• A fun fact inspired by a recent Globle answer (…or two)

• Answers to last week's games

• Game updates

TIL: Saint Kitts is no longer under the shadow of Mount Misery

In the tropical paradise of St. Kitts stands a majestic mountain once named Mount Misery. This seems appropriate because Globle made a lot of people miserable this week with St. Kitts and Nevis being the answer twice.

But that isn’t where the name comes from. According to Historic St. Kitts, “At the time of European settlement, the mountain was called Misery, a reflection of the hardship of life in the tropics for the unprepared Europeans who first settled the island and for the enslaved Africans who worked the land that surrounded it.”

Unaware of its place in human history, the mountain itself is much older than any colony or country. For tens of millions of years, it has stood at 3,792 feet and been cloaked in clouds and lush rainforest. Although it is now a dormant volcano, the most recent verified eruption was no earlier than 1,800 years ago. Then, in colonial times, the dense foliage of the mountain was sometimes a refuge for escaped slaves. Nowadays, when the clouds part, daring hikers that have made it to the summit can see a handful of neighbouring islands scattered across the sparkling Caribbean sea.

Today, there is no Mount Misery looming over St. Kitts; the mountain doffed its dreary name when the nation gained its independence from Britain. It was one of the first Caribbean islands to be colonised by Europeans, and is one of the most recent to become independent. The new name, Mount Liamuiga, comes from a local language and means fertile land.

Historic St. Kitts. (n.d.). Mount Liamuiga. Retrieved from https://www.historicstkitts.kn/places/mount-liamuiga 

Answers to last week's games

Monday, December 11 to Sunday, December 17.

Forgeous

Play Forgeous for Dec 18.

"Spring Morning," an oil on canvas painting by James Tissot, created in 1875, measures 55.9 cm in height and 42.5 cm in width. This artwork is catalogued in The Metropolitan Museum of Art with the ID 440729. The painting is also referenced with the wiki ID Q19911791. (Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Game Updates

Some Meta game updates: You can now play Metazooa and Metaflora with scientific names! Activate scientific names the Profile page, and you will be able to search for and submit guesses by their Latin monikers.

Calling all translators! I will start accepting crowd-sourced translations for the Meta games this week. If you would like to contribute, please respond to this email with your linguistic speciality and I’ll add you to the translation team.

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