by Fern Shaw | Mar 11, 2015 | Water, water cooler
‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.’ Have you ever wondered who comes up with such expressions or idioms? I often do.
Keeping matters pet friendly (aha aha) and water related (because that’s what we’re about – us here at AquAid, dont’chya know) you’ll find quite a few animal / watery idioms around. My task was to establish whether they are all true or where they originated from.
The horse/water idiom might possibly encapsulate the English-speaking people’s mind-set better than any other saying, as it appears to be the oldest English proverb that is still in regular use today. It was recorded as early as 1175 in Old English Homilies:
Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken
[who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]
What’s even more interesting is that this particular proverb or idiom also applies to dogs. Dogs, you ask? Yes, dogs, I reply. It wasn’t until recently that I found out that dogs don’t sweat. They can pant or drink water to cool themselves down but they can’t do both at the same time and even if they’re too hot and you offer them water, they often won’t drink it – ergo you can also lead dogs to water but you can’t make them drink. I haven’t tried this out with cats, but then, they’re cats. Rather don’t go there.
I’m aware that this expression has another meaning, actually pointing at human behaviour, but I quite enjoy the literal sense too.
A fish out of water – Not feeling at home where you are. Okay, that one’s easy.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water – When you’re making a change, save what matters to you and dispose of the rest. Pretty self-explanatory, but were you aware that there’s a bit of bun fight about the literal meaning of this idiom? Apparently, there’s an e-mail doing the rounds about proverbs in the 1500’s and this one meant that as an entire household bathed in the same water, the water would get so murky that it was entirely possible the baby went out with the bathwater. Not true of course.
To drown in a glass of water – To be easily discouraged. I honestly hadn’t heard of this one before. I will suggest though that you don’t take this literally when refilling your glass at the water cooler. Your co-workers may get the wrong idea and label you a bit of a twit.
Blood is thicker than water – Family is more important than anyone or anything else. This idiom has always creeped me out slightly. Still not sure why. Perhaps it comes from watching too many vampire movies?
To pound water in a mortar – Making vain attempts. This I can identify with, except mine involved making a well in flour and pouring water in to make pizza bases. The dam broke, the water flowed out and I was left cleaning up sticky, yeasty, wet flour from every available kitchen surface. Thank you, recipe from Jamie Oliver, not.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water, water cooler
Here’s some bamboozely info. to bandy about at your next network at the office, home or school (hopefully at school, you’re not networking as yet, but just chatting to your mates) water cooler – just what are indigo and violet and is there any difference between the two?
I blame the rainbow for this particular confusion. (As I type this I imagine a lot of ‘he’ men running (or loping) strongly away to avoid any discussion regarding colours other than ‘Oh, that’s blue’).
It was Sir Isaac Newton who discovered that sunlight falling upon a prism could split into its component colours. This process is known as dispersion. Newton named the component colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Newton, who admitted his eyes were not very critical in distinguishing colours, originally divided the spectrum into five main colours; red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later he included orange and indigo, giving seven main colours by analogy to the number of notes in a musical scale. Newton chose to divide the visible spectrum into seven colours out of a belief derived from the beliefs of the ancient Greek sophists, who thought there was a connection between the colours, the musical notes, the known objects in the Solar System, and the days of the week. I’ll be elaborating about rainbows, prisms, spectrums in another blog, patience!
According to Isaac Asimov, “It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue.”
If a heavyweight like Asimov, possibly the greatest science fiction writer and father of ‘hard science fiction’, has an issue with defining the colour indigo, I’m in pretty great company!
Now that we’ve established that there is a difference, my next dilemma always is – which colour do I prefer? Dark blue-ee indigo or purple shock type violet?
I’d like to say that the answer is simple, but, it isn’t. When it comes to me and colours, I go all weak at the knees and dribble saliva a little. It’s very attractive, of course, but nonetheless true. As with many a good thing in life, colours undo me – it’s as if when I was just a newt in my Mum’s tum, she swallowed a paint box of colours and all that colour got into her bloodstream and it got passed on to me in all of its Technicolor glory.
So when it comes to indigo or violet, I’ll take both please, with a healthy dollop of blueberry on the side.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
Once upon a time there was a family – the dad of who had a dream. The dad in the family had dreamt from when he was a nipper that one day he would have an ocean going yacht.
So that is what the Dad did. He worked hard and scrimped and saved, then he retired and he finally had his yacht built.
Not just any yacht, mind you, this impressive vessel was a 54ft. teak yacht, with 10 berths and just as smart and spanking as anyone could imagine.
The yacht was built in Taiwan and shipped (ha) to Piraeus in Greece.
The Dad and the Mom went on a sailing course. The children did not. Delivery of the yacht was taken by the dad and then on the next trip, the family boarded the yacht in Piraeus and started their great big watery Mediterranean adventure. It was September. Unbeknown to the family, September in the Med is Meltemi season.
According to Sailing Issues, ‘the Meltemi wind results from a high pressure system laying over the Balkan/Hungary area and a relatively low pressure system over Turkey. The Meltemi brings with it harsh sailing conditions and doesn’t necessarily die out at the end of the day and can easily last more than three to six days.’
Which is all fine and fair enough, but hindsight and all that. Suffice to say the family’s adventure turned into more of a trial come survival-of-the-ignorant type outing. When they weren’t crashing into harbour walls; getting their anchor fouled; almost being arrested by various Greek islands police for squishing small boats (not on purpose), the yacht with all crew on board almost sank one horrible night just outside the teensiest island harbour ever because of the Meltemi raging across the bay.
Did I mention that the reason the crew had to stay up all night was to keep watch between two points of light in the tossing waves as the yacht’s anchor dragged back and forth? Or the fact that the reason the anchor was dragging was because the locals knew what the storm would do to a tethered boat in the wrong place? Or that they sent the family across the bay into unprotected waters because the yacht was too big and the Russian fishing vessels needed the space in the teensy harbour? No? Well, fact being stranger than fiction, that’s what happened.
You might not have picked up that this story is related with a tinge of humour, but it was actually very funny – almost like episodes of Carry on in the Med, however, that said, I wouldn’t wish most of these experiences on any ocean sailors. It was, in retrospect, a huge learning curve and all of the mishaps were far outweighed by the most incredible experiences, sights and sounds which stay very firmly rooted in memory.
*Blogista’s postscript – the yacht was first named ‘Shimi’ (Tibetan for ‘cat’) but when another yacht with the same name was found registered with Lloyds, ‘Shimi’ became ‘Mavournin’. (Mavournin is Irish for ‘my darling’).
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
‘You must wait for an hour after eating to go for a swim. If you do not, you could get a stomach cramp and drown.’
Does anyone else remember that old chestnut? Absolute torture for us otters who literally lived in the water from sunup to sundown in the summer months.
Despite this dire warning, it seems that an instance of drowning caused by swimming on a full stomach has never been documented.
Close the door behind you, were you born in a stable?!
Weirdly enough, where I grew up, we did have a stable and even weirder, the door couldn’t close. Take that, parent!
Even more peculiar is that most of the stables I’ve seen – all have split doors and they’re mostly closed to keep the gee gees in.
If you swallow an apple seed, an apple tree will grow in your stomach and you will die.
Almost positive there have been zero reported cases of a tree growing inside of a human.
If you squint your eyes like that, they’ll stay that way.
Ya, well, sucks boo to you matey, I did it plenty and my eyes are just fine, thank you!
Eat your carrots; they’ll make you see in the dark.
In retrospect, I’m not quite sure why I never puzzled this obvious silly out, as we had rabbits at one stage and I don’t ever remember them being particularly ninja-ish and nocturnal, by any stretch of the imagination!
If you go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold.
Outside doesn’t give us colds. People give us colds. But, hey.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
I cannot, for the life of me, when I think of the word Wasabi, say it as it’s written. I always martial-art-movie the pronunciation. And I do mean always. Say it with me now,’Wa-saaaaaabi!’
I have wondered whether wasabi was a chilli, pepper or mustard, but apparently it’s a horseradish. According to Wiki:
Wasabi is a plant member of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbage, horseradish, and mustard. It is also called Japanese horseradish, although horseradish is a different plant (which is often used as a substitute for wasabi). Its stem is used as a condiment and has an extremely strong pungency. Its hotness is more akin to that of a hot mustard than that of the capsaicin in a chilli pepper, producing vapours that stimulate the nasal passages more than the tongue. The plant grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan. The two main cultivars in the marketplace are E. japonicum ‘Daruma’ and ‘Mazuma’, but there are many others.
So, that’s clarified then. I did always wonder, as I’m okay with a little bit of bite – chilli wise – but I far more appreciate flavour over my digestive tract screaming like a girl and up and running away in fear when I eat something hot.
This is why I’m not so great with is hot mustard. It’s also where I fall spectacularly short in the stiff upper lip category of having the de rigeur hot English mustard with my rare roast beef.
Horseradish I can still do, but the glaring yellow of HEM, no. (The colour alone should be sufficient warning that your mouth will qualify for its very own ‘scorched earth’ tag.)
Then in wanders Wa-saaaaaabi! with its deceptively fresh, pastel-green colour that says, ’Hot, me? Naah, I’m all spring time meadows and buttercups – perfectly harmless.’
Blithely unaware, you mix a blob in with your soy sauce or you (‘you’ being the crazy, no taste-buds at ALL daredevils) smear it commando style onto your sushi and pop a piece into your mouth. Then the fire engine alarms start clanging, your nose receptors scream for mercy and your throat clamps shut.
I read recently that more often than not we’re not really eating real wasabi, and that the real deal isn’t even that hot. Also, the heat from real fresh wasabi, when grated, doesn’t last for more than about 15 minutes.
Genuine wasabi is pretty expensive – apparently a lot of it that we eat is a mixture of dyed mustard and horseradish root – which would explain a lot.
Whatever I’m ingesting, I’ve learnt to keep a jug of water on the table whenever Ojiisan Wasabi is paying a visit. Oh, and I think the winter warmer trick here is obvious. If you eat enough of the stuff, it’ll keep your head warm, your nasal passages clear and your brain all on fire like nobody’s business – you certainly won’t notice the cold.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
Some days, it’s all about wishing for warmer weather, sun peeking out, birds tweeting and other days, you just go with the chill. Today is one of those days.
I’ve always had a fascination with formation of snowflakes – to the point where I wished I could carry a microscope around with me so I could zoom in on their beautiful shapes. That didn’t happen, so this is the next best bet on uncovering the mystery.
*A snowflake has three basic ingredients: ice crystals, water vapour and dust. The ice crystals form as water vapour freezes on a bit of microscopic dust.
Scientists estimate the chances of two snowflakes being exactly alike are about 1 in 1 million trillion. Meteorologists think that there are 1 trillion, trillion, trillion different types of snowflakes.
The dust particles can come from many different places, including flower pollen, volcanic ash, and even celestial bodies such as meteors.
Snow forms in very cold clouds containing water droplets and ice crystals. As water droplets attach themselves to ice crystals, they freeze, creating an even larger ice crystal.
In any crystal, molecules line up in a pattern. In ice crystals, water molecules line up and form a hexagon. This is why all snowflakes are six-sided.
The temperature of the cloud it forms in determines the shape of an ice crystal. Likewise, the amount of moisture in the cloud determines the size of the ice crystal.
More moisture will create a bigger crystal. When several ice crystals stick together, they form a snowflake.
As snowflakes tumble through the air, swirling and spiralling, they each take a different path to the ground. Each snowflake falls and floats through clouds with different temperatures and moisture levels, which shapes each snowflake in a unique way.
Even though two snowflakes may form in the same cloud, their different journeys to the ground will affect their shape and size, giving each snowflake its own unique identity.
Now you know. Or perhaps you knew already, but now you know more? Anyhow, while you’re still trudging through the slush, hopefully this’ll give you something to appreciate about the magical snowflake.
*extracts from an article at Erepolis.org
