Life & Language

1. Characters whose Names are Secretly Insults: 

Samwise: means “Half-wise” or “Half-wit.” He is Stupid Gamgee

Faramir: Boromir’s name means “steadfast jewel”, but Faramir’s name just means “sufficient jewel.”

Sufficient.

Denethor took one look at baby Faramir and thought “eh I guess he exists or whatever” which is very in character

 2. Characters who Have Way Too Many Names

Examples include Aragorn son of Arathorn son of Arador heir of Isildur Elendil’s son, descendant of Numenor,  Thorongill,  Eagle of the Star,  Dúnadan, Strider,  Wingfoot, Longshanks, Elessar, Edhelharn, Elfstone, Estel (”Hope,”) The Chieftain of the Dúnedain, King of the West, High King of Gondor and Arnor, and Envinyatar the Renewer of the House of Telcontar

Wait I’m sorry did I say “examples” plural Cuz that was all one guy 3. Characters whose parents must’ve been prophets

-Frodo means “wise by experience.” His story is about becoming wise by experience -A lady named Elwing turns into a bird (geddit)

4. Characters whose families were so lazy that they copy-pasted the same first half of a name onto multiple people

Théoden/Théodred  Aragorn/Arathorn/Arador  Éomer/ Éomund/Éowyn/Éorl Elladan/Elrohir/Elrond/Elros/Elwing/Elenwë/Elendil/Eldarion (the laziest family) 

5.Characters whose Names are Expertly Designed so that Newbies can’t Remember Who is Who and Feel Sad

All the people mentioned in number 4 Celeborn, Celegorm, Celebrimbor, Celebrian All the rhyming dwarf names in the Hobbit Sauron and Saruman Arwen and Éowyn

6. Name so nice, you say it twice

But some interpreters, like Tsuruta, are concerned that translating the U.S. president too accurately might reflect badly on them. Alina Cincan, a Romanian interpreter and translator, tells Newsweek: “He’s not known for his eloquence nor his diplomacy. Either you translate exactly what he says which means it’ll be repetitive and sometimes gibberish—you’ll be saying ‘tremendous’, ‘very’ or ‘great’ a lot, or you try to make some sense out of it and ‘beautify’ it. If you choose the former, some may judge your interpreting abilities as poor, whereas if you choose the latter, you’ll make him sound better.”

‘Make America big again’? The headache of translating Trump into foreign languages.

“Most of the time, when he speaks he seems not to know quite where he’s going,” Viennot said. “It’s as if he had thematic clouds in his head that he would pick from with no need of a logical thread to link them.”

PART TWO

After looking at the photo above are your eyes feeling spicy? What I mean is, does it feel like a pepper has been squirted in your eye? In Chinese, there is a fabulous internet phrase to describe when you are looking at something awful: 辣眼睛 (làyǎnjīng) or “spicy eyes.” It is a way of commenting on something that makes your eyes feel like they have been damaged, similar to the English phrase “makes my eyes bleed.”

“辣 (là)” means burn/sting/bite. “眼睛 (yǎnjīng)” means eyes.

On the internet in China, this word is used to describe things that people like to “吐槽 (tǔcáo) complain” about, it’s something they can’t stand to look at. It is an internet slang for when you read or see something that is super ridiculous or surprising. You can use it to refer to an article that is completely ridiculous or a look that is a complete eyesore.

Example: Tā zhè shēn zhuāngbàn zhēn shì làyǎnjīng! 她  这   身        装扮        真    是 辣眼睛！ The way she is dressed up makes my eyes bleed.

Dialogue A: Wǒmen gǎnjǐn líkāi zhè gè dìfāng ba! A: 我们      赶紧   离开  这 个  地方   吧！ A. Let’s quickly leave this place!

B: Zěnmelā? Wǒmen cái gāng lái. B：怎么啦？   我们   才   刚    来。 B: What’s wrong? We just got here.

A：Zhèlǐ de chǎngjǐng tài làyǎnjīng le, wǒ shí zài shòu bú le. A：这里  的    场景     太  辣眼睛   了，我 实 在  受    不 了。 A: The setting here is too ridiculous, I really can’t stand it.

Quiz: Which answer best describes the new internet word “辣眼睛 (làyǎnjīng)?”

To start off, some facts:

-White wine is made from sweet pulp inside of the grape (minus the seeds).

-Red wine is made from both the skin and the grape (and the seeds and stems…sometimes? Can’t remember).

-Tannin is the substance found in red wines, coffee, dark chocolate. Tannins are responsible for the bitter taste in those foods.

-Tannins are found in the skin of the grape, as well as the seeds and the stems. Therefore, most red wines will have tannins, versus most whites will not have tannins.

-Red wines vary in level of tannins, depending on variety of grape, climate, and fermentation process. Pinot noir tends to be very low tannin. Shiraz/Syrah, choice of poison for our beloved brunette surgeon, is very heavy on the tannins.

-Some white wines (most commonly Chardonnay) are aged in oak barrels instead of metal containers. Oak barrels have tannins, which seeps into the wine during the fermentation process. That’s why Chardonnays tend to be “drier” aka it has tannins.

-White wines like Sauvingnon Blancs are usually fermented in steel barrels (aka no tannins. Aka usually very fruity and light and sweet).

Your ability to taste tannins is genetic.

There is a genetic marker determining whether your taste cells are sensitive to tannins.

Basically two people can drink the exact same wine and have wildly different reactions because: 1. Person A can’t taste tannins, so they taste the actual wine flavor. 2. Person B can taste tannins, and that tends to overpower ALL the other flavors in the wine. Basically all they taste is tannins and none of the wine.

I am super tannin sensitive, so if I drink a wine like Cabernet Sauvignon (very tannin heavy, aka “very dry”, it tastes like bitter ethanol alcohol to me, whereas my best friend can’t taste tannins so the same wine is maybe a little bitter but they can actually taste the grape and different flavors. To her, a wine like Sauv Blanc is too sweet, tastes like sugar water. But to me it tastes good.

So unless it’s the taste of the alcohol or all wines you hate, chances are you might hate the taste of red wine, especially the heavier red wines, because taste the tannin overpowers everything else. And all you taste is bitter bitter ethanol bitter more ethanol. 

More tannin info: -Tannins bind to fat.

-This is why tannin heavy wines are recommended with fatty foods (Shiraz and steak). Whenever you eat food with high fat content, the fat builds up on your tongue. A sip of red wine will bind with the fat on your tongue and clear it away. That’s why the sip of wine between bites of fat heavy foods is considered a palate cleanser.

-By that logic, this is why white wines are recommended with low fat foods, like fish. Salmon is fattier than most fish, which is why Chardonnay (tannin heavy white wine) or Pinot Noir (low tannin red wine) is recommended with salmon.

-People who are sensitive to tannins can drink tannin heavy red wines with fatty food and generally the wine won’t taste gross. The fat on your tongue (from that steak) will bind with the tannin and neutralize the tannin taste. Aka the only time I ever drink Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz is with a steak or heavy, creamy pasta. Aka never bc I don’t often eat either.

-The reason dairy helps coffee taste better is because the fat in milk/creams binds with the tannins in coffee and neutralizes the bitter taste. This is why people who can’t taste tannins can generally drink coffee black without milk (sugar is a different story). It’s also why almond milk in coffee is the worst idea (almond milk is already bitter and has no fat).

More wine facts: -90% of the “aromas” of wine are marketing BS

-You know the labels that say like “cherry with a hint of blackberry?” There’s no real way to infuse cherry or blackberry into grape wine without screwing with the fermentation process. It’s all created by the wine marketing industry to sell you win. Sometimes if you smell cherry before you drink the wine, you might taste it in the wine (because majority of flavor comes from smell). Or if you think there is cherry flavor in the wine, your brain can trick your taste buds into tasting it.

-The only true flavors found in real grape wine are grapes (obviously), oak/earthy flavor (the barrels), vanilla (barrels, oak sticks), tannins. (There are a few others but can’t remember. I think maybe cinnamon?).

-People’s perception of wine often affect how good it tastes to them. Social psychology studies show that people will rate the exact same wine differently if they’re told the wines are different in price. (They rated the more expensive wine as tastier).

The Bone Theory (borrowed from a professor who shall not be named)

My sister and I grew up in Brampton. She was born in 1993, went to Mayfield, was pretty, popular, athletic. It shouldn’t be any surprise then that she entered Tyler Seguin’s orbit fairly often. They didn’t go to the same school but they went to the same parties, knew the same people. My sister and Seguin were never close, but she and her friends liked partying with him. He was polite, he always said hi to your parents, and if he said he’d give you a lift home, that was all that would happen. The word around town, the word that travelled through the labyrinthine backchannels of Suburban Girl World, was that girls didn’t want to party with Tyler Seguin because he was good-looking or good at hockey - girls wanted to party with Tyler Seguin because he wasn’t like those other hockey boys.

You know the kind I mean. You can see them now if you close your eyes, broad chests and bulky arms, too tall for their desks, too wide for the hallways. They never keep their voices down and no one ever tells them to. They smell like Axe and sweat and a gym locker that’s been closed for too long. One pushed me out of the way with both hands in geography class once. “You’re just a bitch,” he said. “That’s all you are.”

We need to talk about Those Hockey Boys. I know it’s hard. Canadian women carry the memories of Hockey Boys as lumps in our throats, as stones in our guts. We want to believe that the ones who make it to the NHL are The Good Ones, the ones who didn’t terrorize us in the cafeteria, the ones who hadn’t figured out how to weaponize sexual menace by the age of fifteen. But Those Hockey Boys grow up. And some of them make it. And some of them become Patrick Kane.

As far as I know, the sexual assault rumours about Patrick Kane began in 2012. I don’t know if teenage girls in Buffalo shared backchannel stories about him in high school the way London girls shared stories about Drew Doughty. But in May of 2012, stories emerged in the Deadspin comments section claiming that somewhere over the course of a weekend-long bender, Patrick Kane had tried to choke a young woman who had resisted his sexual advances.

“Kaner was pulling down girls sun glasses (sic) and then going ‘ehhh, not good enough,’ ” one commenter alleged. “[He} was just ‘pulling random girls to him’ and making out with them,” said another. And then: “Later, he relentlessly began hitting on a girl who wanted nothing to do with him—his response to this denial [was an] attempt to choke her.”

The allegations, as they were, went nowhere. No charges were ever filed and in the eyes of sportswriters and Blackhawks fans, that was enough to exonerate Kane. Even purported witnesses to the sexual assault were dismissive: “In general,” one commenter said, “besides the choking, he didn’t seem like a terrible guy.” The rumours were, as they so often are, relegated to backchannels. “You know about Patrick Kane, right?” women asked each other on Twitter and Tumblr. “Did you read those comments on Deadspin?

Three years later, Kane stands accused not only of rape, but of tampering with the evidence of said rape. Sportswriters seem caught off guard, Blackhawks fans defensive, but for those of us listening to the backchannels, it feels like an inevitable conclusion. When backchannel rumours are your only line of defence against Those Hockey Boys, you learn to trust them.

We need to talk about Patrick Kane. We need to talk about this culture we’ve created where multiple eyewitness accounts of a sexual assault are still not enough to make us believe the victim. We need to talk not just about the rumours making the rounds on the backchannels, but the fact that the backchannels need to exist at all. And we need to talk about Those Hockey Boys, the entitlement we’re enkindling, the violence we’re normalizing. We need to talk about the fact that women learn to be afraid of Hockey Boys when we’re in our teens. We need to talk about the fact that one of the best players in a generation was accused of rape and no one was surprised.

I’m not going to stop talking about Patrick Kane.