Re:Call
Laurie Anderson--in this house we worship her--once said,
In Buddhist thought, there's the thing, and there's the name for the thing, and that's one thing too many.
I don't necessarily agree with that, because I love the way that English has a name for pretty much anything you'd care to name.
I have to make a cake for a co-worker's going-away on Wednesday ("Chocolate cake, with tons of chocolate frosting," she specified), and I'm going to decorate it with somethings-or-others made of royal icing, and since I'm out of meringue powder, I decided to make the royal icing with actual egg whites, at which point I remembered that I'd have to remove those long squiggly things, basically shock absorbers, that connect the yolk to the inside ends of the eggshell, and then I remembered that those things have a name, but I couldn't remember what it was.
Chorizo? No, that's Spanish sausage. I racked my brain for a few more seconds, and then I remembered that those squiggles are called "chalazae", which is the plural for "chalaza" (pronounced "kuh-LAH-zuh"), which comes from the Greek word for hailstone. Seriously.
Isn't it great that those gross little squiggle things have a name?
In Buddhist thought, there's the thing, and there's the name for the thing, and that's one thing too many.
I don't necessarily agree with that, because I love the way that English has a name for pretty much anything you'd care to name.
I have to make a cake for a co-worker's going-away on Wednesday ("Chocolate cake, with tons of chocolate frosting," she specified), and I'm going to decorate it with somethings-or-others made of royal icing, and since I'm out of meringue powder, I decided to make the royal icing with actual egg whites, at which point I remembered that I'd have to remove those long squiggly things, basically shock absorbers, that connect the yolk to the inside ends of the eggshell, and then I remembered that those things have a name, but I couldn't remember what it was.
Chorizo? No, that's Spanish sausage. I racked my brain for a few more seconds, and then I remembered that those squiggles are called "chalazae", which is the plural for "chalaza" (pronounced "kuh-LAH-zuh"), which comes from the Greek word for hailstone. Seriously.
Isn't it great that those gross little squiggle things have a name?
posted by pyramus | 10:15 AM
1 Comments:
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if it had come from the Greek word for "little squiggle in an egg that acts as a shock absorber?"
I sometime feel bad for people in those early times - having to stop constantly and name everything. Just making breakfast would have been a trial.
"Abraxis, honey, I was just making scrambled eggs and got to wording what you call..."
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