mããščé aðée akxai

I agree with stoutfellow about the apparently abrupt end to summer. Just now, I heard the lawnmower outside and my immediate reaction was Isn't that really unnecessary this late in the year? Then I snapped to attention and realised that it's still freakin' AUGUST; they've probably got two more months of mowing ahead of them.

I blame the chill gray weather, but more than that I blame the geese. The past two nights, I've heard their honking as they take the Great Lakes Flyway south to their winter homes. Sunday I was able to say that it was nothing more than a freaky flock of overachievers, but two nights in a row makes it a Trend.

I'll be happy for some sun again. The low barometric pressure is messing with my sinuses to the point where I can't tell if I have a cold or not. Also, this morning I noticed that the clouds are moving in from off the Lake, which always weirds me out. Here at the eastern edge of the Great Plains, you take for granted that weather moves reliably from west to east; when it doesn't, something is Just Not Right and odd things begin to happen. Like geese moving south before Labour Day.

Knobby Gaelic Knees on Parade!

In a way, monshu's lucky we haven't bought him that kilt yet. 'Cause if he had it, you know I'd make him entre!

Hydrocephalic me

Yes, I've got water on the brain. Yesterday's entry made me curious about other languages' idiomatic compounds with "water" and whether any of them were quite as far afield as Osage's. All of the entries under oka' in my Chickasaw dictionary appeared quite straightforward, but there were a few surprises in Vietnamese.

The basic Vietnamese word for "water" is nước, which some of you might recognise from the name of the most ubiquitous Vietnamese condiment, nước mắm ("water [of] salted.fish", i.e. fish sauce). Nước ngọt or "water sweet" refers--as one might expect--to fresh water; nước đá or "water [of] stone" is ice.

But by some sort of semantic extension that is opaque to me, nước can also refer to moves or plays in certain games, e.g. nước cờ ["water [of] chess"] "chess move", nước bài ["water [of] card"] "play [in a game of card]". Even more curious is its presence in the names of gaits, such as nước đại ["water grand"] "gallop" or nước kiệu ["water trot"] "amble".

By contrast, I think I understand the metaphor behind nước da ["water skin"] "complexion". The term for "coat of paint" is nước sơn "water paint". A coat of paint goes on liquid and leaves a shiny surface. If a person's complexion is conceived of as being like a coating of/on their skin, then it makes perfect sense; if there's some other origin, then I'm stumped.