On The Ning Nang Nong

Discussion in 'Education & Personal Growth' started by Iravati, Apr 5, 2017.

  1. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    Fif and Funf and Quinque and Pente stretch

    Usually, kiddy competitions are held on prose no more than five hundred words. Write a story, a narrative, an essay no more than 500 words. Here, I have raised five hundred expressions of curiosity and wonder in my garbled tongue.

    In continuity of such discovery and curiosity and in Lewis Thomas's style I embark on the origin of five.

    Old English fīf, of Germanic origin;
    related to Dutch vijf and German fünf,
    from an Indo-European root
    shared by Latin quinque
    and Greek pente .

    fif and funf and quinque and pente don't ring any solidarity. Undeterred, the quack etymologist in me hails such charming association to celebrate the quinque and pente centenary writing here.

    Ning Nang and Nong have had visitors and itinerants and lost errants as audience on my inexhaustible drone. However, I cannot take the entire credit for the last century of reckonings because the keisaku awakened the gari-o-kaze into a lockstep of parallel interaction. Toasting to the 500th with gingered saké!

    upload_2018-5-31_23-14-6.png
     
  2. okonomi

    okonomi New IL'ite

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    Should one know the private life for going "into" the film (whatever art) of the artist ? I ask this, because the #MeToo revelations in America has made it so.
    Juzo Itami got famous for his movies "Tampopo", "The Funeral" and "Taxing woman".
    Tampopo is a good one to see, if you had not seen it already. The movie opens with a yakuza (mobster) going to the movie with his girlfriend, and talks about life. Then a lorry driver (& his cleaner-boy) comes into the movie; he is driving in a heavy downpour, while his cleaner-boy is reading him a book. About Ramen Noodle Soup.

    Here you go:

    part2:
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2018
  3. okonomi

    okonomi New IL'ite

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    Omedetou Gozaimasu !!
    おめでとう ございます
    congratulations

    I didn't see the saké celebration of the 501st before I recommended the movie. The movie is all about food, and eating; especially about making a proper noodle soup.
    In Japan it is OK to eat/drink even in classical dance/drama performances like The Kabuki.
    Have a drink and enjoy the movie.
     
  4. okonomi

    okonomi New IL'ite

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    upload_2018-6-1_8-4-3.png Pretty much all liquid things would have these three strokes on the left of the kanji character. The right-half of the character would reveal what the liquid could be about.

    upload_2018-6-1_8-6-1.png This is the cross-section of the little wooden barrel with the handle that is traditionally used by the saké vendors during the Meiji period. The horizontal line in the middle of the barrel shows that the barrel is only half full.

    Put those two together for the Kanji character of saké. Saké is a word that is also used as a generic to refer to any alcoholic beverage. Vending machines would say that one has to be 20+ years to buy saké or cigarettes.
     
  5. okonomi

    okonomi New IL'ite

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    OK... you'd putup Nabokov in place of Flaubert. Who'd you have instead of Austen, Jane ?

    I would want a teen (before s/he graduates) to read Jane's books... or watch videos of dramatizations.... perhaps Emma or Pride and Prejudice.... or even Lost in Austen. I liked the 1995 TV version of P&P.
    After all, the ultimate goal of parents is to have their children get at "pin money"... no ;)? Either make it on one's own, or achieve it through good connections.
    pin-money:
    Mrs. Bennet’s famous reaction to Elizabeth’s marriage in Pride and Prejudice contains this rhapsody: “Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane’s is nothing to it – nothing at all.”

    Pin-money was money given to a wife for her private expenses. Pins were expensive when introduced into England by Catherine Howard when she married Henry VIII, and so women needed an allowance to buy them. A will registered at York in 1542 reads, “I give my said doughter Margarett my lease of the parsonadge of Kirkdall Churche…to buy her pynnes withal.”
    I discovered that the "proper" pins one should wear to hold the hair in place (while wearing a formal Japanese outfit) are pretty expensive....even today. And it would certainly help to have a lot of money.

    In the modern parlance, PIN would stand for Personal Identification Number for the ATM debit card. It is always good to have each others' bankcards in the purse/wallet, and know the numbers.

    I am going to be on holiday for the next couple of weeks. I have already logged in, and advised the banks that our PIN numbers would be used in firangi machines to withdraw firangi fiat funds.



     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2018
  6. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    Travel safe, and light, don’t schlep.
    Have fun.

     
  7. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    English Attention: Westering

    Love rises and falls in real world, waxes and wanes in tidal world, but easters and westers in literary world.

    I am not fooling. I came across the sentence "the planets of age and war and love westering" in Anthony Burgess's Inside Mr Enderby novel.

    westering = nearing the west, setting, sinking.

    Next time, you wish to sound melodramatic in your Meena Kumari styled anguish of broken love, blare your chest against the love labour westered (ahem, wasted).
     
  8. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    English Attention: Horrent

    Quelle horreur is very Bataille! But if you are seeking something English and Milton with the same light and sound effect, then go for "horrent".

    Horrent (of a person's hair) =standing on end.
     
  9. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    English Attention: Gimpy

    "No, I don't want to pursue further, not with a gimpy wife!"

    Gimpy! as in limpy. The usage is considered derogatory but in "Lost in Space" the hubby just humors his limpy wife with a gimp turn of phrase.
     
  10. Iravati

    Iravati Platinum IL'ite

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    English Attention: Hold down the fort

    "You, hold down the fort."
    "Dad! more like a tent than a fort."

    The dialogue intrigued me. Why is taking care of the premises in someone's absence expressed idiomatically as "hold down the fort". Down? Why down? Should it not be 'hold up the fort'. If the fort is held down, it has already surrendered. Wacky!
     

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