#141 words

[twowug]

Help, I've Fallen in a Pit of Slowsand

I was watching a cartoon today where one of the characters fell into quicksand. And it kind of hit me out of nowhere--why is it called QUICKsand? I've seen enough Hollywood movie scenes to know it takes at least five dramatic minutes of attempting to rescue the person in vain before he or she finally succumbs.

So I looked up the origins of the word and found that it comes from the Middle English word 'guyk,' which comes from the Old English word 'cwicu.' (Or is it 'cwece'? I found two different spellings.) Apparently both terms mean 'living' (x)

Living sand. Huh. That certainly makes a lot more sense now.

It's funny how, when you think about it, some of the words you use everyday don't make much sense without historical context, but so many people never notice how nonsensical they seem.

[twowug]

One Year Up

I read a lot of comics that are created in Asian countries. Recently, I was reading a manwa (Korean comic) that was poorly translated into English. Interestingly, the author translated 'one year ago' as 'one year up.'

I looked into this, and I'm glad I did! Apparently, many East Asian languages (Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, etc.) think of time metaphorically as moving vertically. They regard the coming month as “down” and the previous month as “up" (x).

Native English speakers, on the other hand, tend to think of the passage of time metaphorically with horizontal directions. Using geocentric points, yesterday is "left," and tomorrow is "right."

This "left to right" orientation reflects the way dates are organized on calendars in many English-speaking countries. Do any Asian calendars read vertically, I wonder? I may have to ask my conversation partner about this one.