a zip code, the United States Postal Service would have difficulty completing delivery, since its sorting system begins with the zip code, says Dan Lewis on his “Now I Know” website. But often kids just make up one, and what would be simpler than “12345”? In this case, Santa’s letters will go to Schenectady, New York, to the General Electric office assigned that entire zip code. (The multinational conglomerate got its start there in the spring of 1892.)
“Since 1994, as mail for Santa arrives, some of the roughly 4,000 GE employees who work there have taken it upon themselves to read the notes and, at times, reply.” And even though the Schenectady office keeps shrinking since the headquarters moved, the company’s Santa-helping tradition continues. As recently as 2015, volunteers wrote personal replies to more than 1,000 letters, often with “a tiny PS: ‘Don’t forget the milk and cookies.’” Q. Word lovers, if you’re also passionate about music, you’ll no doubt know most of the following drawn from the musical world: “upbeat,” “concert pitch,” “orchestrate,” “trombenik” and “fiddlestick.” A. Are you feeling pretty upbeat (optimistic) here, starting with “upbeat,” “an unaccented beat before the first beat of a measure,” as Anu Garg elaborates on his “A.Word.A.Day” website. “Concert pitch” is “a tuning standard for musical instruments in which the note A above middle C is assigned a frequency of 440 cycles per second (audio),” so it suggests “a state of being tensely alert or ready.” And “orchestrate,” “to arrange elements of a situation to achieve a desired effect,” comes from Latin, from Greek, from “orkheisthai” (to dance).
“Trombenik” (TROM-buhnik) draws on the Yiddish word “tromba,” for “trumpet” or “horn,” and connotes “a lazy or a boastful person,” as in “tooting one’s own horn.” Finally, “fiddlestick” is “the bow with which the fiddle is played” and means “something insignificant.” As Garg explains, it “… may be related to the fact that the verb fiddle has a contemptuous meaning: to fiddle is to do something frivolous, to do something aimlessly.” But how the bow of a violin ended up being a synonym (typically plural) for “nonsense” is not known. Oh, “fiddlesticks”! Q. When and why were bubbly drinks invented? And why do we like them? A. “Carbonation … triggers the same pain receptors in the deep brain that are activated by spicy food,” note Roberto Zenit and Javier Rodriguez-Rodriguez in “Physics Today.” Animals such as mice, dogs and horses refuse to drink carbonated water. “But humans appear to enjoy the mildly irritating effects.” Water, carbon dioxide and saliva enzymes react to produce carbonic acid, thought to cause the tingly sensation. The presence of bubbles is not required to experience the “carbonation bite,” but they do modulate flavor, for unknown reasons.
Joseph Priestly, discoverer of oxygen, invented carbonation in 1772 to “maintain potable water for consumption in ships,” and its “distinct freshness” (his words) seemed to accomplish this.
Carbonation can also occur through fermentation in a closed container. “Although beer-making dates back thousands of years, it is unclear how bubbly beer could have been originally – old ceramic containers were most likely unsealed. Sparkling wine was discovered later – in the 17th century – and its carbonation comes from a secondary fermentation inside the bottle.”
Conclude the authors: “Alcoholic or not, bubbly drinks are full of physics!”