PUNKA
: a large Indian ceiling fan made of cloth and moved backward and forward by pulling on a cord (also PUNKAH)
todays bird
Jules of Nature

⁂

ellievsbear
Sade Olutola

izzy's playlists!
wallacepolsom
Today's Document
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Cosimo Galluzzi
we're not kids anymore.
cherry valley forever

Product Placement

pixel skylines
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
RMH
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

roma★
One Nice Bug Per Day
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

seen from Türkiye

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Brazil
seen from Australia
seen from Morocco
seen from Croatia
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from Türkiye

seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Spain

seen from Türkiye

seen from Germany

seen from France

seen from China
seen from Italy
seen from United Kingdom
@isthataword
PUNKA
: a large Indian ceiling fan made of cloth and moved backward and forward by pulling on a cord (also PUNKAH)
LOUVER
: the small slats found in some doors, shutters, screens, and fans to allow light or air filtration (also LOUVRE)
HAAR
: a cold sea fog off the east coast of England or Scotland
(image via https://edinburghcafeenthusiast.wordpress.com/tag/fog/)
BUND
: (1) an embankment, causeway, or dike, especially in S.E. Asia, or (2) a political organization
BURGEE
: a flag, usually triangular, displaying the colors of a sailing club
FOGBOW
:an aerial phenomenon akin to a rainbow, produced by sunlight shining on fog. Also known as a MISTBOW (yes, that’s playable too, and so is MOONBOW)
[Melvin Nicholson snapped the fog bow over the snow-covered Scottish moors while out walking on on Nov 20 of this year--read more here]
NAPHTHA
: a flammable liquid of distilled petroleum
NAPHTHA is the root of the first half of the word NAPALM ("naphthenic acid and palmitic acid") as early napalm was made from a mixture of naphthenic acid with aluminum and magnesium salts of palmitic acid.
UMBLES
: animal entrails, usually of a deer, used for food [also NUMBLES and HUMBLES]
This is where we get the phrase “eating humble pie” and “eating crow.” From Wikipedia:
The expression derives from umble pie, which was a pie filled with the chopped or minced parts of a beast's 'pluck' - the heart, liver, lungs or 'lights' and kidneys, especially of deer but often other meats. Umble evolved from numble, (after the French nomble) meaning 'deer's innards'.
TUNG
: a type of blossoming tree from Asia, the seeds of which are used to make oil for drying inks, paints, and varnishes
Tung oil, also known as China wood oil, was described by Marco Polo in the 13th Century: "The Chinese take some lime and chopped hemp, and these they knead together with a certain wood oil; and when the three are thoroughly amalgamated they hold like any glue, and with this mixture they paint their ships.”
TAEL
: a Chinese unit of weight, usually equal to about 50 grams (though in instances it can vary to as low as about 30 grams).
A tael was once also a Chinese monetary unit, equal to the value of a tael of silver, as seen here, from Simon Winchester’s The River at the Center of the World:
“And so a few months later, with a silk merchant acting as intermediary between the court and the [British] merchants, the the [railroad] line was sold for a quarter of a million Shanghai taels.”
TAELS of silver and gold were denominated into SYCEES (see below), currencies created by local silversmiths in varying shapes and designs.
This week’s theme: words from China.
SAMPAN
: a flat-bottomed Chinese skiff
This week’s theme: words from Chinese.
LI
: a Chinese unit of measurement.
Sound a little vague? Here’s Simon Winchester’s description of a “li,” from The River at the Center of the World:
“The phrase ‘ten thousand li’ is widely used in China to describe an entity–most notably the Great Wall–that is known for its extreme length. The phrase is not meant to be taken literally–just as well considering li’s notorious flexibility asa unit of measure: an uphill li being longer than a downhill li, a Shanghai li being shorter than a Chengdu li. But the Yangtze benefits from a happy arithmetical accident: the early western railway builders in China fixed a firm definition onto the unit, making on li equivalent to precisely 25/58ths of an English mile. Since the Yangtze measures 3964 miles from source to sea, [Qing dynasty court painter who titled a painting Wen Li Chang Jiang–the Ten thousand li Yangtze] Wang Hui might consider his fancy vindicated: his ten-thousand-li river is 9200 li from end to end–near enough.
SHLEMIEL
: an unlucky person (also SCHLEMIEL)
a borrowed word from Yiddish, there’s an interesting post on how/when the word might have entered that language from an online article at The Forward from 2006.
http://forward.com/culture/1043/shelumiel-e2-80-94-the-first-schlemiel/
SHOON
: [n., pl.] a plural of shoe
Shoon is pronounced “shün,” so it rhymes with “one” when, in Hamlet, Ophelia sings:
How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon.
FORZANDO
: [n, pl. -DOS or -DI] the playing of a note with sudden empasis [also: SFORZATO]
in musical notation, it looks like this:
TOERAG
: (n) a contemptible person
taken from the name of an improvised article of clothing, a scrap of cloth worn by indigent, often homeless people who could not afford a sock or stocking
EURYOKY
: (n) the ability of an organism to live under variable conditions (also EUROKY, ajd EUROKOUS)
From eury- (a wide variety) and -oky (having to do with a house or dwelling)
A EUROKOUS animal may also be a EUROBATH (an animal that can live at a variety of of water depths), which would do well if there’s a change in EUSTOCY (world-wide sea level)