It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness.

Grows anywhere. St Cuthberts Primary School, Lindisfarne. May 2012.

Sunday Top Five? How about these Top Five Words That We Need To Start Using In English!

Backpfeifengesicht, from the German, meaning a face badly in need of a fist.

Bakku-shan, from the Japanese, meaning a beautiful girl… as long as she’s being viewed from behind.

L’esprit de l’escalier, from the French, which is generally translated as “staircase wit,” referring to the act of thinking of a clever comeback too far after the moment.

Nunchi, from the Korean, meaning the subtle art of listening and gauging another’s mood. In the West, nunchi is about knowing what to say or do, or what not to say or do, in a given situation. A socially awkward individual can be described as ‘nunchi eoptta’, which means 'absent of nunchi'.

Tatemae and Honne, again from the Japanese, which refer to what you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively.

Comments

smudgeon said…

thanks Kris - those Japanese words will be particularly helpful, although i'm not sure i'll be game enough to use bakku shan as a come-on...

...i suspect i may be considerably backpfeifengesicht if i did.

20 May 2012 at 11:38

Kris McCracken said…

The Japanese are a very unique people.

23 May 2012 at 11:52

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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