Beans and More Beans

Beans and More Beans Beans and More Beans Beans and More Beans By Maeve Maddox Considering the flurry of comments triggered by my inclusion of a bean idiom in a recent post, I decided to give the humble bean a post of its own. The noun bean is Germanic in origin. August Fick (1833-1916) German comparative linguist, suggested that bean was cognate with faba, the Latin word for bean, but according to the OED, â€Å"phonetic considerations render this doubtful.† Originally, the word bean referred only to the broad bean (Faba vulgaris), but now it refers to any seed that resembles it. Human beings and beans have had a long relationship; Egyptians buried them with their dead, and Homer mentioned them in the Iliad. On the ancient Roman feast called the Lemuria (or Lumuralia), the pater familias (father of the family) got out of bed at midnight to walk around the house barefoot, throwing black beans over his shoulder. The rite was intended to exorcise any malevolent spirits that had accumulated in the household during the previous year. Pythagoras instructed his followers â€Å"not to love beans,† but he may have been warning them against meddling in politics, not forbidding them to eat beans; beans were used as markers in political elections. Artistotle equated the bean with venery (pursuit of sexual pleasure); to him, â€Å"abstaining from beans† meant â€Å"keeping the body chaste.† As common objects of daily life, beans found their way into literary and proverbial use. â€Å"Not worth a bean† came to mean worthless. Chaucer (1343-1400) uses the expression in â€Å"The Merchant’s Tale.† The hero of the tale is a knight who, after 60 years of bachelorhood, finally decides to marry: â€Å"For no other way of life,† he said, â€Å"is worth a bean.† A person who â€Å"does not have a bean† is poor indeed, although the bean in this expression may originate elsewhere than with the legume. A slang term for a sovereign or a guinea was bean. â€Å"Not to have a bean† meant â€Å"not to have a cent.† â€Å"Not to know beans about something† is to know nothing about it: Charles Faddis Does not Know Beans About Nuclear Energy â€Å"To spill the beans† is â€Å"to reveal a secret†: Drunk Whistleblower Spilled The Beans On Chemtrail Front Company For CIA The business world has a couple of bean expressions all its own. A â€Å"bean counter† is a contemptuous term applied to an accountant or other financial expert by people who feel that creativity is more valuable than mere record-keeping. A beanfeast or beanfest is an annual dinner given by an employer to his employees. The word bean is slang for head: â€Å"Im a bit short on brain myself; the old bean would appear to have been constructed more for ornament than for use, dont you know†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬â€œP. G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves Wodehouse and other British writers used â€Å"Old Bean† as a friendly term of address: â€Å"You don’t mind my asking, do you old bean?† â€Å"Use your bean† means â€Å"think!† The little cap called a beanie gets its name from this meaning of bean, as does the baseball term bean ball, â€Å"a ball thrown at a batter’s head.† This application of bean has also given us a verb bean, â€Å"to hit someone on the head.† A beanery is a cheap restaurant, presumably because the meals are heavy on beans. The American city of Bostonfamous for its baked beansis often referred to as â€Å"Bean Town.† The expression that inspired this post is â€Å"full of beans,† meaning â€Å"full of energy and high spirits†: [In winter I try] to rise and shine, full of beans, every day.   [Reba] seems fresh, fit and full of beans, projecting herself the way I’m told she always does When I defined â€Å"full of beans† as â€Å"full of energy and high spirits,† several readers informed me of another meaning: â€Å"full of baloney† (or what bologna becomes once it is digested.) â€Å"Full of beans† in the sense of â€Å"energetic† probably originated as stable slang. Bean-fed horses were observed to be in good condition and lively, as in these examples from the OED: 1870  Ã‚   Daily News 27 July 5  Ã‚   The horses [] looked fresh and beany. 1843  R. S. Surtees Handley Cross II. vii. 199  Ã‚   [Hounds, horses], and men, are in a glorious state of excitement! Full o beans and benevolence! Another 19th century use of â€Å"full of beans† noted as stable slang was applied to a person â€Å"whom sudden prosperity had made offensive and conceited.† I suppose that such a stuck-up person could be seen as â€Å"full of beans† in the sense of being â€Å"full of it.† Apparently both meanings are current, so don’t be surprised if you get a puzzled look if your meaning doesn’t match that of your listener. I’ll end with what is probably the best-known bean quotation in popular culture, Rick’s farewell to Ilsa in the movie Casablanca: Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Creative Writing 1017 Patterns of Sentence StructureHyphenation in Compound Nouns

Water Gas Definition and Uses

Water Gas Definition and Uses Water gas is a combustion fuel containing carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen gas (H2). Water gas is made by passing steam over heated hydrocarbons. The reaction between steam and hydrocarbons produces synthesis gas. The water-gas shift reaction can be used to reduce carbon dioxide levels and enrich hydrogen content, making water gas. The water-gas shift reaction is: CO H2O → CO2Â   H2 History The water-gas shift reaction was first described in 1780 by Italian physicist Felice Fontana. In 1828, water gas was produced in England by blowing steam across white-hot coke. In 1873, Thaddeus S.C. Lowe patented a process that used the water-gas shift reaction to enrich the gas with hydrogen. In Lowes process, pressurized steam was shot over hot coal, with heat maintained using chimneys. The resulting gas was cooled and scrubbed before use. Lowes process led to the rise of the gas manufacturing industry and the development of similar processes for other gases, such as the Haber-Bosch process to synthesize ammonia. As ammonia became available, the refrigeration industry rose. Lowe held patents for ice machines and devices that ran on hydrogen gas. Production The principle of water gas production is straightforward. Steam is forced over red-hot or white-hot carbon-based fuel, producing the following reaction: H2O C → H2Â   CO (ΔH 131Â  kJ/mol) This reaction is endothermic (absorbs heat), so heat must be added to sustain it. There are two ways this is done. One is to alternate between steam and air to cause combustion of some carbon (an exothermic process): O2Â   C → CO2Â  (ΔH −393.5Â  kJ/mol) The other method is to use oxygen gas rather than air, which yields carbon monoxide rather than carbon dioxide: O2Â   2 C → 2 CO (ΔH −221Â  kJ/mol) Different Forms of Water Gas There are different types of water gas. The composition of the resulting gas depends on the process used to make it: Water gas shift reaction gas: This is the name given to water gas made using the water-gas shift reaction to obtain pure hydrogen (or at least enriched hydrogen). The carbon monoxide from the initial reaction is reacted with water to remove carbon dioxide, leaving only the hydrogen gas.Semi-water gas: Semi-water gas is a mixture of water gas and producer gas. Producer gas is the name of fuel gas derived from coal or coke, as opposed to natural gas. Semi-water gas is made by collecting the gas produced when steam is alternated with air to burn coke to maintain a high enough temperature to sustain the water gas reaction.Carburetted water gas: Carburetted water gas is produced to enhance the energy value of water gas, which is ordinarily lower than that of coal gas. Water gas is carburetted by passing it through a heated retort which has been sprayed with oil. Uses of Water Gas Water gas used in the synthesis of some industrial processes: To remove carbon dioxide from fuel cells.Reacted with producer gas to make fuel gas.It is used in the Fischer-Tropsch process.It is used to obtain pure hydrogen to synthesize ammonia.