Solo hablo en español con mis niños, y una situación que surge de vez en cuando es cuando el niño tiene gases o flatulencia. Todos sabemos que se puede decir “tirar un pedo” pero suena algo grosero, asi que buscaba una frase más cortes.
Una que encontré es ventosear, que se define como “break wind.” ¡Perfecto! ¿Alquién sabe de otras formas de decirlo?
Insofar as you’re going to have a beauty pageant at all, having one that highlights the beauty of landmine victims is – I think – good. I’m not a big fan of the industry (okay, industries: beauty pageants and landmines) overall. Although I confess to a touch of inconsistency here, as I personally crowned Miss Busia 2000 (one of the preliminary pageants to Miss Kenya).
(Thanks to Blattman for the tip.)
The website for the World Toilet Organization starts out strong
International statistics (WHO and UNICEF 2000; WHO and UNICEF 2004) indicates that over 2.6 billion people in the world today are without any form of “improved sanitation”. The real situation is even worse: the statistics include toilets that are so bad, or shared by so many people that it cannot be regarded as “improved sanitation”.
But weakens later on
World Toilet Day has been declared to be on the 19th of November each year. The purpose of having this day is to have people in all countries to take action, increase awareness of toilet user’s right to a better toilet environment , and to demand for it from toilet owners. As such, it is also the toilet user’s duty to contribute towards its maintenance, cleanliness and hygiene. The public marks the day to practice toilet etiquette.
He forgot an appointment. He’s late for work. His mother is calling him on the ultrasonic frequency reserved by the government for Jewish mothers in the event of lunch.
Awesome. From The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (p89).
And while I’m here, let me share a couple more metaphors.
Its Philipino-style Chinese doughnuts beckon like glittering sugar-dusted tokens of a better existence. [Truly spoken like a police officer!]
He talked like a sausage recipe with footnotes. [This is referring to a goy speaking Yiddish with a very academic style.]
Even though I don’t get all of Chabon’s metaphors, I really enjoy their creativity.
Ya es obvio en el título que no me impresionó mucho este libro. No lo recomiendo para nada. Aquí es lo que escribí para Amazon:
bienvenidos a la selva de los clichés y del aburrimiento
Leí la mitad de este libro. Isabel Allende escribe con un español fácil de comprender para un lector (como yo) que no sea hablante nativo del español. El cuento promete ser interesante: un chico acompaña a su abuela a la selva amazona a encontrar “la bestia” (o sea, “bigfoot” en inglés). Pero no te asustes, cada persona en esta novela se conforma a su papel estereotipado. Los nativos son profundamente espirituales, muy pegados a la naturaleza, y sin egoísmo ningún. El antropólogo está pintado de una forma tan exagerada que me pareció farsa: solo habla de los nativos sanguinarios (quienes no lo son), tiene miedo de su propia sombra, y es altamente sexista. Las mujeres son sensatas y los hombres insensatos, etcétera, etcétera.Además, una vez que el grupo de exploradores se mete en la jungla, el libro se vuelve aburrido. Dos niños (incluso el protagonista) son secuestrados por unos nativos (pacíficos si no haces caso al secuestro) y Allende pasa mucho tiempo describiendo esta tribu idílica, todos compartiendo todo.
No es decir que nosotros en el oeste no podemos aprender de las culturas menos industrializadas. Seguro que sí podemos, pero el dibujo que pinta Allenda es tan blanco y negro que nada se parece a la vida real. Es una caricatura no más, pero no hace gracia.
[Es el segundo libro de Allenda que he dejado sin terminar. El otro fue Ines del alma mia, en el cual el personaje principal me pareció tan anacrónico que no lo aguanté. Algún día leo uno de sus libros clásicos, como La casa de los espíritus.]
I’m listening to Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and I’m struck by this guy’s way with a metaphor. Two examples:
A narrow pile of dirty white brick and slit windows, three or four bloks off the tawdriest stretch of Monsatir Street, the place has all the allure of a dehumidifier.
and
His face is mostly jowl and his ridged forehead looks like one of those domed beehives you see representing industry in medieval woodcuts.
I heard the first one just as I returned from the store to exchange a humidifier, so it really hit home. I have no idea what he’s talking about in the second one, but somehow it rings clever.
While I was in both Sierra Leone and the Gambia recently, I saw many flocks of a certain bird on the beach.
I sent the picture to a birder friend of mine and she identified it as the pied crow (corvus albus). Here is a clearer picture from Wikipedia, plus a bit of wiki-info.
The Pied Crow (Corvus albus) is a widely distributed African bird species in the crow genus.
Structurally, the Pied Crow is perhaps better thought of as a small crow-sized Raven, especially as it can hybridise with the Somali Crow (Dwarf Raven), Corvus edithae where their ranges meet in the Horn of Africa. Its behaviour though is more typical of the Eurasian Carrion Crows and it may perhaps prove to be a modern day link (along with the Somali Crow) between the Eurasian Crows and the Common Ravens.
I can’t help but get excited about something that might “prove to be a modern day link” between – well, anything.
Welcome to my new blog, formerly Thoughts.
I just listened to the audiobook of Better, by surgeon Atul Gawande (capably narrated by John Bedford Lloyd). Gawande explores how behavioral innovation and medical organization improve medicine at least as much as scientific discovery. In his advice on being a positive innovator in the conclusion, one item that impressed me was his counsel to count something. “If you count something you find interesting, you will learn something interesting.”
Here is the summary of my thoughts on the book, posted on Amazon:
fascinating exploration of past and present improvements in medicine from behavioral innovation rather than scientific discovery
Gawanda is a surgeon and a skilled writer. This collection of essays explores the ways in which changes in medical behavior and organization (as opposed to new scientific discoveries) can lead to drastic improvements in health and survival. He explores a broad array of applications, from interminable efforts to eliminate polio in India and elsewhere to impressive innovations in front-line war medicine in Iraq to ways that hospitals have tried to get doctors to … wash their hands. Even though many of the essays were previously published (in the New Yorker), Gawanda has updated them and integrated them into the broader theme of the book.
Some of the essays stray from that theme, such as the one discussing medical malpractice, but each one is engaging. Gawanda is excellent at writing for a lay audience: I have no medical training and found the book completely accessible.
One of the principal messages, introduced early and revisited often, is that of “positive deviance”: the idea that wonderful changes come from identifying (and learning from) individuals who deviate from norms and achieve impressive results. In his conclusion, Gawanda gives some ideas for becoming a positive deviant in medicine and in life. One is to “count something,” building on the book’s examples in which measurement systems led to drastic improvements in performance: one example is the Apgar score for newborns; another is the publication of cystic fibrosis treatment performance across hospitals around the country. Gawanda goes on to give a compelling example of how his own measurement helped him understand how to reduce sponges getting left inside patients.
The audiobook published by Sound Library consists of 6 CDs (about 7 hours and 30 minutes). It has good, engaging narration by John Bedford Lloyd.
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