Is That A Word?

Unrhetoricalizing that question. (And no, that isn't.) Brought to you by the author of Is That A Word: The Weird and Wonderful Language of Scrabble. Rulings and info is consistant with usage in North American Scrabble play. 

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PUNKA

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

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LOUVER

: the small slats found in some doors, shutters, screens, and fans to allow light or air filtration (also LOUVRE)

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HAAR

: a cold sea fog off the east coast of England or Scotland

(image via https://edinburghcafeenthusiast.wordpress.com/tag/fog/)

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BUND

: (1) an embankment, causeway, or dike, especially in S.E. Asia, or (2) a political organization

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BURGEE

: a flag, usually triangular, displaying the colors of a sailing club

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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]

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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. 

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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'.

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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.”

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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.

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SAMPAN

: a flat-bottomed Chinese skiff

This week’s theme: words from Chinese.

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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.

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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/

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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.

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FORZANDO

:  [n, pl. -DOS or -DI] the playing of a note with sudden empasis [also: SFORZATO]

in musical notation, it looks like this:

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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 

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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)