Unconnected snippets

• My wife sent a copy of one of the baby pictures to a friend in America; the response was that the baby is 'adorable'. Not knowing what this word meant (in English), my wife asked me and I explained, using the Hebrew word 'hadar' הדר. It then occurred to me that maybe the English word is derived from the Hebrew - children often replace an 'h' at the beginning of a word with an 'a' - so the root could easily have been corrupted, from 'hdr' to 'adr'. If 'adorable' were a Hebrew word, then its root would indeed be 'adr'. But the online etymology dictionary tells a different tale: late 14c., aouren, "to worship, pay divine honors to, bow down before," from Old French aorer "to adore, worship, praise" (10c.), from Latin adorare "speak to formally, beseech, ask in prayer," in Late Latin "to worship," from ad- "to" (see ad-) + orare "speak formally, pray" (see orator). Meaning "to honor very highly" is attested from 1590s; weakened sense of "to be very fond of" emerged by 1880s. Related: Adored; adoring. The Latin root seems correct. I will try my theory out on a Hebrew linguist.

• 
  While in Italy, I may have hinted obliquely at trying to find a pair of slip-on shoes that I like. I did buy a pair (for 40 euro) but soon came to realise that they had very thin soles; walking with them was not as pleasant as I would like. One day during the Passover holiday, we were in the local mall, shopping for bits and pieces; I went into the Crocs shop and found a model which I very much like - Walu Accent. These cost about 75 euro but they have thick soles (which also massage the feet) and are definitely a good purchase.

• There's nothing like 100% hindsight. I now discover that there is a Crocs shop in Sorrento: Vitulli, at Corso Italia 173. Checking this on a map, this is quite some way out of Sorrento which is why I never saw this shop. I might have passed it one morning when I took a long walk in the direction of the neighbouring village, S. Agnello.

• Another reason for that shopping trip was that the day beforehand, I had lost a USB stick. There was nothing important on it, but I used it for transferring files between computers and for showing pictures on our television. So I bought a new one - 16 GB for the equivalent of about $6.5. I have since obtained an HDMI cable which I will leave plugged in permanently to the television; I will then display pictures from my new mobile computer. I have yet to try this out but have no reason to assume that it will not be successful.