Hello everyone it's Missy thank you for watching. For today's video I wanted to do something a little bit different and share with you some styling tips for the winter along with how to transition some of your favorite pieces from autumn into the colder months. Just because it's freezing outside we don't have to completely give up on style we just have to be a little bit more creative when we're getting dressed. And today's video is sponsored by Teddy Blake so I'll be sharing with you how I would style one of my favorite pieces from their collection the Sophia bag. I'll also be sharing some key items to help elevate your wardrobe while also keeping it seasonally appropriate. Great style is definitely possible during the winter we just have to be a little bit more prepared. So if you're new to my channel make sure to like and share this video, subscribe and click the notification bell so you never miss future videos and let's get started. The first tip is to start layering and this is something I've been doing for years. This may sound simple but there are a few things to keep in mind. The key is to start with a base layer and you'll want this item to be relatively tight. Then on top of that I will layer a long sleeve shirt and then plop on my sweater on top of that. If this is too much for you there are other great layering options like say a lightweight puffer vest which can be paired over sweaters and under jackets for an extra layer of warmth. Every one of my outfits always involves some type of knitwear. Deeper tones like greens, darker reds and browns really transition easily from autumn into winter. One item that has been particularly trendy this season is a jacket. It's kind of a mixture of a shirt and jacket. I loved these in the fall and it's something I'll be transitioning into winter. These are some of my favorite pieces at the moment because they're a little bit oversized and it's something that I can pair with a sweatshirt or a sweater underneath it so it adds an extra layer of warmth. Throughout the winter months your coat becomes one of the key pieces of your wardrobe and if it's not it definitely should be. This is the second tip. Since this item is something you're likely to wear every single day it can be important to make it something of a statement. Every day when I get dressed I try to limit my outfit to three colors. This is an easy way to look more stylish and classy when you're getting dressed and deciding which coat I will be wearing that day always gets factored into this. There are a few different types of coats that I personally would recommend. The first one is a casual coat. I love this one in particular for running errands and dropping my son off at school and I felt like a green color was more neutral and would pair easily with other outfit choices that I would wear throughout the season. All last year I had my eye out for a black puffer coat and when I saw this one I knew it was the one I needed. I love the fur lining on the hood and I also love that the material is a shiny material. I think it gives the coat a little sporty cool vibe. I also have what I call a ski coat. I don't necessarily wear it to go skiing but I think it's a great mix between a dressy and casual coat. It feels and looks more casual but somehow it easily elevates any outfit and this is something that I love to wear if I'm going out but I don't want to look dressy like if I'm going shopping with a friend or just out for lunch. The last type of coat that I think is an absolute necessity is a long coat. I think these are great in particular for wearing out whether at night or on special occasions. There's just something so sophisticated and sleek about wearing long straight coats. This particular coat has a beautiful hounds tooth print and though this particular print can feel intimidating at first I find that it can be paired with so many different colors and outfits and it kind of adds that pattern that you might need to an otherwise neutral toned outfit. Aside from the typical clothing you'd usually wear when you're heading out the door, the accessories you add into your outfit can make a huge difference as well. The one item that most women carry on an everyday basis is their purse or handbag. I find that this bag matches most if not all of my winter wardrobe choices. This is the Sophia shoulder bag and I put a lot of thought into this bag since I first saw it. It's in a combination of quilted suede and smooth Vitello leather which I think is so beautiful. It has the gold toned hardware so it's quite versatile and this model stood out to me as it has a long strap and I love having the option of wearing it in multiple ways. It's a practical bag and has one large compartment with an extra zip pocket so I can easily find everything and it has a magnetic closure so it makes opening and getting things out very simple and I know I'll be wearing it for years to come. Teddy Blake actually has a team of designers from well-known luxury brands that create handbag designs for every style choice. They release new collections every month so visit their website to see more of their beautifully designed bags. I'll leave a link down in the description box so you can easily click it and just go check it out. Another accessory you should hunt for this season is the winter hat of your dreams. Hats are super simple ways to stay warm and they add an extra element of cool to any outfit since you're likely to be wearing it for the next two months and it'll be one of the first things people notice about you. It should be something that you absolutely love. A third accessory that's fun to tie into any outfit is a scarf. You can literally never go wrong with a scarf especially if you aren't sure your coat or outfit is going to be warm enough on its own. A helpful hint when trying to figure out which scarf to pair with your outfit is to stick to the three color rule. Wearing a single tone scarf that shares a color with the rest of your outfit will easily match and pairing a colored scarf with an overall neutral toned outfit can really add a fun element to the whole ensemble or wearing an entirely monochromatic outfit with a patterned scarf can add a really fun pop of color and it also really helps elevate the entire look. There aren't many great things about living in frigid cold weather at least fashion-wise but it is one of the only times of the year that you can wear fur or faux fur. Faux fur is something that pairs easily with just about anything and it gives your outfit a major luxury upgrade. Try out for mittens, a furry scarf, or even go as far as a beanie with a fluffy pom-pom on the top. Go for your favorite neutral color so you can pair it with numerous outfits. Wear it out for a special occasion and pretty soon it'll be your coat of choice and you won't be able to look back. Next up let's move down to shoes and when you're all bundled up one thing that stands out more easily is your shoe choice. Let your shoes or more specifically let your boots steal the show. Great winter style really boils down to a great pair of boots. It makes sense to have a few practical pairs of shoes for the winter but some fun boots can really help elevate your wardrobe. Snake print is a print that comes around every year for me. I have no idea why but for some reason animal print in the colder months just seems so appropriate. Last year I picked up this pair with more of a black and white color pattern and it's really nice because it's kind of a cool tone so this pairs really easily with lighter sweaters. This year I picked up this new pair with more of a warm brown tone. I love the way these look with dark denim and a deeper tone top. These are a really fun shoe option when I'm putting an outfit together and want to add something really punchy. I find that this print is so timeless and the quality is really amazing. That's something that I really do stress when it comes to finding pieces to add to your wardrobe. Longevity and versatility is really important to me and that's also the reason why I tend to focus on elevated basic pieces that you're not going to get bored of. Thank you so much for watching. I really hope you enjoyed today's video and found some of these tips helpful and will utilize them during the winter season. A huge thank you to Teddy Blake for sponsoring today's video. Make sure to check out their website. They have a beautiful selection of handbags. I will leave a link down below in the description box so you can just click down there and check out their collection. Make sure to like and subscribe. All the good things and I will see you next time.


Aloha and welcome to this special edition of Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We've got a special edition today because we have a very special guest. Normally we broadcast on Thursdays at two o'clock in the downtown studios of Think Tech Hawaii and Pioneer Plaza. But today we've got a special broadcast because we've got a dignitary from the Small Business Administration visiting us here in Hawaii this week, Yolanda Swift, who's the Deputy National O'Budsman for the Small Business Administration. She's got a full calendar, she's got a lot of events going on, she's traveling to the different neighboring islands, but she cut some time out of her calendar to visit with us today to give us a little bit of an update on the SBA at the national level and maybe a little bit of background on herself, which is an interesting story all by itself. But Yolanda, it's great to have you on the show today. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh, pleasure of course. But you just got in from, are you adjusting to the time zone changes yet or? I am slowly adjusting to the time zone changes. I've traveled from the East Coast, so yes, it's a bit of an adjustment. Actually, you do quite a bit of traveling, don't you? Yes, we do. I do, on behalf of the Small Business Administration, actually cover all of the United States and the territories. Big territory, big area. But before we get into all the details and all the interesting things you're doing with the SBA, can you share with us a little bit about your background and how did you get involved with the SBA? How did it all start? Well, it all started a number of years ago. I am an attorney by trade. I'm not a recovering, but I'm actually currently an acting and practicing attorney. And being involved with work with the federal government really started for me when I was in law school. I'm originally from Ohio. I am a buck. I currently living in Washington, D.C., so I am a mid-westerner. And while I was in law school at the University of Cincinnati, I had an opportunity, I was given an opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C., to do an internship at the Department of Justice. And that was a tremendous opportunity which I'd always like to inform other people about those possibilities of seeking out those internships with the federal government. It really turned out to be a blessing for me because I was fortunately able to work at justice, return to law school for my final year, and I decided that I was very interested in public service and working with the public. And from there, when I graduated, I then moved to New York, pursued a master's in law and worked in the banking sector for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That's a trivia question. What's the difference between a law degree, I guess, a JD and a master's of law? Is there a difference in that? The difference is for the attorney after a JD, it's reversed in the legal profession for the degree denominations. You get your Juris Doctorate first after the three years in law school, and then that one additional year I specialized in banking and finance. Many get their LLM in the regulatory area, banking and finance, or in taxation. There are other specialties. Many also have an opportunity to pursue that joint degree in the business area, which I took many of the business courses and concentrated in banking and finance law and regulatory law. And that led me then into working for the FDIC, becoming more familiar with commercial lending, loans made to small businesses. I moved from the FDIC in New York to actually work for Nations Bank, Bank of America, the Bank of America was a successor, and while I was at Nations Bank in Maryland, I was counsel to the small business group, the business individuals who developed loan products and made loans to small businesses. This is a tremendous amount of very good experience that actually leads you to what you're doing today. Yes, yes. Amazing. It leads me to that because what I learned from that experience is, one, it is very difficult for small businesses all over this country to develop, to thrive, and most importantly to have access to the capital that they need to be able to go on and be successful. And because small businesses, unlike large businesses, they do not have access to tremendous resources, many are privately held companies, and so therefore they don't issue public stock to try to raise funds. So it's always a challenge, and fortunately what the banks and the small business administration try to do in helping get the capital is to help the small businesses develop a business plan and other tools that they need to be successful. Right. They try to build that bridge and fill that puka, if you will, that the big businesses have, but maybe the small businesses don't. And that's particularly relevant here in Hawaii, but the majority of our businesses I think it's 97 or 98% are all small businesses in Hawaii. Yes. And for me it's a remarkable journey because at the FDIC and then in the corporate world when I worked in the corporate sector, I've done and assisted as counsel on multi-million dollar deals, trillion dollar deals with large insurance companies, institutions, and I see the various opportunities for corporations. But what I also realized is and saw through my journey is that the small businesses really are the core and the key in the local communities in terms of developing jobs as well as developing training and skills development opportunities for local people.  It would decimate the economy. It would decimate the economy, it would decimate communities as well because I am a member of the community as we all are where I've seen the opportunities that are created for young people to obtain skills through working at the local McDonald's and many of those are franchise owned by small businesses. For example, the local food stores, chains, the local department stores and others where the fundamental basic skills are developed and supplies and goods are provided. We no longer live in societies where everyone goes down to the downtown area to buy all their goods and services, but we want those things available to us out in our various communities and that's where small businesses come in. It's vital to the economy and that's why the SBA is such an important function for the country is to provide that type of support and resource. So now you went from, I guess, a private sector and you ended up with the SBA? I went from the public sector with government during, as I said, my internship and then into a public sector job as an attorney, then went out into private sector for a while and then back into the federal government with the Small Business Administration. And I've been with the Small Business Administration since 1998. From 1998 until 2010, I was actually an attorney in the legal division, in the finance group, developing the loan programs and the policies and procedures around loan programs. And in doing that, I also had many colleagues in the legal division that worked on other aspects of how the small business provides services. And I saw the regulations that we developed at our agency to try to assist small businesses, but I also know that there are so many other regulations developed by federal agencies as well as state and local governments. And all of these regulations impact small businesses and the small businesses need to comply. It's really an overwhelming sometime matrix of compliance requirements just for a small business to get off the ground and survive and thrive. Well, and that's something that we might come back to maybe after the break, but we're going to talk a little bit more. We just had a round table yesterday and compliance was one of the big issues and the amount of time required to try and maintain compliance became very clear during that. And I want to talk a little bit about that, but now you've got a pretty senior level position with the SBA as the deputy national ombudsman. Can you describe what that is? What does that mean? Yes. And I do feel very privileged to have this opportunity since 2010 to work for and on behalf of small businesses as the deputy national ombudsman. The office of the national ombudsman was created in 1996 under a law known as the brief of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act. And at that time in 1996, it was realized that large businesses have a number of different avenues and advocates to speak on their behalf at the state and local and federal level when laws are being created. Small businesses, unfortunately, do not have extra time to get to engage and get involved and give up front input about regulations. And sometimes they don't have the money for that. They don't have the money as well. And often you'll find that small businesses do not have many trade organizations that work on their behalf. The cost of being involved with those is often overwhelming. So it was recognized that there was a need and the ombudsman's office was created to assist small businesses after these regulations are created in laws to assist small businesses in understanding how to navigate through the maze of laws and regulations. But also, and just as important, is we are allowed to hear from small businesses how these laws are burdensome to them, how the laws are being enforced against them, and many of the fines, fees, penalties, application fees that were created. It was just not considered what the excessive impact would be. We've got so many different agencies and areas of the government that have their own missions. And sometimes they layer on top of each other, and they don't always look at the unintended consequence of having the overlapping requirements, and they're not always in sync. Absolutely. And that is where our office comes in, because we have the ability to liaise with all of the federal regulatory agencies, and we do have specific senior level partners at those agencies to which we can forward comments on specific cases for specific small businesses, as well as deal with global issues that may be effect regulatory issues that are affecting larger groups or the entire sphere of small businesses. And that's powerful. To have that type of voice with these senior level positions in these other agencies is very valuable. It's very valuable, and we really want to make the position effective, because we do expect results. We have regular input with the federal agencies, we meet with them regularly, and in fact, we issue an annual report to Congress to keep Congress informed on how the various federal agencies are working to assist small businesses, and keeping the small businesses in mind when they're developing compliance assistance programs, developing educational tools for small businesses, and just to keep them in mind. One other important thing that we have, one authority we have under the Small Business Act in my office is that we actually can appoint, we have a board, a 50-person board for business owners around the countries, our members of our regulatory fairness boards. We have 10 regions, each region has five small business owners as board members, and those individuals are so vitally important to myself and others in our office. We hear on a regular basis from our board members, and I have the pleasure of sitting right now with one of our board members, you, Reg Baker, here representing the small businesses in the state of Hawaii and all of the islands, and most importantly, because of your expertise in accounting as a CPA, we've heard your voice on a number of issues that affect small businesses around the country. That's right, and I've served on the American Institute of CPAs at a national level, so I do have that little bit of that national perspective, and full disclosure, I've been on the board for regulatory fairness with the SBA for a couple years now, I'm chair of the ninth region, which is pretty much Western United States, and I've had the pleasure of working with Yolanda for the two years, and she's very effective at what she does. Now, what I want to do is come back after the break, we've got to take a short one-minute break, we'll come right back, and I want to dig into a little bit more about the SBA and how these things work and what other types of product services is offered. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker, my guest today is Yolanda Swift, we're talking about the SBA at a national level, we're going to take a one-minute break, and we'll see you right back here. Hi, I'm Chris Leetham with The Economy and You, and I'd like to invite you each week to come watch my show each Wednesday at 3pm. Aloha, my name is Danelia D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman, welcome. We are co-hosts of a show called Keys to Success, which is live on the ThinkTech Live Network series, weekly on Thursdays at 11am. We're looking forward to seeing you then. Aloha! Aloha, I'm Richard Emory, host of Condo Insider, a weekly Thursday show at 3 o'clock that goes all summer long talking about issues living in a condo association. Each week we bring experts to talk about the rights and obligations of owners and boards of directors to successfully run their condominium. It's a great educational show, answers a lot of questions, we hope you'll visit us sometime. Aloha! Welcome back, this is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker, it's a special edition, we've got a national dignitary from the small business administration visiting us this week. Yolanda, it's great to have you here, you're welcome to come back anytime, it's great to have you here and have this exchange and it's good to have this leverage in Washington, D.C. that can help us get some things done. So now you're at the SBA, you've got this senior level position as Deputy O'Budsman at the national level, you've got this regulatory review board that's kind of helping throughout the nation, boots on the ground type of activity, but you travel a lot and you actually participate in some of the different activities going on as evidenced by you being here today as well as nationally. So we had an event yesterday. Yes we did because one of the mechanisms our office uses to inform small businesses about how we're available to help is to go around the country and conduct outreach events, round tables, regulatory fairness hearings and other type of public events, town halls that give small businesses an opportunity to come in and meet and sit down and talk with us about their concerns and issues. And yes we did have a regulatory fairness round table yesterday at the Small Business Administration District Office here in Honolulu and thank you very much, Reg, for assisting co-chairing that round table. We was very well attended by our resource partners as well as small business owners because that is what is important. We cannot do our work in Washington without hearing from the small businesses and without also hearing from and working with our congressional representatives and our other federal agencies. And that's a point I just wanted to emphasize is that the district office that had Jane Sawyer there, we also had a regional advocate there, Yvonne. You were there, I was there, but we also had representatives from the Department of Labor from the congressional and the senatorial. We had a lot of people that were there really for one purpose and that was to hear the issues that the small business community in Hawaii had concerns about. And so think about this, I mean small businesses could have gone to this and they would have had direct access to some very senior level people that can make some change happen. And that is true. And one of our challenges, Reg, in bringing up the fact that we had all of these resources there yesterday, it is a constant challenge for our office, the office of the National Ombudsman to reach out and be able to reach out into the business community and actually get feedback and hear from the small businesses. And so we realize businesses, people are busy during the day and they're not often available to come. So we're using this mechanism today with this broadcast to try to reach out to numbers of small businesses around the country. And thank you very much for the opportunity. Our federal agency partners also are trying out to reach out through various mechanisms and mediums, webinars, seminars, visiting roundtables, having meetings with various trade organizations to try to get the word out that we're here to try to assist. And if somebody did have a comment or an observation or a complaint, the process of submitting that for somebody to take a look at is actually a pretty simple process. Can you walk us through that just for a minute? Yes. And not only do we have these events to raise awareness, but we also want to let and assure small businesses that we will work on specific issues and concerns.  An individual small business or a trade organization on behalf of small businesses can complete our comment form online at our website site address. It's www.sba.gov backslash ombudsman. Or if you just go to the public SBA website and search for the Office of the National Ombudsman or put in the search word ombudsman, it will bring you to our webpage where an individual commenter will find the comment form, can complete that comment form online and send it back to us electronically. We will receive it in our database. We will review the comment, get as much information as possible, and forward that on immediately to the federal agency and expect the federal agency to respond in writing within 30 days. And this is probably a violation of a federal rule somewhere. But this is only a one-page form. That's correct. It's a very simple form with only a half a dozen or so fields that need to be filled out. Yes. Usually, when I look at these forms, they're five, ten pages long, but this is a single page form. So it's really simple. Yes. And that is as a result of another innovative process within the federal government. The Paperwork Reduction Act has encouraged all federal agencies to reduce the burdens and the time involved for citizens to engage with the federal government. So as a result, we have that one-page form and we ask for very simple information. It is a confidential process. We are an impartial liaison to get the ball rolling with the federal agency and we're working to get results on behalf of small businesses, not just pile up statistics or gather information, but actually to take that information and work with the federal agency to get a result. And may I talk a little bit about some of the types of results that we often obtain for small businesses? Absolutely. Many small businesses who are dealing with a federal agency and have federal contracts, for example, right to our office if they're having some issue in getting paid on a timely basis from the federal agency or the prime contractor or we have small businesses often inundated with IRS cases, IRS questions, tax issues, fines, levies, penalties. We work with the Internal Revenue Service frequently and the taxpayer advocate to help negotiate and work with the small business to get those fines and penalties in a payment status and installment plan. There are various types of programs that have been developed to assist. OSHA. We work with OSHA and the Department of Labor. That's a big one. For example. Yes. And that federal agency, OSHA has created a consultation program to come out and work with and this is a free program to come out and work with small businesses and consult with them on their occupational safety issues. So anything at a federal level that could be causing some issue for a small business, they can go fill out this one page form, they can send it on and I've submitted a few and I can tell you that the Washington office is very responsive. They usually give me an acknowledgement of receipt within 24 hours and it's very quick in getting the form. Takes a little bit more time to have it work through the system to move in a direction of resolution but it is very responsive and I get the impression that the Washington office takes this very seriously. They really jump on this stuff. Yes, we do. We take it seriously because the individuals who work in the office of the National Ombudsman are very personally committed to assisting small businesses and we also document and report regularly to our representatives in the House and Senate so that we can work in concert with them to get these laws and regulations changed and also to make sure that the other federal agencies are just as committed to working with and on behalf of small businesses. Being able to grade them and their efforts kind of give you a little bit of leverage too. Yes and I encourage your viewers and other small businesses in the area to take a look, visit the SBA.Ombudsman website and you'll see in our annual report that we generate annually. We do. We grade pretty specifically and relatively sternly our federal agencies on how responsive they are to the needs of small businesses. Yes, well I'm glad that you're doing that because somebody needs to hold them accountable and have them, you know, just be aware that there may be some room for improvement in some areas, you know, and that's good. And I have to say, most of our small business, I would say our small business advocates at federal agencies, they're all working very diligently and very concerned about assisting the small businesses because they recognize how many jobs are involved with the vitality and the sustainability of these small businesses. Now that's an interesting point and I don't want to put you on the spot, but at a national level, how many jobs in the economy are a direct, I guess, from the small business community? I've heard different numbers, but it's about half. Yes, I've heard numbers anywhere from half to at some points even higher in the 60 and 70 percent tile of the numbers of businesses and new jobs created through small businesses. And as I mentioned earlier, there are so many types of small businesses that typically people do not recognize. For example, franchises, the franchises and the franchisees, franchiseors. We have a number of people individuals who are involved in consulting and they have small consulting firms.  So yes, we do have quite a nexus involved with what we do. Yes, it's huge. And the reason why I think just to complete the definition of employment, the small business sector is one part of the economy, 50, 60 percent. But the other part is made up of not only the large businesses, but also the government workers and the workforce that's employed by the government, as well as the Department of Defense and the military and that sort of thing. So if you look at all just private sector jobs, I think that percentage actually goes up quite a bit higher. It goes up exponentially and also because of the relationship between those larger private sector entities and the smaller companies on government contracts, we often find that while a large company may be awarded a government contract with a federal government agency, let's just say the Department of Defense or one of the military branches, often those larger entities or mid-sized companies then contract with and subcontract with the smaller companies. I wish we had more time. Believe it or not, we have gone through the entire 30 minute show. We got to wrap up here. The small businesses are a significant part of our economy and the SBA is there to support those small businesses to make sure that they're healthy and they continue to grow. So I can't say enough that this is a very important function, you know, probably in my opinion one of the best government agencies that we've got to help the small business community. Yes, and thank you very much for being our liaison, partnering with us on behalf of small businesses in Hawaii and in the western part of the United States. Very good. Thank you much. Thank you. All right. This is Reg Baker, business in Hawaii. We broadcast live every Thursday at 2 o'clock. This was a special edition because of our guests from Washington, D.C. But I hope to see you next week. Until then, aloha.


Top of the first inning and Boston's in a bit of a mess. They're already down one nothing. Bases are loaded, only one out recorded. This breakdown is brought to you by DraftKings and this is funky. Watch this, first pitch, little slider way away, ball one. Then sinker inside, one and one, slider way away. Sinker outside gets the call, strike goes back to it, three, two, puts it in play. What was the call, safe there, throws it away. All the runners are running, hold up. What's going on? No outs on the play at all. One run scores, what's going on? He's like, catch, out. You called out, right? I caught it, I caught it on the fly. Umpire comes up and says, you caught, you caught the ball? Okay, well, all right, let me go talk to my guys. He's like, okay, what's happening here? He's like, what are we doing? You called down and says, what did you call? He says, yeah, I had him catching it. And then he threw it away. He's like, yeah, yeah, no, I had a pretty good view. I thought it was a catch and then this is it. So that's the catcher, not catch, but look, the umpire does record right there a very gentle out call. He does do the mechanic of out on the catch and then safe on trying to get the runner tagging up. But he did call him out. The only problem is I don't know if he caught it on the fly. Fenway, because it's so tiny and old, they don't have the best replay angles always because it's hard to find camera spots. But it does look like at this frame right there, the dirt underneath the ball turns a color as if it bounced off of it and then into the glove or is that the bottom of the glove popping up? No, no, that's not the bottom of the glove popping up right there. So it seems like there's dirt. But I don't know, they didn't review the catch. But the tricky thing is, is that it's called a catch. You can see the umpire call to catch and a Royals like, well, hold on, if it's a catch, then he's out at third. But what about third? So now what about third?  That's it. It's simple. We'll get the double play. So the pitcher listens to his manager, steps off, throws to three, and the umpire says, you're out. And then after the umpire says you're out, Devers tags Olson anyway, like double out, gotcha. Ha ha. And Olson's confused. He's like, me? I'm out? Nuh uh. I'm out? No, you're not out. You were at second.  It was Ozzie, who was at third, who's out. Anyway, manager comes out says, what's going on? He didn't tag? All right. Okay. That makes sense. And Ozzie's like, I was the one that was out. But the umpire said safe. He's very confused. But the umpire said safe to Olson getting back to the bag in time and not getting doubled up. He said out very sheepishly, mind you, right there. And that kind of tricked everybody. But I don't even think he caught it. So I don't know what this play was. Very confusing and weird. But it saved the Red Sox a ton. And it was brought to you by DraftKings. Thank you to DraftKings for sponsoring the breakdowns. I appreciate you guys as always. And I appreciate all of you for watching the breakdowns. And if you enjoy them and you want to subscribe to the channel, that helps us out a whole bunch.


Welcome to the Endless Knot. I hope you're hungry because today, in honour of the festive season, we're sinking our teeth into the word feast. The word feast didn't originally have anything to do with food. That came later. Feast actually comes from the same root as festival, and is really about religion, and we can still use the word feast in that older sense when we refer to something like the Feast of Stephen, a day in the church calendar for honouring Saint Stephen, which you might know about as the day on which Good King Wenceslas looked out. This is what's called polysemy, when a word or indeed any sign or symbol has multiple meanings. Feast and festival came through Old French from the Latin word festus, which as an adjective means of holidays, festive, solemn, or merry, and as the noun festum means a holiday, festival, or feast. And from the same root, by the way, we also get words such as fair, festoon, and fiesta. Well, this Latin word can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root deis, whose meaning isn't entirely clear, but which leads to various religious words, including the Greek word theos, god, which gives us words such as theology, pantheon, and polytheism. The root may ultimately descend from Proto-Indo-European day to set or put. But the more common modern sense of feast, as a lavish and elaborate banquet, comes from the fact that at many religious festivals you might expect to eat and drink well. The funny thing is, though, the word banquet had kind of the opposite meaning originally. The word comes into English from French, where it was formed as a diminutive of the word banque, meaning bench, and had the earlier sense of a small snack that you would eat on a bench rather than a full meal sitting at a table. Our word bench, unsurprisingly, is related to this, as is the word bank, in reference to a moneylender's bench or table. All these bench-related words come from the other sense of the word bank, as in a riverbank, from the idea of a man-made earthwork for sitting on that resembled a riverbank, which, by the way, is another example of polysomy, bank and bank. All of these words can be traced further back through the Germanic branch to the Proto-Indo-European root beg, to break, because a bank of earth is a feature where the contour of the ground is broken. So the banquet moves from the bench to the table, becoming an elaborate meal, which could have multiple courses. And thus we have the word dessert, because dessert comes from French literally to unserve, because it involved the removal of what had been served earlier. This is why, by the way, dessert is spelled with two S's, since the prefix is from the Latin prefix dis, lack of, opposite of, or way, as opposed to desert, which is a combination of the prefix day, plus the unrelated stem serra to join. Now the stem of dessert comes ultimately from Latin serio, to serve be enslaved, from the noun serrus slave. And it's important to remember that although we get the words serve and servant from this Latin root, Romans didn't have servants, they had slaves. Now the further etymology of this Latin root is uncertain, with some scholars suggesting that it might be from an unknown Etruscan source, Etruscan being a long extinct and little understood language isolate in pre-Roman Italy. But it's also been suggested that it comes from the Proto-Indo-European root ser, meaning to protect, from the notion that a serrus was originally a guard or shepherd, but later developed the pejorative sense of slave. If true, then it would be related to Latin sero to keep preserve, which gives us words such as conserve and preserve, as well as English hero from Greek heros, protector. All this talk of desserts, of course, reminds us of the traditional Christmas pudding, and I should note that in some places, such as Britain, pudding is a general word for dessert. But if we want to move past traditional foods to actual ritual food as part of a feast, in the religious sense, perhaps the most obvious place to see this is in the ritual of the Eucharist, a rite practiced in some forms of Christianity in which the priest gives the churchgoers bread and wine as part of the church service. There's that serve root again. The Eucharist represents the body and blood of Christ as a reflection of the Last Supper of Christ with his disciples, before he was betrayed and eventually crucified. When he said, Do this in memory of me. And depending on which form of Christianity we're talking about, the bread and wine are thought to actually transform into flesh and blood through the process of transubstantiation, the point being that in some religious festivals and rites, food often plays an important role. Now, since I've been throwing around the words tradition, ritual, and rite, we should probably pause to consider those terms. The word tradition comes from Latin tredera, to give up, hand over, deliver, a compound of trans, across, to the farther side of, and dare, to give. So a tradition is something that is given over from one generation to the next. So many aspects of feasts and festivals, including specific foods, can be traditional, like the Christmas pudding. And what's more, rites and rituals are generally speaking traditional, passed down over generations. The word rite and ritual come from Latin ritus, religious observance, ceremony, which is traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root rei to reason or count, also the source of words such as reason and arithmetic, and is a variant of the root are to fit together, also the source of words such as harmony, art, and order. Rites and rituals can be tied to seasonal or cyclical events, like planting and harvesting, or the cycles of the sun and moon. They can be tied to contingent events, like marriage, birth, or death, or they may involve initiations or rites of passage. And specifically, we can talk about rites of feasting and festivals, which include things such as Christmas and other festivals that take place around mid-winter, like Winter Solstice and New Year celebrations. Now anthropologists look a lot at ritual, specifically in the context of religion and myth. Going back to that example of Jesus in the Rite of the Eucharist, we can see that the ritual is basically re-enacting a story from the Bible, in that case the death and rebirth of Jesus, what's called a dying god pattern found in many religions around the world in which a god dies and is reborn, often allowing for some kind of renewal. And many festivals involve some kind of re-enactment of a traditional story or myth. The early mythologist Sir James Fraser, in his landmark book The Golden Bough, saw this kind of ritual re-enactment of a dying god myth as representing fertility rites, though it should be noted that Fraser's theories have come under much criticism, mostly due to lack of evidence. Let's look at another example of a ritual that involves feasting, the potlatch, a kind of gift-giving feast practiced by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada and the US. The word potlatch comes from the Chinook jargon potlatch, to give or a gift, from the nutka word potchattel, to give, and depending on which First Nation you look at, the specific details differ. However, basically a potlatch could be tied to particular contingent events, like births or weddings, and would involve competitive gift-giving in order to enhance one's prestige, and could be a major element of the economic system. Interestingly, the word potlatch may be connected with the word potlach. Though potlach probably comes from a combination of the words pot and luck, and not the word potlatch itself, it's possible that potlatch influenced the modern sense of potluck, or conversely, the modern sense of the word potluck led to the colloquial use of the word potlatch with the same sense. You see, originally, potluck referred to an impromptu meal thrown together with whatever was available to feed an unexpected guest, so it was the luck of whatever was in the pot. But now we use the word potluck to refer to a communal meal in which the guests each bring a homemade element of the meal, which is referred to in Alaska as a potlatch. Now sometimes a Christmas party can involve potluck contributions from guests, and so for the purposes of our story today, we'll turn to the various midwinter festivals like Christmas and the role feasting plays in them. Midwinter festivals, at least in cultures of the Northern Hemisphere, are quite common. Christmas itself lies in the center of a whole season of festivals, some religious and some secular, that is sometimes referred to as Christmas Tide. In fact, the date of Christmas itself is a kind of uncertain thing, insofar as the celebration of the birth of Jesus is concerned. As we'll see, it probably has little to do with any historical date. There's nothing in the Bible that provides any direct evidence for any sort of date. Early guesses often placed it in the spring, probably for symbolic reasons as a time of birth. The 4th century Roman calligrapher, Furious Dionysius Philokalus, gives us the earliest mention of the date December 25th, alongside the date of various pre-Christian Roman festivities, so a long time after the events it refers to. All kinds of justifications for this were suggested over the years, such as the belief that the crucifixion took place on March 25th, and since Jesus must have been on earth a perfect number of years, because of course, working in nine months of pregnancy after conception on March 25th gives us December 25th, but the reality is that Pope Julius I just declared it so in the middle of the 4th century, and probably because there were a bunch of other festivals at that time of year in Rome. And why not piggyback on an already successful thing, am I right? This kind of blending of traditions is called syncretism, and we'll be seeing a number of examples of this. Now there are other feast days in Christmas Tide, for instance the Feast of Stephen which we mentioned before. Stephen was the very first Christian martyr, with his story being told in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. Basically he got on the bad side of Jewish authorities because of his blasphemous teachings, and was eventually stoned to death. So in Christian art, he is often depicted with three stones sitting on him. Interestingly for our purposes, Saint Stephen's Day has become associated with a distinctly un-Christian ritual, rendee or hunt the ren, in various Celtic parts of the British Isles. Basically it involves the ritualized hunting of the ren, later a fake ren on top of a pole, with mummers dressed in straw suits, referred to as straw boys or ren boys, celebrating and singing and collecting money. This is one example of a widespread midwinter tradition of ritualized begging, or otherwise earning hospitality at this time of year, which survives today in the form of Christmas carolers, and often also involve misrule in the form of disguises and the breaking of traditional societal norms. Mummers, by the way, are revelers who often perform little comic plays, often as street performances or going door to door. One typical plot involves a doctor who has a magic potion capable of reviving a vanquished character. Sir James Fraser, in one of his frequent leaps of imagination, saw this mummer's place story as a descendant of pre-Christian fertility rituals. Now, at this point, you may be asking, why a ren? Well, there's a Christian folktale that God, wanting to find out who was the king of the birds, set up a contest to see which bird could fly highest and furthest. It looked like the eagle was about to win, but when the eagle finally started to tire, the treacherous ren, who had been hiding under the eagle's wing somehow, suddenly soared off and won the honor. Now, why God would need to run a contest is not really explained, and this may just be a rationalization and another example of syncretism. Instead, the ritual, though only recorded from the late 17th century, might come from a pre-Christian source. The ren is the smallest bird native to Europe, and killing one was normally held as either wicked or unlucky, so having a day on which you are allowed to hunt rends is another example of misrule and reversal ritual, and we'll see more of these associated with the midwinter season. What's more, the ren was a symbol of the past year in Celtic mythology, since it would still sing in midwinter, and the old Irish name for the bird means druid bird, so rende may in fact descend from sawn or Celtic midwinter animal sacrifice rituals. By the way, Sir James Fraser similarly took this as an example of the sacrifice of an animal normally considered to be sacred at an annual festival. There's also a story told in the Isle of Man in which a beautiful fairy lures men to their drowning in a river, who, when challenged by the people, transforms into a ren and escapes, as well as stories about rends betraying Irish soldiers who are fighting against Viking invaders by tapping on their shields, and similarly betraying the martyr St Stephen we started with. But getting back to examples of syncretism, perhaps the most famous connection between Christmas and a pagan festival is with the Roman Festival of Saturnalia. There is no shortage of YouTube videos, podcasts, and blog posts about the relationship between Saturnalia and Christmas, so I won't repeat all that, but for our purposes in looking at the relationship between feasts, festivals, and food, there are a few things worth pointing out. So Saturnalia was celebrated on December 17th, and later ran through to the 23rd, thus spanning the winter solstice. It was preceded by the month-long Brumalia Winter Slash Harvest Festival, which takes its name from Latin Breuis, short in reference to the gradual shortening of days leading up to the solstice. Saturnalia was held in honor of the Roman agricultural god Saturn, and was heavily influenced by the Greek festival Cronia and the god Cronus, also a god of agriculture. Saturn was associated with the harvest, and was held to have been in charge during a golden age in which humans lived in a world of bounteous abundance and equality. And so, not only did Saturnalia feature much feasting, but also role reversal, in which masters waited on slaves, and slaves or other lower status people might be able to insult or order about their social betters. It should be remembered, though, that afterwards people went back to their normal roles, so this breaking of boundaries really served to define those boundaries. Other aspects of misrule were also a feature, including pranks and legal gambling, as was gift-giving of either gag gifts or gifts of candles, perhaps representing the solstice as a time of the longest night and the lengthening of the days henceforth. Because of an odd and yet in many ways appropriate phonological similarity, the Greek god Cronus, father of Zeus, became associated with Cronus, the personification of time. There is in fact a logical connection there because a god of agriculture would obviously be connected to the seasons, from which humans gain their perception of the passage of time. In any case, from this blending we get the figure of father time, often depicted at New Year with his agricultural implement the sickle or scythe. Another modern echo of Saturnalia may lie in the office Christmas party, which features a slackening of normal business place hierarchies and bosses, often serving out food to their employees. Not that I recommend you take the opportunity to tell your boss what you really think of them. In the period of the later Roman Empire, in what was perhaps an even stronger influence on the date of Christmas, was the celebration of the DA's Natalis Solis Invictis, or Day of Birth of the Unconquered Sun, celebrated on December 25th. In another example of syncretism, this worship of the Sun God was absorbed from the older Syrian cult of the Unconquered Sun during the 220s and made official under the Emperor Aurelian in 274. After Christianity was officially declared the state religion of the Roman Empire, there seems to have been a shift in celebrating the birthday of the Sun God to the birthday of the Sun of God, if you'll excuse the anachronistic pun which doesn't work at all in Latin. So, with all these winter festivals clustering around the winter solstice, let's have a look at the solstice itself. The solstice is of course a precisely measurable date, when the Sun is directly overhead at noon, so it's not surprising that many cultures have some sort of festival or ritual associated with it. The word solstice means literally sun standing still, from Latin soul, sun, and sistera, to stand still, a reduplicative form of starry to stand, because the Sun appears to rise and set in the same places for a few days around the solstice. The solstice, of course, also marks the longest night of the year with the days getting progressively longer afterwards, so many traditions celebrate it as the return of the Sun by lighting candles or bonfires, and remember the gift of candles in Saturnalia. Many stone monuments in the British Isles, such as Stonehenge in England and Newgrange in Ireland, are aligned so that the rising Sun at the winter solstice appears through a particular aperture, and the game Snapdragon played at least since the 17th century in which a tray or shallow bowl of warm brandy with raisins in it is set alight, and the participants are to snatch raisins out of the flames and eat them, is often played around the solstice or Christmas. Furthermore, given that the solstice marks the winter season, when times are cold and harsh and food is about to become scarce, having a big feast makes a lot of sense. The winter season follows the harvest, and it is a time of animal slaughter when you would kill excess animals so you didn't have to feed them all through the winter. Now, some of that food would be preserved, but it makes sense to have a bunch of it right away while it's still fresh, and you might want to make sacrifices to the gods to make sure the food supplied is good in the year to come when it's growing and breeding season again, and in particularly cold regions you might decorate with a few plants that remain green in the winter, like conifers, holly, and mistletoe, as a symbol of life and rebirth. And we've already seen those myths and rituals associated with gods who die and are reborn, particularly relevant at the time of the rebirth of the year. Another example of just such a midwinter festival which has influenced our modern Christmas traditions is the Germanic festival called Yule, a name now used to refer to Christmas itself, and if you want to see more specifics about Yule, you can have a look at our Christmas video from a few years ago. I won't repeat all of that here, but there are a few elements I want to draw attention to. Yule, or Yule in Old English, seems to have encompassed the entire period, with Yule Monath being equivalent to both December and January. It seems to have involved the slaughtering of livestock, probably including sacrifices, which may survive in the tradition of the Christmas ham, as well as the beer produced from the grain harvest. The month before Yule was Bloat Monath, Sacrifice Month, or Bloat Monath, Blood Month, corresponding to November, and suggesting animal sacrifice in the midwinter season. The word bloat, meaning sacrifice, in both Old English and Old Norse, is related to the word blood, as well as the word bless, coming ultimately from a proto-Indo-European root bell to blow or swell. In Norse tradition, there were a number of bloats associated with this time of year. There was the desa bloat in honor of the desir, possibly originally fertility goddesses, but later becoming more generalized, along with the Valkyrie, which is a more public festival held at the beginning of the winter season, known as winter nights, along with alfabloat, or elven sacrifice, which was a more private ritual held in the home excluding strangers. Later on in the winter season, there was Thorabloat, held at midwinter, which seems to have originally been a sacrifice to Thor, but later was reinterpreted as involving Thorie, a personification of frost. This tradition was revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in Iceland, as a celebration of traditional Icelandic cuisine, referred to as Thoramatur, consisting of various cured meats and fish, served with dense dark rye bread, including press-rams testicles and seal flippers cured in lactic acid and fermented shark, all consumed with copious amounts of brenevin, a kind of Icelandic aquavit, such as the strong associations with traditional foods in these kinds of ritual festivities. In Anglo-Saxon England on December 24th was Modranicht, or Mother's Night. We don't know much about this festival, aside from a brief reference from the undoubtedly biased Christian monk Bede, but it has been speculated that it might be connected with the Scandinavian Deesir, or Germanic slash Celtic Matres and Matronae, or Mothers and Matrons, that were venerated in northwestern Europe, with votives and altars depicting the three deities in the first to fifth centuries. For a different take on a midwinter festival, the Inuit tradition of Kuviasugvik has a different kind of tie to seasonal food production, marking the beginning of the hunting season. Kuviasugvik, meaning literally time of happiness, from Kuviasuk to be happy, occurs around late fall, early winter, or at the winter solstice, and though traditions differ, it frequently involves shamans known as Anga-kuit, entering a hut in the evening and offering prayers for the community and to propitiate the spirits of the dead and the goddess of the sea, Sedna. Again, there are different versions of the story with different motivations, but one way or another, Sedna is cast overboard into the water by her father, who then chops off her fingers so she lets go of the kayak which she's clinging to, and the fingers become seals and other marine animals that the Inuit hunt, and Sedna becomes the goddess of the sea and marine animals. Because Sedna is a vengeful figure, she must be placated in order to have a good hunting season. On the following day after the prayers, the whole community would participate in various rituals, including a tug of war with a seal skin rope, with two teams designated as the Ducks and Termigans, and if the Ducks win, the weather will be fine through the winter, but if the Ducks lose, it means a long and difficult winter. There is also a ritual in which everyone sits in a circle around a container of water, with each eating their meat at the same time while wishing for good tidings from Sedna, and then each in turn from the oldest to the youngest, scooping a drink of water from the middle and stating the time and place of their birth. Today, in the Inupiaq language, Kuviasuvik is now used to mean holiday, and in Arctic Quebec and Labrador, Kuviasuvik refers to Christmas, no doubt reflecting the suppression of indigenous cultures by the Canadian colonial government. In another example of a differing climate and food production season, the ancient Greeks held a festival in honour of the gods Poseidon, Demeter and Dionysus at the Winter Solstice. The winter setting is a while after the grain harvest, which would have been more appropriate for Demeter, goddess of agriculture, but timely for the grape harvest, as Dionysus was associated with wine. Again, the specifics differed from city to city, as do the names of the festivals. At Eleusis, the festival was called Halloeia from the Greek word Hallos, meaning threshing floor, where the edible part of the grain is separated from the chaff, an appropriate location for Demeter, with the men and women separated on the first night. The women celebrated inside with copious wine and food, and especially with cakes in the shape of genitalia, both male and female. They would hold up either these cakes or other symbols of genitalia, engage in lewd banter, and the priestesses would tease them by whispering in their ears about promiscuity. The men outside would light bonfires, that common element of light in the darkness of the Winter Solstice. In another version of the festival, called Palloria, a great feast was held with tables heaped with food at which strangers were welcomed, prisoners were freed, and slaves were served by their masters, much like the Roman Saturnalia. These are the basic common elements of all of the versions of this festival, excessive feasting, reversal of social norms, and especially scurrilous conduct with the men and women separated at first, and then coming together the next day to engage in lewd banter with one another. And the symbolism of Poseidon, one of the most lustful gods, who reigned over not only the ocean but also inland streams, suggested male potency, watering the fertile fields associated with Demeter, thus ensuring successful crops in the New Year. And speaking of the New Year, it is thus not surprising that the turning of the year is often, though admittedly not always, around the time of the Winter Solstice, with the year being divided into appropriate seasons. The word season is actually directly connected to agriculture. Season comes through old French from the Latin word serra to sow or plant, which is not at all related to the verb serra to join that we saw lying behind the word desert. So there's another example of polysomy for you. It ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European root say to sow, which also gives us the word seed through the Germanic branch. So a season was originally a time for sowing seeds, and later brought into refer to other important times in the agricultural year. Winter is a Germanic word. Its deeper etymology is not entirely certain, but it might come from the Proto-Indo-European root wade to sea, which came into the Celtic languages with the sense white, in which case winter is the white season. But more likely it comes from the root wed, meaning water or wet, which also gives us the words water and wet, in which case winter is the wet season. Depending on the climate where you live, you may have differing opinions about this etymology, but this word is not the usual Proto-Indo-European word for this season. Proto-Indo-European gay means winter and produces Latin hyem, meaning winter, as well as the verb hiberno, to pass the winter, from which English gets the words hibernate and hibernation, which may have first been used to refer specifically to the winter dormancy period of animals by Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of evolutionist Charles. That same Proto-Indo-European root lies behind the name Himalaya, along with the root sleigh, sticky, so literally the place where snow sticks or stays. And through Greek heima, winter weather, cold or frost, gives us the mythical animal chimera, meaning literally year old she goat, from the notion of counting gears in winters. But I don't think you'll see Santa's sleigh being pulled by chimeras. Now of course there are two solstices in the year, the winter and the summer, and it's been argued that Old English and other Germanic languages may have originally had a two-season system, with Old English winter and sumor. The word summer and Old English sumor come therefore from a common Germanic root which is traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root Sam, summer, with a variety of descendants in other Indo-European languages, meaning either summer or sometimes season or year. It comes into Irish as Sam, meaning sun or summer, and may lie behind Salon, meaning something like summer's end, the Irish harvest festival that may have influenced Halloween, unless it comes from a different root Sam, meaning together. Certainly as we have the seasons now, there is division into four. Between winter and summer is spring, whose etymology is exactly what it sounds like, the springing of the year when the plants begin to rise from the ground, and by the way you can compare this with the spring of water from the ground. This word is traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root Spargue to move hasten or spring, and though the verb springon is found in Old English, spring as a name for the season didn't occur until around 1400. Before that, the season was referred to with the Old English word Lankton, later shortened to Lent, a word that was later adopted to refer to the 40 days of abstemiousness leading up to Easter in the Christian calendar, in which, among other things, Christians are supposed to abstain from particularly lavish foods. The word originally had nothing to do with Christianity, though, and was just a seasonal word coming from the Germanic elements langas, long, from which we get the word long, and tina, day. Ultimately, from the Proto-Indo-European root geu, shine, which also led to the Latin word dies, day, thus giving us the English words diary and diurnal, but surprisingly unrelated to the English word day, which comes instead from the Proto-Indo-European root ag, meaning day. So the idea of the season Lent is that the days are growing longer, leading up to the summer solstice. Now before the Christian period of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, is Fat Tuesday, also known by its French equivalent, Mardi Gras, or simply Carnival. The word carnival probably literally means flesh-raising, or in other words, the removal of meat, because during Lent, meat is one of those lavish foods often given up. So Fat Tuesday slash Mardi Gras, or Carnival, is the last chance to enjoy meat, think carnivore, and fatty foods for a while, and also features a number of other excesses and reversal rituals in which you conflate the normal boundaries of society. There was a medieval folk etymology that Carnival meant flesh farewell from Latin wale goodbye, but in fact the etymons are caro, flesh, originally a piece of flesh, and lavare to lighten, raise, or remove. That first element caro is kind of interesting, as it goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root scare, meaning to cut, hence that meaning of a piece of flesh. This root also gives us the word share, from the notion of cutting something up into portions, which is something you might do with your food. This root may also lead back to another root, carp, to gather, pluck, or harvest, which led to the Latin word carpura, pick, or pluck. This Latin word is perhaps most famous from the phrase carpe diem, usually translated as seize the day, but the metaphor at work here is really a harvesting metaphor, like harvest your crops when they're ripe before they go bad. When prefixed with Latin x out of, carpura eventually gives us the word scarce, which develops from the sense of being plucked out and therefore rare, and meat and other foods might well be scarce after the harvest season and into the lean winter months. Another word we get from Proto-Indo-European carp through the Germanic branch is harvest. An Old English harvest was the original English term for the season between summer and winter. By the 14th century, harvest in this sense began to be replaced by autumn, which came into English through Old French from Latin autumnus, meaning autumn. Earlier etymology than that is uncertain, with most dismissing it as coming from another one of those unknown Etruscan sources. Though one Latin etymologist posits that it might mean drying up season and giving the root as awk, or perhaps souse dry, a root which not only gives us the words seer and seer through the Germanic branch, but also austere through Latin and Greek. The Romans themselves connected the word to the verb augera to increase, and though it may not come from that source, it may have been influenced by it. Whatever the case, we also have the word fall from the idea of leaves falling from the trees, and though some Brits dismiss this as an Americanism, fall first appeared in British English in the 1660s, a shortening of the expression fall of the leaf from the 1540s, and was preserved in American English, though later dropped in British English. And those are the seasons of the year. As for the word year itself, it comes from a Proto-Indo-European time word year, year or season, but also comes into English through Greek horror season time of day, giving us the word hour. This root may be traceable further back to the root a, meaning to go, from the notion of time proceeding, in which case it would appropriately be cognate with the word January, the first month of the year, except it wasn't always. In the original 10-month Roman calendar, the year began with March, the month of the god of war, Mars, according to the Romans, which is why December literally means the 10th month, even though we now count it as the 12th. The name just stuck. In the old Roman calendar, December was followed by a bunch of days that didn't belong to any month, before the next month of March started again. But later on, those extra days were organized into the months of January and February. January comes from the word Janus, archway, and the name Janus, or Janus as he's now called, god of doorways and of the beginning of the year, who is usually depicted with two faces pointing in opposite directions, thus looking forwards and backwards, and symbolizing both beginnings and endings. By the way, we also get the word janitor from this word, as Latin janitor meant doorkeeper, as the word janitor in English originally did, before broadening in meaning to caretaker of a building in the 18th century. In the feast called Calendi, sacred to Janus, which ran from January 1st to 3rd, the Romans engaged in feasting and merry making, as well as the exchange of gifts thought to bring good luck in the coming year, gifts of figs, honey, pastry, and coins. Today, the most common New Year tradition is fireworks, as well as other types of noisemakers, and I should note at this point that the word bang comes into English from Old Norse Banga to pound or hammer, perhaps reminding us of Thor's famous hammer, ultimately from the proto-Indo-European root beg to break, which we saw before as lying behind the word banquet. And speaking of noisemakers, they also make an appearance at Christmas, in the form of Christmas crackers, traditional accompaniments to Christmas dinner. These were originally called bonbons, invented, so the story goes, by one Tom Smith of London, a sweets manufacturer, and you can see the similarity in the appearance of Christmas crackers and candy wrappers. When his sweets started to become less popular, he began to include other things, like love messages and trinkets, and got the idea of adding the crack when he noticed a log he had thrown on the fire crackling. These then started to be marketed as Kosak, in reference to the Russian soldiers known as Kosaks, because of the sound of their cracking whips or gunfire. The paper hats that we now find in Christmas crackers are said to be a holdover of an old Saturnalian tradition. Of course, the celebration of New Year hasn't always been popular or encouraged. Medieval Christians downplayed it as being kind of pagan, with, for instance, the Anglo-Saxon Archbishop Wolfstand of York condemning the nonsense which is performed on New Year's Day in various kinds of sorcery. In Scotland of the 17th century, radical Protestants stamped out all the merry-making associated with Christmas as being too papist, which then became part of their secular New Year tradition called Hogmenei. The Dower Scottish Protestants then condemned Hogmenei, but the tradition continued. The origin of the word Hogmenei is much debated, but what is clear is that it certainly doesn't come from a Celtic root. Most likely it comes from old French a guionneuf, a contraction of a culli la neuf, welcomed the New Year. The most famous rituals of Hogmenei include first footing in which a tall, dark man carrying coal must be the first to cross the threshold in the New Year in order to bring good luck. Also, the tradition of singing Robert Burns' old lang syne at the stroke of midnight has become a general New Year tradition, not just for Hogmenei. The oft-misunderstood Scots title of the song can be translated literally into English as old long syne, or in other words old times or days gone by. The word syne, cognate with syne, comes from old English sydan, afterwards, hereafter, from the Proto-Indo-European root say meaning long or late, which may be related to the other Proto-Indo-European root say meaning to sow, which as we've seen gives us the word season. Now getting back to the concept we started with, polysomy, the word season has another sense more directly related to food, seasoning as in ingredients you add to food to add flavor, such as salt, spices, and herbs. So how do we get from seasons of the year to seasoning in our food? Well it comes from the idea of ripening food such as fruit to make it more palatable, so seasoning food by adding flavors to it is akin to seasoning food by ripening it. And that brings us back to where we started with food and feasting. The tradition of having a Christmas ham may go back to the Germanic yule boar or sonar delta in old Norse, meaning sacrificial boar, which was sacrificed in the sonar bloat. There's that sacrifice word again, part of the yule feast. There was a ritual involved called the heat stringing in which oes were taken, often after considerable feasting and drinking, with hands laid on the bristles of the boar. The boar was associated with the Norse fertility god Freyr, and it was customary to sacrifice a boar as part of the pagan yule celebration to ensure fertility in the coming year. This is reflected in the song the boar's head carol, and as we've already seen, slaughtering most of your livestock before winter makes good sense. Since then you don't have to feed them all when food is scarce, and a new set of animals will be born in the spring. The other traditional meat served at Christmas is the roast goose, which may be tied to the English harvest festival of St. Martin's Day, or Martin mass, which falls on November 11th, and which picked up its elements of feasting and harvest celebration in addition to its religious elements after the fact because of its timing. It's connected with eating goose, though, because of a story about its eponymous saint, Martin of Tours, who upon hearing that he was to be made bishop and not wanting the job, tried to hide in a goose pen until the cackling of the geese gave him away. This feasting day, interestingly, has further connections to carnival, as Martin mass is often seen as a mini carnival, coming before the abstemious period of advent, itself seen as a mini version of Lent leading up to Christmas. Now whether you're feasting on goose or ham, celebrating the festivals of mid-winter or Christmas tide, seasoning your banquet for the festivities of the solstice, or in any way marking the turning of the seasons, I hope this video has brought some light to the darkness. More videos. I'm at alliterative on Twitter, and you can visit our website alliterative.net for more language connections in our podcast, blog, and more. Happy holidays and seasons greetings.


I would like to begin by thanking President Xi and the city of Hangzhou for hosting the G20 summit. We were truly made to feel welcome here. Nous venons de terminer une série de rencontres très productives, où nous nous sommes concentrés encore une fois sur comment nous pouvons mieux travailler ensemble pour faire croître l'économie mondiale. Mon message aux autres dirigeants était clair. My messages to the other leaders were straightforward. First, that we need to continue to pursue more open trade because we know that through trade we can expand opportunities and help create more well-paying jobs. That's good news for the middle class and those working hard to join it. Second, that we need to make sure that growth that is achieved is growth for the middle class and those working hard to join it. It's not good enough to have the benefits felt by the wealthiest 1 percent. They need to be felt by everyone. Third, that our common growth must be clean. I encouraged the other leaders to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adopt clean technologies to allow everyone to make progress on the Paris Agreement before our next meeting. Finally, I want to point out that these conversations didn't happen in a vacuum. It's clear that around the world there is a desire for change coupled with a real sense of uncertainty. That uncertainty, that fear, is driving some people towards a more isolated and insulated worldview. I reminded my colleagues that Canada's success is rooted in our willingness to engage with the world, and I encourage them to do the same.


Can you talk us through the feeling out there of not being off the test yourself in a club world cup? Yeah, look, I think that's the most disappointing tonight. It's conditions that you just cannot play football. It's closer to water polo out there than a football game. I reckon we had their measure as a football team. It's just disappointing that there's no way that you can go out there and play a respectable game. A lot of things went against us tonight. A lot of things that were out of our control. And we kind of, the team put a really good effort in and we should be looking forward with smiles on our faces but there's a bit of disappointment and we just move on to the next game and take something out of it. At 1-0 up, a top draw save to keep the ball out of the net. Talk us through that and talk us through, I guess, how much action you had to actually put in in this shoot? Yeah, look, that was probably the most critical thing that I had to do in the game. He had one in the first half that he hit straight across in the edge of the box and I felt he was going to do that rather than try and get it over the wall and I positioned myself a little bit more to the left and pulled off a good save, a very good save that definitely kept us in at that stage and gave us a lot of belief that with 10 men we can go on and do it but decisions cost us in that game and just, yeah, unfortunately we've got a penalty call against us with a couple of minutes to go. I think the boys did well. I think besides that free kick that I had to save, they only really had a couple of half chances that really threatened us and if it wasn't one of the boys that was snuffing it out as myself and, yeah, look, in the end, I think even with 10 men, I think we would have held on with nine in these conditions. It just made it extremely difficult and, yeah, disappointed but we know that sometimes these type of games are taken out of your hands. Looking forward to the next match, we play the Algerian team, the African champions, tonight they were beaten by Auckland City, so we've gone to a 56 play up against them in Marrakech, looking forward to the match. Yeah, of course we are, look, you know, we've got a right to feel disappointed tonight but, you know, we have got another game coming up and we don't want to leave here, you know, with two losses, we want to hold our heads up high and, you know, it's unfortunate we've got two key players missing in the centre of defence, but we'll make amends for that and, you know, hopefully we leave, you know, Marrakech with our heads held high with this second game because I don't think any of the boys can go home today and feel that they let us down. They didn't put in a really good effort, you know, this game was, like I said, it was out of control in my belief.