Whiskers

Description

Whiskers Greeting Card

A Whiskers greeting card for every day featuring a close-up of a guinea pig. Its butterscotch and white colouring and its pink nose are enough to make any guinea pig lover swoon. And its long whiskers just add to the appeal of this Whiskers greeting card!

Of course, there are many animals that have whiskers. Those long projecting hairs or bristles growing from the face or snout of many mammals are not, however, all the same. For example, rats can move their whiskers independently, moving the little probes about and feeling in different directions.

The thing about those long projecting hairs or bristles is that they are thin. That is, they are so thin that we use them as an example when comparing things. For example we might say that someone won a race by a whisker. Or we might say that someone avoided a terrible end by a whisker.

Butterscotch

The guinea pig in this Whiskers greeting card has a mixed coat of butterscotch and white. And very handsome it is, too. But did you ever wonder where the word butterscotch comes from? Plainly, part of the word comes from the butter that is used in the recipe. And you might think that the scotch is somehow connected with Scotland or with Scotch whiskey. In fact the origin of the word butterscotch is connected with scoring or cutting. And it is the scoring or cutting of the cooled butterscotch that the originators of the word were referring to. You could say that the word is really ‘butter scoring’.

Toffee

Whereas butterscotch is somewhat soft and chewy, toffee is brittle and hard. Both are made by boiling butter and brown sugar. The difference is in how long the mixture is boiled for. Butterscotch is boiled to what is called a soft-crack stage. In contrast, toffee is made by boiling to what is called the hard-crack stage. So the difference between the two is simply the length of the cooking process. That’s good to know next time someone offers you butterscotch or a toffee.

SKU: C0089