Finally home after several days of meetings and overnights in Austin. Several days ago, Jody reported a stray dog absconded with a chicken...not sure how many and if there was more than one dog. When I went to put the girls to bed this evening, I took a count and we are down three chickens. That is what happens out here on the edge of nowhere. Otherwise, life is good. The sun came out today for the first time in almost two weeks. I was really interesting to have to deal with the glare of the sunshine on various objects, but I quickly got used to it. Happily so, too.Balletomane -- Noun: a devotee of ballet. (DUH!) "Balletomanes can look forward to the Royal Ballet's production of George Balanchine's opulent 'Jewels.'" Carrie Seidman, Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida), May 14, 2017
Did You Know? If you suspected that balletomane originated with the idea of a mania for ballet, you are correct. What you may not have guessed is that the language that inspired English speakers to borrow the word in the 1930s was Russian. Balletomane derives from the Russian noun baletoman, which in turn combines the word for "ballet" (balet) and the suffix -man, from maniya ("mania"). The English words mania and ballet did not, however, come from Russian. Mania comes from Greek, by way of Latin, and ballet comes via French from the Italian balletto. Balletomane is therefore somewhat unusual, both for its Russian origins and for the fact that it does not follow the more traditional -phile model for words meaning "someone who likes a specified thing."
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