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Well, I predicted "esker" yesterday and I was right, heh heh. It's another word from Irish/Gaelic. I didn't realise we had monopolised the vocabulary of glacial geology! All the more surprising since we haven't had a glacier in millennia, and our highest peaks don't even get enough snow to ski on. I used live a few miles from a village called Esker in Co. Galway. http://www.tageo.com/index-e-ei-v-10-d-491537.htmWhy was it called Esker? Because it was built beside one. Not the most imaginative people, the ancient founders of Esker...
Last edited by RayButler; 08/11/10 09:55 AM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Esker is the only glacier word that is kept as it is in our language and we have only just one glacier relic: a largely eroded esker somewhere in the East of the country.The rest as you may know is mud, sand, clay and peat and water water everwhere. BTW.Today's picture of a cirque. Gee, I'd like to be there! Link
Last edited by BranShea; 08/13/10 11:25 AM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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>cirque
Also called cwm - one of the two Welsh words I know, featuring w as a vowel.
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old hand
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>cirque
Also called cwm - one of the two Welsh words I know, featuring w as a vowel. How do you you pronounce it? Quvum? I read welsh is pronounced exactly as it is spelt. Also another pronunciation question: the name (Scottish?) Dalziel is pronounced Deeyel. So how is Dalgliesh pronounced: Deegleesh?
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Carpal Tunnel
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w is pronounced as though it were a u, thus /koom/
see also, crwth /krooth/
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Another good glacier word is "arête," which is a long, sharp ridge formed when two parallel glaciers rub shoulders. It always has looked French to me, and I can't think of a better place to confirm or deny my suspicion.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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Carpal Tunnel
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yes, it's French; but taken from Latin arista 'ear of corn, fish bone, spine'.
-joe (I LIU) friday
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Thank yw, sir. An arista (in the sense of an elongate spine) is used in describing anatomical parts in biology, where the modifier, aristate, is also common. The awns of wheat and rye seeds, or the process at the end of a house fly's antenna are described as aristate. The fly thingie is called an arista.
"I don't know which is worse: ignorance or apathy. And, frankly, I don't care." - Anonymous
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Carpal Tunnel
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>cirque
Also called cwm - one of the two Welsh words I know, featuring w as a vowel. Also another pronunciation question: the name (Scottish?) Dalziel is pronounced Deeyel. So how is Dalgliesh pronounced: Deegleesh? Dalziel and Pascoe I read are Yorkshire-detectives.
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Ooh! By that Ian guy...what's-his-name?
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