About 30 click language of
southern Africa survive, spoken by peoples like the San, traditional hunters and
gatherers, and the Khwe, who include hunters and herders. Each language has a set of four or five click
sounds, which are essentially double consonants made by sucking the tongue down
from the roof of the mouth. Outside of
Africa, the only language known to use clicks is Damin, an extinct aboriginal
language in Australia that was taught only to men for initiation rites. Some of the Bantu-speaking peoples who reached
southern Africa from their homeland in western Africa some 2,000 years ago have
borrowed certain clicks from the Khwe, one use being to substitute for
consonants in taboo words. Nicholas Wade Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/science/in-click-languages-an-echo-of-the-tongues-of-the-ancients.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
emulous (EM-yuh-luhs) adjective: 1. Eager to imitate, equal, or to surpass
another. 2. Jealous or envious. From Latin aemulus. Ultimately from the Indo-European root aim-
(copy), which also gave us emulate, imitate, image, and imagine. Earliest documented use: 1398.
vegete (vuh-JEET)
adjective: Lively; active; vigorous. From Latin vegere (to enliven). Ultimately from the Indo-European root weg-
(to be strong or lively), which also gave us vigor, velocity, and vegetable. Earliest documented use: 1639.
Feedback to A.Word.A.Day
Subject: Romney We have about
20 million Romneys
in New Zealand, but they don't get to vote; they are the major sheep breed
here.
Subject: Barrack Def: 1. To shout in support: to cheer. 2. To shout against: to jeer. 3. A
building used to house soldiers. 4. To provide with accommodation.
The word barrack is one of
the few words I know that when used as a verb has the opposite meaning in
Australia to what I was taught it meant in the UK. It can lead to some interesting conversations.
My own choice is that I use it to cheer
rather than jeer.
Subject: emulous Def: 1. Eager to imitate, equal, or to surpass another. 2. Jealous or envious.
Subject: emulous Def: 1. Eager to imitate, equal, or to surpass another. 2. Jealous or envious.
In olden times, people
were named according to what they did: Potter,
Smith, Miller, and so on. Sometimes they were named for their qualities: Goodman,
Wise, etc.
My married name does both:
Bonferraro: Good blacksmith. :)
Subject: nonesuch Def: A person or thing without an equal. This brings to mind the novel The Nonesuch by
Georgette Heyer. Also, who can forget
the hilarious Royal Nonesuch by the King and the Duke in The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
The Thames Barrier is one of the largest movable flood barriers in
the world. The Environment Agency
runs and maintains the Thames Barrier as well as the capital’s other flood
defences. The barrier spans 520 metres
across the River Thames near Woolwich,
and it protects 125 square kilometres of central London from flooding caused by
tidal surges. It became operational in 1982 and has 10 steel gates that can
be raised into position across the River Thames. When raised, the main gates stand as high as a
five-storey building and as wide as the opening of Tower Bridge. Each main gate weighs 3,300 tonnes. See
picture of gates and find links to further information at: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/38353.aspx
Nov. 12 comic strips paraphrased
If the Electoral College
had a football team, nobody would be able to figure out the rules it played
by. Real Life Adventures
Corporate post-election victory
party: This would be more festive if we
didn't fund both sides.
Non Sequitur
Bar associations across the tri-state area are setting up free legal clinics to help
citizens affected by the storm. In New
York, Connecticut
and New Jersey,
state bar groups are setting up hotlines to match lawyers with storm victims. On
Nov. 9, the New York City Bar Association hosted a training session to get
volunteer attorneys up to speed on FEMA, insurance, food stamps and other
issues storm victims are likely to encounter.
“This is the block I grew up on,”
said Ms. Mohan, who lives in Westchester County but has been helping clean up
damage at her mother’s flooded home in Queens. “Everybody knew I was a lawyer, I kept getting
all these questions… A lot of people haven’t even applied for FEMA help yet.” The application process is pretty simple, she
said, but residents have been hampered by lack of internet access and spotty
phone service. Ms. Mohan said she plans
to bring laptops to “facilitate the process” and to create a checklist to make
sure people know all the types of help that are available. Lawyers along the storm-ravaged ravaged
shores of New Jersey, Long Island and New York City’s outer boroughs may also
need to avail themselves of help from disaster agencies—and other lawyers. Solo practitioners and small firms in flooded
areas such as Long Beach, N.Y. and Seaside Heights, N.J. are in the same
predicament as homeowners and other business people hustling to salvage what
they can from damaged buildings. And
while bigger firms with damaged branch offices can reshuffle attorneys to other
locations, small firms have fewer backstops when disaster strikes. “God forbid you lose your files,” said Marian
Rice, president of the Nassau County Bar Association and a partner at L’Abbate,
Balkan, Colavita & Contini LLP in Garden City, N.Y. Her group is offering two community legal
clinics for storm victims later this month, but has also set up an exchange
to help displaced lawyers find temporary office space with members who have
working phones and internet. “We do
forsee there are going to be quite a lot of people. Client files, damaged
equipment, computers… There’s no extra cash to pay staff, there’s no extra cash
to pay rent.”
Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race by NATE SILVER
Britain’s media are in a meltdown and
its government is gaffe-prone, so Oxford Dictionaries has chosen an apt Word of the Year: “omnishambles.” Oxford University Press on Nov. 13
crowned the word — defined as “a situation that has been comprehensively
mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations” — its
top term of 2012. Each year Oxford
University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word
that best reflects the mood of the year. The publisher typically chooses separate
British and American winners. This
year’s American champion is “gif,”
short for graphics interchange format, a common format for images on the
Internet. The editors said gif was being
recognized for making the crucial transition from noun to verb, “to gif”: to
create a gif file of an image or video sequence, especially relating to an
event. And, inevitably, to share it
online. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1286866--oxford-dictionary-chooses-word-of-the-year-one-for-u-k-one-for-u-s
No comments:
Post a Comment