Iberian yoga
n.— «Spaniards persist in enjoying an afternoon snooze whenever they get the chance, in defiance of efforts to shorten Spain’s working day and match its idiosyncratic hours with the rest of Europe. Now, rather than dismiss the lunchtime nap as a lazy throwback that subverts the working day, enterprising companies are bowing to the inevitable and accepting it. The siesta is being re-invented as “Iberian yoga”—a cool adjunct to modern life that promotes wellbeing and alertness in today’s stressful world.» —“Waking up to the fact that the siesta won’t lie down” by Elizabeth Nash in Madrid, Spain Sunday Herald (Glasgow, Scotland) July 14, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In 1971, when a new public library opened in Troy, Michigan, famous authors and artists were invited to write letters to the city’s youngest readers, extolling the many benefits of libraries. One of the loveliest was from E.B. White, author of...
There’s an English word for “sleep during daytime”: nap. But is there a word for “a period of nighttime wakefulness,” aside from spelling nap backwards as pan? The French have a lovely word for this state, dorveille, a...