Vanadium, Vanadis, Freyja, Sefstrombreen, vaccine, vade mecum

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V:  this is the start of the v's, another interesting and eclectic collection of words.  

24 pages

     V (vanadium)

     vaccine

     vade mecum

     valediction

     valedictorian

     Valhalla

     Valkyrie

     vanilla  (vagina) 

     vapidity

     vapid

     vastitude

     venetian blinds

     Vedas

     Vedic

     verboten

     verdant

     verdigris

     vespertine

     Vespers

     vexillology

     vexillologist

     vial

Other miscellaneous “v” words:

   

     vallecula

     vandal 

     variorum

     Varuna

     vatic

     vaudeville

     vellum

     velveteen

     verisimilitude

     vermeil

     vernacular

     vernissage

     veronica

     versicolor

     Vesta, vestal virgin

     vestry

     vesuvian, Vesuvius

     viaticum

     vicar

     vice, viceroy

     vicissitude, vicissitudinous

     victual

     videlicet

     viduity

     vigorish

     villanelle

     villosity

     vinblastine (Madagascar periwinkle)

     vinegar

     vintage

     vintner  (somalier)

     virago

     virga

     virgule

     virtu

     vis-a-vis

     Visigoth

     vitamin K

     viticulture

     vituperative

     vivific

     viviparous

     vixen

     vodka

     volar

     votive

     voussoir

     Vulcan

     

Favorite “v” word: vespertine  

   

V:  the symbol for Vanadium

vanadium: [Old Norse Vanadis  or Freyja, the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility]

     This soft metallic element  is often used in high speed drills made of steel alloys.  It was part of the chassis in the original Model T cars, for example.  

     Yet another interesting Norse etymology: because the various salts and alloys of vanadium turned beautiful colors, it was named in 1830 by the Swedish chemist Nils Sefstrom after the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility "Vanadis," also known as "Freyja."   Also, Nils Sefstrom has a glacier named after him which seems to be a unique honor: Sefströmbreen. 

vaccine: [vacca, cow]  

    Jenner, the inventor of "vaccines", did his first vaccines on milkmaids who contracted cowpox from cows and thus were immune to small pox.  

     Jenner noticed that milkmaids (girls who milked cows) were immune to the scourge of small pox.  These milkmaids had been exposed to "cowpox," a milder form of this blistering illness, and seemed to have had built up an immunity to small pox.  Why not expose other people to this mild form of cowpox so that they too wouldn't come down with the small pox? 

     Jenner took some of the fluid from a milkmaid's infection and inoculated it into an eight year old boy, James Phipps.   He then audaciously exposed the boy to small pox… and the boy turned out to then be immune to small pox.   Jenner was not the first person to notice this connection; five others in the preceding twenty years had also noticed this but had not investigated it.

    Who was James Phipps? He was the son of Jenner's gardener.

    The name of the cow that was involved was Blossom.

vade mecum [Latin, go with me]  \vah' day mee' cum\  a book for ready reference; something regularly carried around. 

     I guess I have had many vade mecum's …Don Quixote, Walden, James Herriott’s books and seemingly hundreds of other books that were (and still are) 'indispensable.'  My vade mecum as my children were growing up was a battered portable encyclopedia that I carried around when we were in the car and going on vacations.  They still remember that at bedtime I would pull out their notebook and ask them questions from our prior bedtime conversations.  Even to this day, 34 years later, they know the answers to such questions as: the harpooner in Moby Dick?  (Queequeg); how many chapters in Moby Dick? (135); who was the captain's sidekick in Moby Dick ? (Starbuck)