Watch your language 🤬
This edition: English is beautiful. Change my mind.
After hitting the beach on Sunday, I’m convinced I could live by the waves full-time (and actually brush up on my swimming). Now, if only getting a home by the water was affordable. A gal can dream.
Have a great week, folks!
—Connie
In so many words: the English language is beautiful
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In two separate instances over the weekend, I had conversations about the English language—so naturally, I wanted to explore the question here: is English beautiful? I say: yes.
The beauty of English may not be inherent in the sound of the words themselves (which is maybe what makes Romantic languages beautiful) but in the limitless combination of words to convey meaning.
With English, there’s so much room for simplicity and creativity; it’s like we have a bunch of smaller Lego pieces (borrowed from other [language] sets) that we can mix and match to generate novel phrases and sentences.
Think of all the idioms with meanings that say a lot without being literal. I’d say they’re quite artful (saying nothing of the artfulness of the myriad of writers and poets writing in English):
“Burning the midnight oil” to say one is working late
“Making a mountain out of a molehill” to say one is behaving excessively disproportionate to a minor issue (my mom’s favorite idiom even though this describes her to a T)
“Looking like a million bucks” to say one looks energetic, attractive, happy.
Let’s also not forget that new words are always making their way into popular use, written into history by the Oxford English Dictionary team (except for fetch). We shape the English language as much as it shapes us. Ain’t that beautiful?
Plus, fun fact: all pilots & air traffic controllers are required to communicate in English. Unlike some other languages like Korean, English can be spoken without regard to hierarchy, which means aviation folks can speak to each other clearly, regardless if the other person is their superior in other contexts.
Before keto coffee was a thing: Tibetan yak butter tea
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Just last week I finished reading Eating to Extinction. From heirloom wheat to lambic beer to cured meats, the book covers just some of the foods in danger of being lost forever. Yak butter tea is one of them.
The idea of adding butter in a caffeinated drink isn’t so weird these days; the concept of butter in coffee made its rounds in the keto world. Buttered coffee is meant to be a “life hack”, of sorts.
But for nomadic Tibetans who live in higher altitudes, yak butter tea is a key staple to surviving and thriving in the thin and cold air. A mix of barley powder, yak butter, and milk curds go in one’s serving bowl before hot brewed pu-erh tea (fermented black tea) is poured to the rim. Give it a stir with chopsticks, and the resulting liquid is a savory, high-fat, high-calorie breakfast that warms the belly and soul.
Tibetans have been making and consuming this butter tea for ages, but the process of making yak butter is an intensive, manual one, and its knowledge is getting passed on to fewer and fewer people as time goes on. While I’m sure cow’s butter works all right for butter tea, there’s something special about the idea of tasting the original yak version—getting a taste of a people’s past and current culture.
Fun finds
Choco taco is gone but not forgotten. Though they just announced the discontinuation of these taco-shaped ice cream treats, how they came to be is pretty legendary. “It was hot. I hadn't had anything to drink. And then I saw a mirage. An ice cream taco, rising out of the distance.”
Sonic’s Twitter be trollin’—and it’s amazing. I got such a laugh out of this! It’s so stupid and unexpected, but oh-so-good. When brands don’t take themselves too seriously and have a bit of fun online, magic happens.
Making good jello shots, but with science. If you want to unleash your inner gastronomer, try making cocktail jello shots (I would 100% try a moscow mule one—don’t forget my invite). I can see these being a hit at a throwback party!