Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
A major street intersection near here is the corner of Gilbert Road and Southern Avenue, but nobody who's been exposed to me can call it anything but "Gilbert and Sullivan".
Similarly, the family restaurant chain properly known as Country Kitchen is "Crunchy Kitten" to my entire family.
For many years, we have been calling the television remote control "the pickle". We picked up the phrase from another couple... upon hearing the term, it was so silly and fun to say that we just had to adopt it. I always thought that it must have come from being the device to "pick" the channel, or from its shape. I'm delighted to hear that the term must derive from the big red ON/OFF button's resemblance to a bomb-deployer! Come to think of it, some of the shows I have picked have been bombs.
Interesting, because I've always referred to the cloud formations in which these beams of light occur as "bible clouds," because they look like those cheesy pictures from bible stories in Sunday school. And, by the way, they don't have to occur over the ocean. I've commonly seen them elsewhere. But the real "bible clouds" have a rainbow in addition to the beams of light coming down from the clouds. I've frequently seen those in Oregon (where I live) and in Hawaii.
Jackie said:
Elysia said:
Regarding the pools of light on water caused by sunbeams through cloud cover. I don't know the word the caller was looking for, but "sunglade" seems the most reasonable and poetic. If it isn't a word, it should be. I also wanted to share a word that I first heard in a photography class for the sunbeams themselves in this situation - "God light" - though the beams don't have to be shining on water for it to apply. Used in a sentence - "Nice God light you captured in that photo of the mountain!"
What you call "god light" is also known as the devil's smiles. This one I first came upon in The Word Museum by Jeffrey Kacirk. It's a wonderful book of words and phrases that are being lost to the English language.
Grant -- A minor detail to your usage example for the word 'albedo,' which you used as something like "The Moon's albedo is particularly bright tonight." But keep in mind that the albedo is basically a constant, which is (as you correctly said) just the fraction of light reflected back from a surface. The Moon is almost the same reflectivity across its whole surface -- around 5% -- so to talk of it varying from one night to the next wouldn't happen. It might be a geekily romantic sentiment to talk about the Moon's albedo being great tonight, but I think that Don Juan should be better off waxing about the mooon's phase or elevation, not its albedo!
leahbrooks said:
For many years, we have been calling the television remote control "the pickle". We picked up the phrase from another couple... upon hearing the term, it was so silly and fun to say that we just had to adopt it. I always thought that it must have come from being the device to "pick" the channel, or from its shape. I'm delighted to hear that the term must derive from the big red ON/OFF button's resemblance to a bomb-deployer! Come to think of it, some of the shows I have picked have been bombs.
When I was six years old, my Dutch grandmother taught me to knit. She called the little several-inch-long piece of yarn at the very beginning of the project "the pickle." I've always wondered where that came from. I've thought maybe she called it that because it looked like the little leftover vine sometimes hanging on a dill pickle. Has anyone else ever heard it in connection with knitting?
gacdg said:
Grant Barrett said:
A lagniappe is a little something extra that a merchant might toss in for a customer, like a complimentary ball-point pen. What's the origin of that word?
Grant mentioned this word originated from Quechua. In Chile we use the word "yapa" with pretty much exactly the same meaning: a little something extra you give the customer. I wonder if it comes from the same root.
<h
gacdg said:
Grant Barrett said:
A lagniappe is a little something extra that a merchant might toss in for a customer, like a complimentary ball-point pen. What's the origin of that word?
Grant mentioned this word originated from Quechua. In Chile we use the word "yapa" with pretty much exactly the same meaning: a little something extra you give the customer. I wonder if it comes from the same root.
I spent almost two years in Bolivia and learned the Cochabamba dialect of Quechua. Indeed, a "yapa" is something extra, and it does not need to be of the same thing. When we went to the market to buy, say, carrots, we would say, "Yapawayku aaaaaah" which means c'mon give us a yapa," from the verb "yapay." The seller may then toss a small head of lettuc into the bag. I was floored that "lagniappe" comes from that.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
2 Guest(s)