Name of the Day

Onute Narbutaite

WotD: nosebleed; bloody nose

1. das Nasenbluten; die blutige Nase
2. de bloedneus, de neusbloeding
3. el sangrado de nariz, la sangre por la nariz
4. la sang del nas
5. le saignement de nez
6. gwaedlin [o'r trwyn]; trywn gwaedlyd/coch
7. fuil shróine
8. krwawienie z nosa
9. 코피
10. 鼻出血 bíchūxiě

Notes: It never occurred to me before to ponder what the difference might be between the two English terms, but I suppose some speakers prefer "nosebleed" in circumstances where the bleeding is spontaneous and "bloody nose" where it is the result of another's action. Me, I just say "bloody nose" for both, except of course it's always "nosebleed seats"; IMD "bloody nose seats" could only mean the seats where we've put all those who've had their noses bloodied.

Of the other languages here, only German and Welsh seem to have a similar distinction. And true to their verbier nature, the Romance speakers prefer expressions like me sangró la nariz (lit. "to-me it-bled the nose") to possessive constructions.

Spring tales

For an overcast day, it was awful bright. So bright that after dinner monshu retired to the sitting room to read his novel instead of retreating to bed. Once I figured this out, I went in and joined him. The cloud cover had broken about the horizon and there was a rectangle of golden light on the wall. Right beneath it the cat sat bricked up on the oriental rug. I took up a seat on the end of the settee and finished reading a short story about a drunken bender, pausing every few moments to check the advancing rosiness of the sunset.

Eventually it became too dark to read. So I lit some candles, folded my legs under me, and continued to watch the heavens. The branches of the maples were dancing in silhouette and I noticed for the first time how heavily the one catty-corner from us was laden with buds. It reminded me how, buoyed by the brightness and the bracing gusts, I'd taken Albion home instead of Arthur and was rewarded with the first daffodils of year. Day after day, I've been impatiently watching the buds swell on my way to work and a couple blocks north they were already in bloom!

At supper we'd talked of hawthorn and mistletoe. Hawthorn because in an Edna O'Brien story I'd come across mention of superstitious aversion to the tree only the night before, and mistletoe because...I no longer remember why mistletoe. Just that we speculated on whether it was a single species or many, and it turns out the answer is both: Originally, the name only applied to Viscum album, but now it covers on the order of a thousand species, including both the kind monshu grew up with in California and the variety I know only from buying plastic-wrapped sprigs.

As for hawthorn, it has associations both with the Celtic underworld and with the crucifixion of Christ. (Supposedly its thorns composed his crown.) Either would seem reason enough for a superstitious Irish woman to avoid standing underneath it, and the latter legend gave rise to the French peasant belief that it utters groans and cries on Good Friday. Which of course recalls the legend that the cross was made of dogwood.