Mental Floss has a neat little article on the origin and mutation of English words garbled by mishearing them and shifting grammar conventions.
I never thought about elision being behind differentiation from foreign sources, like Apron and Napkin from the same root—though Napron transformed into “an apron,” same with Umpire, from the French for nonpareil (nonper) or the n- became incorporated with nickname. I can think of some examples of slurring peculiar to English that has given rise to perfectly respectable words, like the injection Zounds! from Christ’s Wounds or the happy affirmation of Copasetic, a signal used by bootleggers during Prohibition to indicate that the coast was clear—that the cop is on the settee, dozing. No, there was never a norange in the English language but it seems a likely candidate—as the native Asiatic fruit came to the West via Persia and Spain as narang and nananja and came to be known in other Germanic languages as a Chinese Apple (Apfelsine) but in England, via France, as an apple from Orange, un pomme d’orenge, for the port city on the Mediterranean.
Thursday 21 February 2013
norange and copasetic
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ซ๐ท, ๐ฌ๐ง, food and drink, language
Wednesday 20 February 2013
free-hold and thegn
I find it nice that my old bank, and perhaps my new one as well, supports the dream and demand of home-ownership with various avenues thereto, even though such aspirations in Germany are not unattainable, of course, but traditionally not defining of one’s character and not some obligatory rite of passage, to be saddled with an enduring debt to call one’s own. I find it a little off-putting that the Rubik’s Cube image of a house chosen resembles the movie poster from the film Cabin in the Woods, making the whole arrangement seem rather darkly and sacrificial, and not in a responsible way. A home and wealth is something generational, a legacy but neither are regarded as with such status any longer, I think.
geo-politics or rare-earth tafel
Geologists researching defunct mining sites around Leipzig are discovering veins of rare-earth elements, which are in high demand for the electronics industry mainly as something akin to what the connective tissue and synapses need to metabolize in circuitry.
Currently, China has a virtual monopoly the world’s supply, which might be putting manufacturers in an awkward position, given purported labour conditions and compromising environmental practices. Germany, first trying to provide resources through electronic scrap, is studying Australia’s, as China’s chief competition, less than sloppy-seconds for ideas on how to extract pay-dirt in a more responsible way. I wonder how the shift in potential suppliers, though price always seems to under-cut accountability, might alter the landscape of prospecting and consumerism.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ก, environment
liberal arts or oh the huge manatees
catagories: ๐, ๐ง , networking and blogging, philosophy, religion
wildfire
The spreading discoveries of horse and donkey meat in samples of processed foods in discount supermarkets does not only represent a revolting betrayal and a call for consumers who either seek out the greatest apparent bargains out of thrift or out of necessity to re-evaluate trust and priorities. Shoppers who are not patronizing their local butchers and farmers’ markets, though left with some reliable alternatives at grocery stores, have to wonder what sort of institutionalization in Europe make cheap food no good deals.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฅ, food and drink
Monday 18 February 2013
across the pond
While the media focus on European economic policies and tax accords from the perspective of the States seems more preoccupied with the potential spillage and knock-on effects of the proposed Tobin Tax, a levy on financial transactions and market trades, the burgeoning talk of a trans-Atlantic Free-Trade-Agreement, urged by both the US administration and European commission president seems an idea comfortably, tantalizingly far away.
Those sound positive on balance, but I fear that consumer protections will suffer through compromise. Instead of meeting half-way or adopting the more stringent standards of one partner, existing safeguards, like employment rights, food labeling requirements, safety standards and protection for the environment and livestock will be relaxed, diluted in order to meet industry imposed milestones. I hope that this is not the case, because risking health and security is no lubricant for trade, and to prevent these attitudes from prevailing, one cannot take the stance that procrastination and off-putting is acceptable, any more than in the here and now surrendering one’s sovereignty and self-determination to creditors is.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฝ, economic policy, environment, foreign policy, labour, transportation
Sunday 17 February 2013
extraterritoriality or bridges and islands
As I was completing some of the bureaucratic tasks to settle into my new job, I found it a little ironic that the special vehicle registration office (Kfz-Zulassungsbehรถrde) for the Hessian state capital of Wiesbaden was located in a particularly contentious former exclave, the borough of Mainz-Kastel and probably the least allied location for a function peculiar to state authorities.
I knew that there was a certain patriotic tug-of-war between the state capitals, facing each other on opposite sides of the Rhine, but I did not know about the details or history at first. In Roman times with the founding of the frontier fortifications at Mogonticum (Mainz, Mayence), the empire first crossed the Rhine at this point of land with a bridgehead established at Kastel, with first a wooden bridge in the year 11 BC and then a permanent stone structure in the year 71 AD.
The modern Theodor-Heuss Brรผcke was built in the same spot. A triumphal arch dedicated to the memory of Roman general Germanicus, who nonetheless was unable to penetrate far into Germany except via a narrow corridor of control hugging the Main and the Danube to just outside of Regensburg (Limes Germanicus, the German limits or frontier), stood here until probably the early Renaissance.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ซ๐ท, ๐ฎ๐น, ๐, foreign policy, holidays and observances