51吃瓜 of the Day
coronach
noun
a song or lamentation for the dead; dirge.
More about coronach
Coronach 鈥渁 song for the dead鈥� is a borrowing from either Irish Gaelic 肠辞谤谩苍补肠丑 or Scottish Gaelic corranach, both meaning 鈥渄irge.鈥� These two words are compounds of the prefix comh- 鈥渢ogether鈥� and Scottish Gaelic 谤脿苍补肠丑 鈥渙utcry.鈥� If comh- looks a little familiar to you, there鈥檚 a good reason for that; comh- is cognate to Latin con- (also co-, col-, com-, cor-), also meaning 鈥渢ogether, with.鈥� Irish and Scottish Gaelic are both Celtic languages, which constitute a branch of the Indo-European family; Latin is also an Indo-European language, but it belongs to the Italic branch. As Indo-European languages, Irish and Scottish Gaelic are bound to share numerous cognates with Latin, but the high degree of similarity between the Celtic and Italic branches has prompted some linguists to propose an Italo-Celtic grouping within the Indo-European family. Coronach was first recorded in English in the 1490s.
how is coronach used?
The coronach … is a voluntary tribute of clamant sorrow poured forth over the grave of a chief, or a person preserving sufficient power and benevolence, to protect and shew kindness to those, who, to use our phrase, live under them …. Those who send forth the dismal sounds, do it under the impression of real sorrow, being generally persons who thought none so good or so great as the object of their lamentations.
The chieftain鈥檚 march was commonly the first played after they set out, and the last one was peculiarly plaintive [鈥 The women kept behind the men, bewailing at intervals, in broken extempore verses, the dead man; and praising him for his birth, his achievements in war, his activity as a sportsman, and for his generous hospitality and compassion to the distressed. This was called the coronach鈥搃.e., the dirge.
coronach
barchan
noun
a crescent-shaped sand dune with the convex side in the direction of the wind.
More about barchan
Barchan 鈥渁 crescent-shaped sand dune鈥� is a borrowing by way of Russian barkhan from Kazakh barxan, of the same meaning. Kazakh is a member of the Turkic language family, which is found in large pockets from the eastern Mediterranean to central Siberia, as we learned about in the etymology for the recent 51吃瓜 of the Day yurt. Because most Turkic language-speaking countries today were once part of the former USSR, the Russian language has absorbed numerous loanwords from Turkic tongues, from Abkhaz and Azerbaijani in the west of Asia to Kazakh and Kyrgyz in the center. Barchan was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.
how is barchan used?
If Star Wars: The Phantom Menace had an epilogue, you might call it The Barchan Invasion. That’s because a crescent-shaped sand dune called a barchan is slowly swallowing the spot in the Sahara that played Anakin Skywalker’s hometown in the movie. The set, erected outside the Tunisian city of Tozeur and used as a backdrop for the 1999 film鈥攁 “prequel” to George Lucas’s wildly popular Star Wars trilogy鈥攈as become a pilgrimage site for truly devoted fans .鈥� Eventually, it will roll right over Mos Espa鈥攑robably crushing the movie set鈥攁nd keep on moving.
Smaller barchan dunes often bump into larger ones from behind because they move faster and are carried by winds blowing in one direction …. [W]hen two dunes are close enough in size, they can create the illusion that one slithers right through the other. The slightly smaller one, approaching from behind, swallows so much sand as it begins to fuse with the larger, more sluggish barchan that at some point it becomes bigger. The dune that was initially larger is now small enough to dart away.
barchan
oenology
noun
the science of viniculture.
More about oenology
Oenology 鈥渢he science of viniculture鈥� derives from Ancient Greek 辞卯苍辞蝉 鈥渨ine,鈥� plus the suffix -logy, which derives from Ancient Greek 濒贸驳辞蝉 鈥渨ord, saying鈥� but is often used in English to denote a field of study. 翱卯苍辞蝉 (earlier woinos) is a cognate of Latin 惫墨苍耻尘 鈥渨ine,鈥� and as we learned about in the etymology for the recent 51吃瓜 of the Day violescent, 辞卯苍辞蝉 and 惫墨苍耻尘 belong to a small family of cognate pairs (along with 铆辞苍/惫颈辞濒补 鈥渧iolet鈥� and 别濒补铆腻/辞濒墨惫补 鈥渙live鈥�) that demonstrate how Ancient Greek dropped its w sound (represented by the letter digamma) while Latin retained its v (pronounced as w). In the field of linguistics, one never knows how the presence of a sound in one language can hint at the loss of an entire letter in another language. Oenology was first recorded in English circa 1810.
how is oenology used?
The vineyards of Issoudun produce a wine which is drunk throughout the two departments, and which, if manufactured as Burgundy and Gascony manufacture theirs, would be one of the best wines in France. Alas, 鈥渢o do as our fathers did,鈥� with no innovations, is the law of the land. Accordingly, the vine-growers continue to leave the refuse of the grape in the juice during its fermentation, which makes the wine detestable, when it might be a source of ever-springing wealth, and an industry for the community. Thanks to the bitterness which the refuse infuses into the wine, and which, they say, lessens with age, a vintage will keep a century. This reason, given by the vine-grower in excuse for his obstinacy, is of sufficient importance to oenology to be made public here…
Wine science, or oenology, has three pillars鈥揼rape culture, wine production, and sensory analysis evaluation. It is also concerned with chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, and large scale [sic] production of wine or engineering. Oenology is defined as the science of wine making, comprising the horticultural, biological, and food sciences, technological and engineering aspects of the process, as well as economics and marketing angles. Thus, it is a combination of several aspects of knowledge and is an interdisciplinary subject.
oenology