the.com/cultured
both the symphony-goer and the yogurt — civilization is just bacteria with better taste
means Refined by education, art, and good manners — or, in the lab and kitchen, deliberately grown in a controlled medium (bacteria, cells, pearls, yogurt).
from From Latin 'cultura,' meaning a tending or cultivation, from 'colere,' to till, tend, or care for — the same root that gives us 'agriculture' and 'colony.' At first it was strictly about working the soil; over centuries the metaphor crept indoors, and by the time English borrowed it, you could 'cultivate' not just a field but a mind. The sense of being a refined, well-tended person blossomed alongside the sense of cultivating microbes in a dish — both, fittingly, are things carefully grown rather than born.
- shared root
- from Latin cultura, to tend and grow
- lab origin
- cell cultures grow life in glass dishes
- diamond twist
- cultured diamonds form in weeks, not eons
- pearl trick
- cultured pearls start with deliberate irritation
- double duty
- describes operas and sourdough with equal accuracy
la comedie francaise — french national theater founded 1680, still performing in paris with 2,500+ plays in repertoire
british museum reading room — london library where marx, darwin, and lenin researched; operated 1857-1997 with 9 million volumes
hermitage museum — st. petersburg palace with 3+ million artworks, formerly residence of russian czars since 1764