For the Parsis (same word as farsi/Persian, they were Zoroastrians who migrated from Persia to India after the Muslim invasions), earth and fire are sacred elements not to be polluted with decaying dead flesh, so they leave their dead on Towers of Silence for birds of prey.
There's a place on Vancouver Island called Esquimalt but it's pronounced "ess-kweye-malt", I think. Anyway, Eskimos are called Inuit now ("the people"), because that's what they call themselves. Seems fair to me!
Dear tsuwm: Let's be fair. My spelling is a hell of a lot better than average, but my vision is well below. This goddam font makes an "r" before an "n" look so closely like an "m" that I mistook it not once but about twenty times.
Please don't excarnate me for such a small, and corrected error.
But tsuwm, if he hadn't so typed, you wouldn't have had so much fun chiding him! (I shall of course, following dr. bill's practice, deliberately insert for your amusement strategic typos into my own posts.)
All this talk of excarnation calls to mind the horrific practices of corte de corbata, corte de mica, and corte de franela which are detailed in the first of Louis de Bernieres' trilogy of tragicomic novels. I've been meaning to ask if anyone can shed some light on another method of torture referenced therein: "bocachiquiar". Google comes up empty, and I can only get as far in translation as to think that perhaps it has something to do with the mouth.
gymkana, in her latest incarnation, seems fascinated with excarnation. I would have thought that an ex-carnation was a dead one. Never mind.
If'n y'all are interested in the Parsis - and they have an interesting culture - I suggest you read "The Crow Eaters" by Bapsi Sidhwa. It's a novel, and it's about the Homer Simpson of the Parsi world, one Faredoon (Freddy) Junglewallah and his family. Sidhwa is a Parsi herself and succeeds in taking the mickey out of her culture while at the same time leaving you sympathetic to it and a damned sight more knowledgeable about it than you were before you read the book. You laugh with the characters rather than at them.
I reviewed the book for the local newspaper many years ago, and it's one of about twenty hardbacked review books I didn't pass on to the local library immediately. Or sooner if possible in many cases.
WintoGreen is just the marketing name for the white candy with the hole in it that is one of the many forms of LifeSavers.
So Lifesavers are USn Polo mints? But I've never noticed any strange optical phenomena from chewing a Polo mint, although admittedly I've never taken a hammer to one to crush it.
fwiw, purloined from somewhere: You can actually(sic) get almost all crystal sugar candy to give you a bit of light when it is crushed. This was first noticed in Italy in the seventeenth century. But for most crystal candy it is a rather dim light. It takes wintergreen to really light up your life.
The secular tradition of trick-or-treating has its roots in both the pagan and Christian holidays. This is my first Hallowe'en on the West Coast in British Columbia, wwh. I experienced every other Hallowe'en in south-western Ontario where our traditions are the same as anything I have seen in Michigan. I was surprised to learn that Fireworks are a big deal out here on Hallowe'en. Not just sparklers but the whole 'works including community pyrotechnic displays. Is this a West Coast thing or just a British Columbia thing?
Is this a West Coast thing or just a British Columbia thing?
I can't quite answer that, but I can guess it has something to do with the weather. In Manitoba and northern Alberta (where I spent my childhood Hallowe'ens), it's usually cold enough that you need to wear your snowsuit under your costume. I can't see it being much fun to stand around outside playing with fireworks in such weather.
Then again, on New Years' Eve in Winnipeg there are always fireworks downtown, and the temperature is often -30°C, so maybe that's not a good argument at all. Oh well, I tried.
And a concatenated coruscation of Catherine wheels, to celebrate plutarch's posting again. Concatenating in the spirit of your coruscations, wwh, here is a quote which I admire ... which you might enjoy as well. "May the scintillations of his wit be like the coruscations of summer lightning, lambent but innocuous." Sorry I can't give the author credit.
When I was in the Philippines there was a kind of lightning I have never seen here. At night there were always huge cumulous clouds like enormous creampuffs overhead that would light up brilliantly often enough that a flashlight was unnecessary when walking in the dark. It made no noise. I do not know the physics of it, but I suppose in the hot climate convection currents inside clouds built up sufficient charge to produce diffuse discharge.
I'm not postive I have right name for those clouds. Dictionary says cumulous are flat and black on bottom. Those in Manila were not really flat on bottom, and they were pure white. On the troopship we used to sail under clouds that had rain coming down out of them and their bottoms were flat and black. We'd all get soaked, but fifteen minutes later we would be dry again. Actually we welcomed getting rain soaked, because we did not have fresh water showers. And in the tropics it was smart to bathe in rain with clothes on, the rain came down so hard. If it hit family jewels it was rather painful. And it did the laundry.
Perhaps Bill means sheet lightning. This is lightning that discharges in a higher layer of clouds and is grounded by clouds below. No discharge reaches the ground, but the clouds light up. It's the most common form of lightning where I come from originally. Fork lightning which hits the ground was most uncommon.
I've actually seen the effect occur from an aircraft at night over Indonesia. Spooky!
>I was surprised to learn that Fireworks are a big deal out here on Hallowe'en. Not just sparklers but the whole 'works including community pyrotechnic displays. Is this a West Coast thing or just a British Columbia thing?
Maybe they are "cherry picking", rolling together bonfire night and halloween. Our bonfire night has bonfires from the tiny to the enormous (I think Shona put in some links last year), similarly the fireworks run from a few friends clubbing together to run a small display in the back garden for the tinies to huge pyrotechnic displays.
Last night we had friends round for halloween, one couple were from Philadelphia and another from Melbourne. The Australians took their children guising and found it very interesting as they had never celebrated halloween before, they particularly found it strange to be effectively, asking strangers for sweets. I hadn't realised that fireworks were banned in Australia and they had never celebrated bonfire night either. The Americans were suprised that the children were all dressed on a halloween theme (not as Disney characters, for example), we had some very spooky ghosts, especially the current fashion for a hood which makes you look as if you have no face (it is a one way gauze). Incidentally, I went into the local supermarket yesterday and the staff were dressed in a similar fashion but because they blended in and no-one really looked at them, it felt like this really was the land of Harry Potter, we were all muggles barely noticing them amongst us. The USns were also suprised that the children arrived with jokes (generally on a spooky theme) and songs to treat us before we treated them, we had some great entertainment. They said that in their part of the USA children all sing the same song.
I think that Edinburgh has had a long tradition of guising and seems to avoid the worst aspects of over-commercialisaion. I remember the little boy next door being far more excited about Halloween than Christmas.
Well, for starters you could at least pretend there was an R in there somewhere. You know, R like in Ralph? You Brits are so hot to accuse US'ns of Reader's Digest spelling® but you grab all those letters that you don't even bother to use. You don't leave us any even if we *do pronounce them. Sheesh!
>Well, for starters you could at least pretend there was an R in there somewhere.
Oh, I do pronounce the "r", it is just that you guys can't hear it! I suggest a hearing test.
If the "r" was missing it would sound like "fox" and we'd be in the feral thread with lots of angry Ozzies (they are very fond of the European fox and its favourite snack the European rabbit), then where would we be?
In forks, the "r" sounds just like an "r" should, are you suggesting that I speak Cornish?
Now back to some other good words: Aluminium, favourite, orientate ... mumble, mumble, lets see how many people I can upset today!
Hey, NY'ers do that too-- Moshula Parkway, is Marsh a loo Parkway the R is soft, but it is most definately there, and the A in the middle is a a schwa, (but most definately not a U!)
just cause you don't need an R spell the word, doesn't mean it doesn't have an R when you say it. there are plenty of other word we NY'ers add the sound of R to, but i can never think of any of them.. it takes out of Towner's to hear them.. Hey Faldage, get the ASp in here.. she has lived here, and i bet she will be able think of lots of them.
there is an alternate way to say the name, Ma shu la-- but this is less common. (i have a PM somewhere, from someone.. i know who, its one of the MD's on the board, who lives in Worster MA, and his name is... is... who told me, Who Moshula was! I'll go look it up, and come back and edit..)
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(I shall of course, following dr. bill's practice, deliberately insert for your amusement strategic typos into my own posts.)
