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Failed to connect to MySQL: (1203) User howardkn already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connectionsPath: ...!feeds.phibee-telecom.net!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Ross Clark Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: The Great Exhibition opened, London (1-5-1851) Date: Thu, 2 May 2024 09:36:21 +1200 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 35 Message-ID: Reply-To: r.clark@auckland.ac.nz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Wed, 01 May 2024 23:36:26 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="7b159e232b0e1ddb12534425e39c5b8b"; logging-data="3571370"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19zbGcDWOOhWzqNi+CNZJfni7gKYFTLwFw=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.9.1 Cancel-Lock: sha1:3btO5/Uays+L63qKIRfdu27i+s0= X-Mozilla-News-Host: news://news.eternal-september.org:119 Content-Language: en-GB Bytes: 2788 "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations" -- the first of the great World's Fairs of the 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Exhibition The Crystal Palace, the vast central building of the Exhibition, had a complex after-life. It was rebuilt (rather differently) in a different location, and survived as a kind of Events Centre until destroyed by fire in 1936. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace Meanwhile, Crystal (no relation) is most interested in the _Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue_ of the Exhibition, a massive 1400-page inventory of the modern world's productions. "Dozens of new formations are listed....The Catalogue sometimes provides the first recorded use of an item..." (a reference to OED). His first-use examples are: sulphurator "An apparatus for sprinkling plants with flowers of sulfur, fumigating with sulfur, or the like." Tahiti cane "The sugar cane, Saccharum officinarum." More interestingly, one of the new industrial wonders of the Exhibition was--- pay toilets! Designed by George Jennings, and apparently referred to colloquially as "monkey closets", they cost one penny to use. Whence the expression "spend a penny", which survived longer than the Crystal Palace. Oh yes, it was also May Day, with all that that entails. Since Tennyson is in the air (at least on a.u.e.) let's recall: You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow ’ll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year,— Of all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I ’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I ’m to be Queen o’ the May.